Life of St. Philip Neri: Apostle of Rome and founder of the Congregation of the Oratory

Life of St. Philip Neri: Apostle of Rome and founder of the Congregation of the Oratory

Saints, biography

"IN studying the lives of the saints no circumstance is more calculated to excite our admiration than the infinite variety which appears in them. While all of them can be plainly seen to have been moulded intothe same Divine image by the same Spirit, yet of each it may be said with the Church, "Non est inventus similis illi." The distinctive characteristic of S. Philip Neri, who is the subject of the following pages, was a most won- derful union with God amidst a seemingly ordinary outward life, spent in the labours of the apostolic vocation. His sphere was not the cloister, but the world ; his position was that of a secular priest ; he filled no high office of dignity, and underwent no extraordinary outward sufferings ; and yet, without quitting this humble vocation, he attained to such extraordinary perfection in the practice of virtue, and to such a high state of union with God, while at the same time he exerted such a remarkable influence on all around him, that the Church has conferred on him the singular distinction of sharing with the apostolic princes the title of Apostle of Rome."

Hope, Mrs. (Anne Fulton), 1809-1887

Burns & Oates,

1881

Public Domain

PDF, 202 pages

English

Book