St Philip was praying in the catacombs on the vigil of Pentecost when the Holy Spirit arrived in a fiery sphere — not a twinkling little flame, but a round, whole, impossible globe of fire. It entered his mouth. It is difficult to imagine what that must of been like for him. It must have been a terrible experience: the heat, the choking, the panic. The Holy Spirit was not floating above him elegantly like dove; rather he burned inside St Philip like a glowing coal pushing down his throat and entering his heart. As one author put it, “For one terrible second, in the mouth of the catacombs, in the throat of the young saint, grace had a circumference. God had pressure.”

Before Our Holy Father became the saint of joy, who played practical jokes, and spoke with simple love about heavenly things, who kept Popes and Cardinals holy and the young from sin, he had to survive the intimacy of God entering his throat, his heart, and his soul.

We are all familiar with the way artists down the centuries have depicted the coming of the Holy Spirit at Pentecost. Neat little tongues of decorative fire hovering over the heads of the Apostles and Our Lady. Calm, serene and pious. Maybe a dove flying about somewhere in the scene. We’ve come to prefer Pentecost at a distance, a painted version. St Philip’s Pentecost reminds us that the Holy Spirit is not neat and tidy, but embodied and disruptive. God does not remain safely outside the human person. He enters us and fills us, and demolishes the vain belief that we can remain in control of our words, our bodies and our lives if we choose to allow him in.

Pentecost was not neat and tidy. It was terrifying and consoling, empowering and humbling, breaking and mending — mighty wind and fire that brought the Church to birth. The disciples were never the same again. The Apostles were changed men, who then changed the world. We don’t need a decorative Pentecost with polite flames and white doves — another holy card version of fire that never burns anything. We need an untidy Pentecost, a disruptive and disturbing Pentecost, a Pentecost that enables us to be the sort of disciples that the Lord Jesus calls us to be. To go out to the whole world and proclaim the Good News, knowing that he works with us and confirms his word with the signs that accompany it.

Light immortal, light divine,
Visit thou these hearts of thine,
And our inmost being fill.

This year, as we pray our Novena in preparation for the feast of St Philip, we are also taking part in the original and archetypal Novena, which is those nine days between the Ascension and Pentecost, when the disciples were praying in the upper room with Our Lady, preparing themselves for the descent of the Holy Spirit who would give them strength to preach the good news. We could say that it is hardly surprising, given that St Philip died on the Feast of Corpus Christi 1595 and the liturgical calendar is what it is, but that would be missing a central feature of Our Holy Father’s life. On the Vigil of Pentecost 1544 (which fell on Saturday 24th May that year, a day after it will fall this year), the Holy Spirit entered his heart in the form of a ball of fire and prepared him for the task he was to perform, the conversion of the Eternal City.

When Elijah was preparing to depart from this world, Elisha who was to take over his ministry begged him: “I pray you, let me inherit a double share of your spirit.” Likewise, when St Thomas was asked to write a commentary on the Song of Songs he exclaimed: “Give me St Bernard’s spirit and I will interpret this divine Canticle like St Bernard.” If we are to imitate St Philip by carrying on his work, if we are to serve God after his example and achieve anything like what he achieved, we need a share of his spirit. What we need is to be filled with that same Holy Spirit which worked through him all those years ago.

At the same time, we must remember that we are talking about imitating the Saint who said: “He who desires ecstasies and visions does not know what he is desiring.” Therefore, if we don’t fancy the idea of having our ribs broken by a spiritual flame, we need not worry, because the spirit we are asking for can also be found in the gentle breeze. Saint Philip kept the events of that Vigil of Pentecost secret until the end of his life, revealing them only after he had carried out his mission. The important thing is not that we have ecstasies or that we perform great miracles or see visions, but rather that the fruit of the Holy Spirit shine forth in our lives. Crowds may have flocked when the eccentric priest from the Chiesa Nuova performed his miracles, but it was the joy, gentleness, and kindness that allowed Saint Philip to gather his followers and, in doing so, slowly but surely convert Rome. It is these fruits of the Holy Spirit that will help us to convert our city, our family, and, ultimately, ourselves.

