Page:Catholic Encyclopedia, volume 12.djvu/48

 PHILIP

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PHILIP

ing desire to follow the example of St. Francis Xavier, and go to India. With this end in view, he hastened the ordination of some of his companions. But in 1557 he sought the counsel of a Cistercian at Tre Fontane ; and as on a former occasion he had been told to make Rome his desert, so now the monk communi- cated to him a revelation he had had from St. John the Evangelist, that Rome was to be his India. Philip at once abandoned the idea of going abroad, and in the following year the informal meetings in his room de- veloped into regular spiritual exercises in an oratory, which he built over the church. At these exercises laymen preached and the excellence of the discourses, the high quality of the music, and the charm of Philip's personality attracted not only the humble and lowly, but men of the highest rank and distinction in Church and State. Of these, in 1590, Cardinal Nicolo Sfondrato, became Pope Gregory XIV, and the extreme reluctance of the saint alone prevented the pontifif from forcing him to accept the cardinalate. In 1559, Philip began to organize regular visits to the Seven Churches, in company with crowds of men, priests and religious, and laymen of every rank and condition. These visits were the occasion of a short but sharp persecution on the part of a certain malicious faction, who denounced him as "a setter-up of new sects". The cardinal vicar himself summoned him, and without hstening to his defence, rebuked him in the harshest terms. For a fortnight the saint was sus- pended from hearing confessions; but at the end of that time he made his defence, and cleared himself before the ecclesiastical authorities. In 1562, the Florentines in Rome begged him to accept the office of rector of their church, S. Giovanni dei Fiorentini, but he was reluctant to leave S. Girolamo. At length the matter was brought before Pius IV, and a compromise was arrived at (1564). While remaining himself at S. Girolamo, Philip became rector of S. Giovanni, and sent five priests, one of whom was Baronius, to rep- resent him there. They lived in community under Philip as their superior, taking their meals together, and regularly attending the exercises at S. Girolamo. In 1574, however, the exercises began to be held in an oratory at S. Giovanni. Meanwhile the community was increasing in size, and in 1575 it was formally recognised by Gregorj- XIII as the Congregation of the Oratory, and given the church of S. Maria in Vallicella. (See Oratory.) The fathers came to live there in 1577, in which year they opened the Chiesa Nuova, built on the site of the old S. Maria, and trans- ferred the exercises to a new oratory. Phihp him- self remained at S. Girolamo till 1583, and it was only in obedience to Gregory XIII that he then left his old home and came to live at the ^'allicella.

The last years of his life were marked by alternate sickness and recovery. In 1593, he showed the true greatness of one who knows the limits of his own en- durance, and resigned the office of superior which had been conferred on him for life. In 1594, when he was in an agony of pain, the Blessed Virgin appeared to him, and cured him. At the end of March, 1595, he had a severe attack of fever, which lasted throughout April; but in answer to his special prayer God gave him strength to say Mass on 1 May in honour of SS. Philip and James. On the following 12 May he was seized with a violent ha'morrhage, and Cardinal Baronius, who had succeeded him as superior, gave him Extreme Unction. After that he seemed to re- vive a little and his friend Cardinal Frederick Bor- romeo brought him the Viaticum, which he received with loud protestations of his own unworthiness. On the next day he was perfectly well, and till the actual day of his death went about his usual duties, even re- citing the Divine Office, from which he was dispensed. But on 15 May he prcdiitcd that he had only ten more days to live. On 25 May, the fe;ist of Corpus Christi, he went to say Mass in his little chapel, two hours earlier

than usual. "At the beginning of his Mass", writes Bacci, "he remained for some time looking fixedly at the hill of S.Onforio, which was visible from the chapel, just as if he saw some great vision. On coming to the Gloria in Excehis he began to sing, which was an un- usual thing for him, and sang the whole of it with the greatest joy and devotion, and all the rest of the Mass he said with extraordinary exultation, and as if sing- ing." He was in perfect health for the rest of that day, and made his usual night prayer; but when in bed, he predicted the hour of the night at which he would die. About an hour after midnight Father Antonio Gallonio, who slept under him, heard him walking up and down, and went to his room. He found him lying on the bed, suffering from another haemorrhage. "An- tonio, I am going", he said; Gallonio thereupon fetched the medical men and the fathers of the con- gregation. Cardinal Baronius made the commenda- tion of his soul, and asked him to give the fathers his final blessing. The saint raised his hand slightly, and looked up to heaven. Then inclining his head towards the fathers, he breathed his last. Philip was beatified by Paul V in 1615, and canonized by Gregory XV in 1622.

It is perhaps by the method of contrast that the dis- tinctive characteristics of St. Philip and his work are brought home to us most forcibly (see Newman, "Sermons on Various Occasions", n. xii; "Historical Sketches", III, end of ch. vii). We hail him as the patient reformer, who leaves outward things alone and works from within, depending rather on the hid- den might of sacrament and prayer than on drastic policies of external improvement ; the director of souls who attaches more value to the mortification of the reason than to bodily austerities, protests that men may become saints in the world no less than in the cloister, dwells on the importance of serving God in a cheerful spirit, and gives a quaintly humourous turn to the maxims of ascetical theology; the silent watcher of the times, who takes no active part in ecclesiastical controversies and is yet a motive force in their devel- opment, now encouraging the use of ecclesiastical history as a bulwark against Protestantism, now in- sisting on the absolution of a monarch, whom other counsellors would fain exclude from the sacraments (see Baronius), now praying that God may avert a threatened condemnation (see S.wonarola) and receiving a miraculous assurance that his prayer is heard (see Letter of Ercolani referred to by Capece- latro); the founder of a Congregation, which relies more on personal influence than on disciplinary or- ganization, and prefers the spontaneous practice of counsels of perfection to their enforcement by means of vows; above all, the saint of God, who is so irresis- tibly attractive, so eminently lovable in himself, as to win the title of the "Amabile santo".

Gallonio. companion of the saint, was the first to produce a Life of St. Philip, published in Latin (1600) and in Italian (1601), written with great precision, and following a strictly chronologi- cal order. Several medical treatises were written on the saint's palpitation and fractured ribs, e. g. Angelo d\ Bagnarea's Medica disputatio de palpitatione cordis, fraclura atslarum, atiisque affectionihus B. Philippi Nerii. . . qua osteJiditur pradictas affediones fuisse supra naturam, dedicated to Card. Frederick Borromeo (Rome, 1613). Bacci wrote an Italian Life and dedi- cated it to Gregory XV (1622). His work is the outcome of a minute examination of the processes of canonization, and con- tains important matter not found in Gallonio. Brocchi's Life of St. Philip, contained in his Vite de" santi e beati Fio- rentini (Florence, 1742), includes the saint's pedigree, and gives the Florentine tradition of his early years; for certain chronologi- cal discrepancies between Gallonio. Bacci, and Brocchi. see notes on the chronology in .\ntbobus' ed. of Bacci. Other Lives are by Ricci (Rome. 1670), whose work is an enlargement of Bacci. and includes his own Lives of the Companions of St. Philip: Marciano (1693) : SoNZONio (1727) ; Bernabei (d. 1662), whose work was put)lished for the first time by the Bollandibts (.icia SS.. May. VII); Ramirez, who adapts the language of Scripture to St. Philip in a Latin work called the Via lactea. dedi- cated to Innocent XI (Valencia. 16S2); and Bayle (1859). Goethe at the end of his Italien. Reise (Italian Journey) gives a sketch of the saint, entitled Filippo Neri. der humoristische Heilige. The most important modern Life is that of Capecela- TRO (1879), treating fully of the saint's relations with the persons