A Saint Sad Is A Sad Saint
Posted by Rebecca Teti in Faith on Thursday, May 28, 2009 8:25 PM
Two days late.
I don’t think St. Philip Neri, with his wonderful sense of humor, will be offended, though.
I found this winsome icon at our own Sr. Pat’s site while sending an e-card to a friend whose patron is St. Philip
Since the time right before I entered the Church this joyful saint who managed to combine profound asceticism with a love for jokes and pranks of all kind has fascinated me. One priestly admirer writes of him:
In the history of the Church, there have been various ways of dealing with corruption and worldliness. Not the least of St Philip’s achievements was to trump the worldliness of Rome in his day with a vivid, existential demonstration of the joy of the Christian life of prayer, penance and charity lived without compromise. As Newman put it: “he perceived that the mischief was to be met, not with argument, not with science, not with protests and warnings, not by the recluse or the preacher, but by means of the great counter-fascination of purity and truth.”
Isn’t that lovely? And something to meditate on!
Joy is contagious, and having more honest-to-goodness, wholesome fun than anyone else is an excellent way to evangelize.
The point was brought home to me by a portly Nashville Dominican with a broad Tennessee twang some years ago. She was the principal of a newly opened school in our area and somehow she wrangled me into driving a van full of her students to a local amusement park. I was teaching high school at the time and brought some of my own students with me to help.
I was in my early 20s, but I have always had a delicate stomach. The Waltz gives me motion sickness. Roller coasters are not my friends. However, when I saw this middle-aged sister in her full Dominican regalia going on all the rides, I of course could not be outdone—certainly not in front of my own students!
I learned controlled breathing in a hurry. (Never needed dramamine on airplanes since!)
Anyway, our day at the park was somewhat overcast, so few people were on the water rides. I had to laugh when my group came upon Sister having a rollicking good time with her kids on the Whitewater Canyon ride, the whole point of which is to get utterly soaked. Since there were no lines that day, they’d get to the end of the ride and instead of disembarking, Sister would call out, “One! More! Time!” The kids would huzzah their assent and away they’d go.
Of course we got in right behind them.
At the end of the day, dripping wet and exhausted, Sister gave me a big hug and thanked me profusely:
Oh, Rebecca, thank you so, so much. It is so important to show these kids they can have fun without sin!
Except of course she pronounced it “See-yun.”
But I’ll be honest. I don’t only want to honor one of my favorite saints.
I want to post a Phyllis McGinley poem about him.
When Philip Neri walked abroad
Beside the Tiber, praising God
They say he was attended home
By half the younger set of Rome.
Knight, novice, scholar, boisterous boy,
They followed after him with joy,
To nurse his poor and break his bread,
And hear the funny things he said.
For Philip Neri (by his birth
A Florentine) believed in mirth,
And held that virtue took no harm
That went with laughter arm-in-arm.
Two books he read with most affection-
The Gospels and a joke collection;
And sang hosannas set to fiddles,
And fed the sick on soup and riddles.
So when the grave rebuke the merry,
Let them remember Philip Neri
(Fifteen-fifteen to ninety-five),
Who was the merriest man alive,
Then dying at eighty or a bit
Became a Saint by holy wit.
Praise God for the gift of laughter!
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