Therefore, as we prepare for the quick succession of these two great feasts, we ask for Saint Philip’s intercession that we may receive the Holy Spirit, and for the Holy Spirit’s help as we seek to imitate Our Holy Father, saying: May the Holy Spirit enkindle in us that same fire with which he miraculously pierced the heart of Blessed Philip.

“It is finished.” These last words of Our Lord from the Cross marked the end of his passion. Everything he had done, for the last thirty-three years, had been leading up that moment, where he would be arrested, unjustly accused, and put to death — this was the very reason he had come into the world. This great act of love for mankind was complete. His great offering of himself to his Father for our redemption had been made: he bowed his head, and gave up his spirit.

How heart-rending that must have been for his disciples. It was not merely the loss of their greatest friend. It was the loss of their friend on whom they had placed all their hopes for the saving of Israel. The loss of both present and future joy must have been too much to bear. But then how much greater must have been their joy when he rose from the dead on Easter Day!

All through Eastertide, the verses of the Divine Office have been constant reminders of their happiness — and reminders for us, too, that we cannot but share in their joy. “The Lord has truly risen, alleluia, and has appeared to Simon, alleluia.” “The disciples were overjoyed, alleluia, at seeing the Lord, alleluia.” Perhaps greatest of all is the verse at Vespers, from the words the disciples spoke on the road to Emmaus before they recognised Jesus: “Remain with us Lord, alleluia, because evening is drawing in, alleluia.” Remain with us Lord — stay with us. It was by virtue of that simple invitation that the disciples recognised Jesus in the breaking of the bread. The Lord came and went amongst them again, as he had done before his death. We can only imagine their joy at having their Lord and Master back with them.

But now, the appointed forty days have passed, and again, in a new way, “It is finished.” Tomorrow, God will go up with shouts of joy, the Lord will go up with trumpet blasts, back to his Father. After only a few short weeks, the disciples lose Our Lord again. It is a bittersweet feast. Bitter, because the disciples would not be able to enjoy Jesus’ presence among them in the same way any longer; but yet still sweet, because this is the completion of his glorification. Now he ascends to his Father, leaving the disciples with job, and a promise: “Go forth and make disciples of all nations, baptising them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Behold, I am with you always, even to the end of the age.”

Jesus, now risen from the dead, will never die. He will never abandon his little flock here on earth. Now, we celebrate the end of his earthly ministry. We do not mourn his going away, but we celebrate, because his bodily resurrection and ascension into heaven are signs of his promises to us. One day, whether that be soon or far off into the future, we will die. But we know that by his sacred passion, death, resurrection and ascension, he has redeemed us and called us back into friendship with him. If we only keep up our end of the friendship, then we will surely follow into heaven, where our Head has gone before.

Having worshipped God in one language at the High Mass it is not unusual to come outside afterward and to hear a great myriad of languages being spoken on the forecourt. It is a great reminder that the Church is one, that the Church of Christ is not bound by any one culture or age, but rather that the Church takes what is best in mankind’s diversity and baptises it, rather than being limited by it. We hear the languages of Catholic Europe: Italian, French, Polish, Spanish, Portuguese, German (Bavarian and Austrian dialects, freilich), Hungarian and others, as well as various languages and dialects from further afield: Tagalog, Tetum, Konkani, Marathi, Malayalam, Tamil, and Hindi. Occasionally one can hear some Yiddish, or a snatched word of Coptic. As Catholics we are always learning, always delving further into the great mystery of Christ and his Church. One of the great gifts of this truly Catholic congregation is the discovery of saints and devotions one might not otherwise have encountered.

