Today’s maxim from St Philip probably requires a bit of explanation for most modern readers, since it speaks of a world that, in many ways, no longer exists.

The discipline and other like things ought not to be practised without the leave of our confessor; he who does it of his own mind, will either hurt his constitution or become proud, fancying to himself that he has done some great thing. (11 September)

The ‘discipline’ refers not to the practice of self-control but the knotted cords made popular in the Middle Ages that were used for scourging one’s own back. (Images of desperate penitents whipping themselves often illustrate accounts of the Black Death.) By St Philip’s time, this had become something that was widely accepted as the norm for truly devout people, especially when combined with rather extreme fasts. Fortunately for us, such practices have largely fallen out of fashion again in recent centuries — though the temptation to take on extreme penances can still arise in other forms.

St Philip understood that this kind of outward religious practice risks making us pharisees, performing great works of piety just for show, and neglecting the far more important task of mortifying the intellect. Very often, people want to take on extreme fasts that make them unable to fulfil their ordinary duties, when in fact it would be more helpful to them to spend more time in prayer, to give alms, or simply to try to be more patient with their friends, families and colleagues.

To mortify one passion, no matter how small, is a greater help in the spiritual life than many abstinences, fasts, and disciplines. (31 January)

Common sense and St Philip’s straightforward understanding of human nature underlie his advice. He knew that we are not always the best judges of what is good for us, and the more important virtue of humility can save us from problems of our own creation. Bodily penances can do us real lasting physical harm — so they should be treated with extreme caution.

It is generally better to give the body rather too much food than rather too little; for the too much can be easily subtracted, but when a man has injured his constitution by the too little, it is not so easy to get right again. (26 June)

The devil has a crafty custom of sometimes urging spiritual persons to penances and mortifications, in order that by going to indiscreet lengths in this way, they may so weaken themselves as to be unable to attend to good works of greater importance; or be so intimidated by the sickliness they have brought upon themselves as to abandon their customary devotions, and at last turn their backs on the service of God. (27 June)

St Francis de Sales illustrates this teaching of St Philip with the example of Balaam, the pagan prophet summoned to curse Israel by their enemies (Numbers 22). While riding to perform his curse, Balaam’s donkey stopped three times in an attempt to save its rider’s life. But Balaam beat the donkey each time. Finally, God caused the donkey to speak to Balaam and ask, “What have I done to you, that you have struck me these three times?” (Num. 22:28) Balaam punished the innocent donkey for his own faults; we risk punishing the body unfairly in the same way.

It was Balaam who did wrong, but he beat the poor ass, who was not to blame. It is often so with us. A woman’s husband or child is ill, and forthwith she has recourse to fasting, the discipline, and hair shirt, even as David did on a like occasion. But, dear friend, you are smiting the ass! you afflict your body, which can do nothing when God stands before you with his sword unsheathed. Rather correct your heart… Or, again, a man falls often into fleshly sins, and the voice of conscience stands before him in the way, rousing him to a holy fear. Then recollecting himself, he begins to abuse his flesh for betraying him, he deals out strict fasts, severe discipline, and the like, to it, and meanwhile the poor flesh might cry out like Balaam’s ass, “Why smitest thou me? It is you yourself, O my soul, that are guilty. Wherefore do you force me into evil, using my eyes, and hands, and lips for unholy purposes, and tormenting me with evil imaginations? Entertain only good thoughts, and I shall feel no unholy impulses; frequent none save pious people, and I shall not be kindled with guilty fire. You cast me yourself into the flames, and bid me not to burn! you fill my eyes with smoke, and wonder that they are inflamed!”

Introduction to the Devout Life III.23

Bodily penances are not always wrong — Our Lord told us that we will have to fast at times, and it has always been the custom of the Church to do so. But bodily penances can only do so much, and are certainly no shortcut to holiness. The quickest path to sanctity is to face the challenges we are presented with, rather than creating our own, and overcome them for the love of God. 

