St. Philip, pray for us. (Source)

The Mass of St. Philip Neri is a little lesson in joy. The propers again and again stress a common theme: namely, the great saint’s joy, built upon his constant and fiery communion with the Holy Ghost. Holy Mother Church lifts her voice and sings in the Introit, “The love of God is shed abroad in our hearts by the Holy Ghost which dwelleth in us. Praise the Lord, O my soul; and all that is within me praise His holy name.” At the Collect, we pray to God to “mercifully grant that we, who rejoice in his solemnity, may be profited by the example of his virtues.” When, in the third reading, we hear of the saint’s overpowering love of “the spirit of wisdom,” we learn as well that “All good things together came to me with her…and I rejoiced in them all” (from Wisdom 7). The Offertory likewise proclaims with the Psalmist, “I will run the way of Thy commandments, when Thou hast set my heart at liberty” (Ps. 118). Everywhere we turn, we find the joy and freedom that alone springs from communion with the Holy Ghost.

And then we come to a remarkable moment. In the Secret, the priest prays over the offerings,

We beseech Thee, O Lord, favorably to regard these present sacrifices: and grant that the Holy Spirit may inflame us with that fire, wherewith he wondrously penetrated the heart of blessed Philip.

The Church has here enshrined a stunning and highly instructive truth. Yet it is easy to miss.

The very heart of St. Philip – that organ claimed so powerfully by the Holy Ghost in the catacombs of St. Sebastian, ever converting those sinners with the happy fortune of touching Philip’s breast, inflaming the saint with the deathless ardor of love, bearing such close likeness to those sacred hearts of Christ, Our Lady, and St. Joseph, beloved by generations upon generations – that heart is set up for us here in parallel to the Eucharist. For just as it is the Spirit who will so shortly transform bread into the most holy and eternal heart of Jesus, so it is that same Spirit who made of St. Philip’s heart a “hostia pura, hostia sancta, hostia immaculata.” Christ gives himself entirely to us by the Holy Ghost in the Liturgy, and St. Philip Neri became entirely Christ’s by the arrival of the Holy Ghost in those dark catacombs. To possess the heart is to possess the whole man.

A plate illustrating the life of St. Philip from a rare 1699 Vita, kindly shown to me and since publicly shared by the Cardiff Oratorians. (Source)

This mutual possession of God and man animates everything for the Christian. The more we are given over to it, the more God allows us to partake of His own life. The more we are His, the more He becomes ours. This spiritual truth was well understood by St. Philip, who enshrined it as the principal of unvowed community life in the Oratory. In the words of Bl. John Henry Newman, “Love is his bond, he knows no other fetter.” This line, written of St. Philip, could apply just as well to Our Savior, Jesus Christ. For it is by His indwelling love that we come to love Him. It is by love that we can join our hearts to His in the Eucharist. It is truly by love that we share “that fire, wherewith [the Holy Spirit] wondrously penetrated the heart of blessed Philip.”

The 83rd Psalm comes to the Church’s lips at the Communion. She sings, “My heart and my flesh rejoice in the living God.” These are not only St. Philip’s words, but those of every soul who gives herself over to the indwelling love of God. And at the Postcommunion, the Church prays,

O Lord, who hast fulfilled us with Thy heavenly delights: we beseech Thee, that by the merits of blessed Philip Thy Confessor, and by following him, we may ever earnestly seek after those things whereby we truly live.

St Philip lived a preeminently liturgical life. (Source)

What are “those things whereby we truly live?” The Holy Ghost, the Eucharist, and prayer – those things, if it be not too blasphemous to speak of them as “things,” which were ever St. Philip’s “heavenly delights.” Or, more properly, that mystic unity of the three in the Liturgy. In his own words, “A man without prayer is like an animal without the use of reason.” And it is surely the grand and orderly and perfect prayer of Christ the Priest and Victim that St. Philip means when he speaks of our super-sensual reason.

What, then, does it mean to “truly live?” If I may be permitted to tie together a few of St. Philip’s maxims, we can discern his own answer to this question:

In the spiritual life there are three degrees: the first may be called the animal life; this is the life of those who run after sensible devotion, which God generally gives to beginners, to allure them onwards by that sweetness to the spiritual life, just as an animal is drawn on by a sensible object. The second degree may be called the human life; this is the life of those who do not experience any sensible sweetness, but by the help of virtue combat their own passions. The third degree may be called the angelic life; this is the life which they come to, who, having been exercised for a long time in the taming of their own passions, receive from God a quiet, tranquil, and almost angelic life, even in this world, feeling no trouble or repugnance in anything. Of these three degrees it is well to persevere in the second, because the Lord will grant the third in His own good time.

A departure from the passions and a cleaving to virtue; mortification mixed with convivial, holy companionship; and above all, an overriding joy.  These are the manifestations of the indwelling love of God. These constitute a life “truly lived.” These are the fragrant flowers accompanying the fruits of the Holy Ghost. “Thou hast set my heart at liberty;” the saint embodies the song of the Offertory.

St. Philip’s life was marked in every way by such a communion with the Holy Ghost, first in a singular and miraculous way in the catacombs, and then again at every Mass. The love of God made him the most perfect model of the very “angelic life” he described to his sons and companions. Those of us privileged enough to count him among our heavenly friends may, by his merciful intercession, hope to share that one Divine Joy he knew so well. May he so pray for us on this, his feast.

Aparición de la Virgen a San Felipe Neri, Mexico, detail. (Source)