One of St Philip’s early biographers, Fr Bacci, tells of a young man who came to Fr Philip for help. His was a difficult case:

He could not by any means be persuaded to forgive an injury which he had received. The Saint did all he could to induce him, but his heart seemed only to get harder than ever. One day, seeing that no other means were of any avail, he took a crucifix, and said to him very briskly, “Look at this, and think how much Blood our Lord has shed for the love of you; and he not only pardoned his enemies, but prayed the Eternal Father to pardon them also. Do you not see, my poor child, that every day when you say the Our Father, instead of asking pardon for your sins, you are calling down vengeance upon yourself?” When he had said this, he ordered him to kneel down, and repeat after him a prayer to the crucifix, in which the Saint by exaggerating the hardness and obstinacy of his heart, showed clearly to him what a grievous sin he was committing. The youth obeyed and knelt down, but trying to repeat the prayer, he could not pronounce a word, but began trembling all over. He remained a long time in this state, and at last getting up, he said, “Here I am, Father, ready to obey you; I pardon every injury I have ever received; your Reverence has only to order me to make what satisfaction you please for my sin, and I will do it directly,” which promise he faithfully fulfilled.

While we sing of Philip as “the Saint of gentleness and kindness”, we should not forget that, when occasion demanded it, he could be quite fierce, especially when the good of souls was at stake. Like Our Lord himself, he would speak of the reality of hell and the equally real danger of our ending up there, should we fail to shape our lives by the precepts of the Gospel and keep the commandments of Christ. All Philip’s ministry was directed to the one end of drawing souls to Christ the Saviour and leading them to a bright eternity, life in God, or heaven. If we fail to let ourselves be transformed by the grace of God, we cannot grow in holiness. So, the young man who found it impossible to forgive was jeopardising his eternity by refusing to follow the example of the one he called Lord, who had prayed for the forgiveness of his murderers as he hung on the cross. St Philip knew this and needed to communicate this truth to the youth, managing to do so in that somewhat dramatic manner.

His warning is clear:

He who continues in anger, strife, and a bitter spirit, has a taste of the air of hell. (6 August)

On a lighter note, Fr Bacci records the story of Antonio Fantini, one of Philip’s penitents:

…who on one occasion was troubled by a gentleman’s servant who used to pass under the window and behave in a manner very displeasing to Antonio, who warned him to leave off, or he should repent of it. The servant, however, continuing to act as before, Antonio in a fit of anger inwardly resolved to assassinate him. He remained in this intention three days, when a feast came on which he had always gone to confession and communion without fail. He did violence to himself, therefore, and went to the holy father, and kneeling down, he told him all the behaviour of the servant and his own resolution to murder him. When the Saint heard it all, he merely put his hand on Antonio’s head, and said laughingly to him, “Go away; God be with you; this is nothing;” and at the very instant, Antonio, who had come distracted with trouble, felt himself all at once filled with joy and light-heartedness, and the temptation wholly gone. Nay, when he met the servant, he was not conscious of the slightest movement of anger towards him; and what is even more remarkable, the servant never passed in front of his house again.

Of course, there are some offences that are hard to forgive, wounds that cut deep and will take time to heal, requiring a good deal of prayer for the will to forgive, even to want to begin to forgive. Other things, as St Philip observed, are not perhaps so bad as we might imagine, and we need the grace to see that and hear him say to us: “God be with you; this is nothing.”

We are celebrating the launch of our new edition of St Philip’s Maxims this summer by exploring some of those maxims together each week.

An important element of the Exercises of the Oratory — the set of prayers and devotions St Philip devised for his followers — was the reading of the lives of the saints, or spiritual books written by saints. One of the sermons that followed would be based on what was read, or at least, was to contain references and quotations from the saints. In fact, as St Philip tells us this week:

It is very useful for those who minister the word of God, or give themselves up to prayer, to read the works of authors whose names begin with S, such as Saint Augustine, Saint Bernard, &c. (28 August)

Fr Manni, an early Oratorian, says that this is not to learn from the saints “how to work miracles, but how to avoid sin, to submit themselves to the divine law, to bear adversity with fortitude, to hold the world in contempt and to yearn for eternal life.”

The saints are our friends in heaven, who, close as they are to Our Lord in glory, can make intercession for us, asking for the graces we need in this life. But they are also examples for us — not only how to live as faithful disciples, but examples of how God works in men and women to make them holy. They are models for us of lives totally open to grace. And as models and examples they encourage us in our own pilgrimages on earth: after all, if Christ could make saints out of an Augustine or a Jerome, then he can make one out of me.

We do not read the lives of the saints or their writings just for information, no matter how interesting. We read these things to grow in our own relationship with the Lord and to become saints ourselves. Another maxim of St Philip’s states:

To get good from reading the Lives of the Saints and other spiritual books, we ought not to read out of curiosity, or skimmingly, but with pauses; and when we feel warmed, we ought not to pass on, but to stop and follow up the spirit which is stirring in us, and when we feel it no longer then to pursue our reading. (4 August)

The Holy Spirit inspired the saints in their deeds, but also in their thoughts and words. There is holy wisdom, therefore, in such writings, that can inspire us and transform us if we ponder them. The slow reading of Scripture, lectio divina, in which we mull over the words, waiting to see what the Holy Spirit wishes us to take from them, can be used when reading spiritual writings too: not as divine revelation, but as an opportunity we give the Spirit to inflame us with the same fire with which he inflamed the saints. Fr Manni recommended the study of the lives and writings of the saints so that “everyone might be able to say, ‘I have now a thought in my heart which was once in the heart of a saint.’”

We are celebrating the launch of our new edition of St Philip’s Maxims this summer by exploring some of those maxims together each week.

He who wishes to advance in spirituality, should never slur over his defects negligently without particular examination of conscience, even independent of the time of sacramental confession. (21 August)

At school one of our science masters had had a brief stint as a professional sportsman before taking up teaching. During some international contest he visited what was then Yugoslavia and picked up a bit of communism which made him somewhat cynical towards religion (to put it mildly). Catholics came in for particular ridicule, especially the idea of confession: “Catholics can do what they like and then just go to confession and everything is fine.” That is not an uncommon view of the sacrament — that we can commit whatever sins we like and then just be told it’s alright. We know this to be false, of course, because confession requires not only the confession of sins, but contrition and a firm purpose of amendment — not an “Oh dear, that was awful, but can everything be fine now?” but instead “By my sins I have forfeited the friendship of God, I am sorry, truly I am, and with the help of his grace I really will, really will try, really am resolved, never to do it ever again, so help me God.”

If you have been to confession at the Oratory of late, you might have noticed a stack of booklets in the confessionals. This is a marvellous text full of useful advice for those who go to confession regularly by one Fr Henri-Charles Chéry O.P. They are there, free, for people to take away (another reason to come to confession!) and so to be helped with how to make a good confession. Fr. Chéry points out that we go to the sacrament not to enumerate our sins, but to confess them. We are there to seek the forgiveness of God and the grace of conversion, not simply to rattle off an exhaustive list. On the whole, if our conscience is well formed, we know our sins. We know what those things are which at that moment stand between us and God.

At least we should know. This is why the Church recommends to us that each night before going to bed we should make a good examination of conscience, looking over the day which has passed and seeing if and how and why we have had the misfortune to sin, and then to make an act of contrition, really to be sorry for them and resolve to avoid them, especially on the morrow. It is not always a pleasant thing to look at our soul in the mirror of our conscience. We can excuse ourselves, “Well, I’ve not killed anyone” — it is a good thing that we are not, most of us, serial killers but just not killing people isn’t exactly what God asks of us. “Well, yes I might have gossiped a bit but at least I’m not like Aunt Joan who is always stealing things” but God isn’t going to ask us about whatever Aunt Joan has or has not been up to when we stand before him at the end. The real and proper examination of our conscience allows us to see, in fact, where we still need God’s grace to live in us. If we know our sins, and are honest about them before God, then we know what our work is — what we need to try to overcome, where we stand in particular need of God’s grace.

Our Christian life can never be reduced to simply not sinning. We are called to be saints, called to be not just ‘un-sinful’, but to be men and women of virtue. So when we examine our conscience we do not come to think just “Oh dear!” much less “Oh well, never mind” but we see rather what virtues we need to work on and then with the help of God’s grace get on with cultivating them.

“The great thing,” Saint Philip used to say, “is to become saints.” And a proper examination of conscience is indispensable for becoming one.

We are celebrating the launch of our new edition of St Philip’s Maxims this summer by exploring some of those maxims together each week.