We were reminded recently by a visiting Belgian cohort of the wonderful pilgrimage to Scherpenheuvel (or Montaigu for the Walloons amongst you), with its great Marian basilica and connections to the Oratory. The shrine arose in the early seventeenth century when a small image of the Blessed Virgin was placed in an oak tree. A local shepherd, finding the image fallen to the ground, attempted to take it away, but upon lifting it found himself unable to move; when his master, alarmed at the flock’s absence, came searching, it was only by restoring the statue to its place in the tree that the shepherd was released, and so the significance of the site was first recognised. Reports of cures and favours followed in quick succession, and what began as a rural devotion was soon taken up and formally encouraged, not least by the Archdukes Albert and Isabella, who ordered the construction of a church and promoted pilgrimage to the site. The fame of Our Lady of Scherpenheuvel soon spread and even Queen Henrietta Maria erected an altar to her in her chapel at St James’ Palace.

But what priests, full of pastoral zeal, could be found to supply the needs of the many pilgrims who came in such droves to this “Loreto of the North” to beg the prayers of the Madonna? The Archdukes had heard of a marvellous thing called the Oratory, which sounded ideal. In 1624 the rector, Judocus Bouckaert, founded the Oratory to serve the thriving shrine, after the model of the Roman Oratory and received papal confirmation from Urban VIII. The Oratorian house can still be seen and St Philip still looks down to welcome pilgrims. The Fathers served the pilgrims faithfully until their life was brought to an end at the French Revolution with a number of the Oratorians being deported to French Guiana where they died in appalling conditions for their steadfast loyalty to Christ and his Church.

In this month of May the Church turns our attention and devotion to Our Mother, she who is at once the most local and the most universal of all God’s creatures. If the Church speaks in every tongue, Our Lady is understood in them all without difficulty: she requires no translation, and suffers none in the hearing. The same Mother who is honoured beneath an oak tree in a small Flemish village, who drew peasants and princes to Scherpenheuvel, is the very same who hears our hesitant prayers or heartfelt pleas. Amidst all the variety, all the languages and histories and devotions, we are given a Mother for us all, loving, attentive, and, one suspects, possessed of a patience which far exceeds our own.

It would be a pity, then, if May were to pass us by with nothing more than a vague nod in her direction, as though she were like a half-forgotten great aunt to whom we send our regards but never actually visit. Better, surely, to take her at her word “Do whatever he tells you” and to allow her, in her quiet and thoroughly effective way, to draw us a little closer to her Son.

Saint Philip is honoured with many titles in the litany composed in his honour by Saint John Henry Newman. The most famous is undoubtedly “Apostle of Rome”, which recalls how Saint Philip revitalised the spiritual life of the Eternal City during the 16^th Century Counter-Reformation. The last title though, that of patronus tuorum — “patron of thine own” — seems rather obscure.

Today we celebrate this very title with the feast of the Patronage of Saint Philip, which is kept on the anniversary of the signing of the decree that established the Oxford Oratory as an independent house. However, today’s feast is not just to mark our 33^rd birthday, but to celebrate Saint Philip’s particular spiritual patronage for our own Oratory here in Oxford. He is “patron of thine own” and we are his own.

In honouring him with the title “patron of thine own”, Newman recalls the deeply personal care Saint Philip gave to everyone he met, winning their souls for Christ with a joyful and gentle spirit. He was renowned for drawing souls to himself in the same way that a magnet draws iron. As our patron, Saint Philip now extends this same joyful spirit to us, and through his intercession, he guides each one of us, and all who come to his Oratory here in Oxford, to a closer relationship with God.

Grant, O Lord, that what we cannot achieve by our merits, we may gain by the patronage of Saint Philip.

You don’t have to go very far from central Oxford before you come across fields filled with sheep and their young lambs. It’s seeing real shepherds with real sheep that will help us to understand Christ’s image of himself as the Good Shepherd. If you try to call the sheep in one of those fields, they will ignore you or run away. Sheep don’t respond to just anyone: they really do recognise the voice of their own shepherd.

When the shepherd calls his sheep, they really do come running, and the lambs really do leap, as the psalmist says. And you don’t want to be in their way when they do, because sheep are not half-hearted followers. They either come running, or they don’t. The sheep do not ask, as the crowds did so often in the Gospel, “Are you really the one?”

Real sheep go running without hesitation. And so we cannot be half-hearted followers of the Good Shepherd; nor can we allow anything to stand between us and our Shepherd when he calls.

Watching the yearling lambs leaping cannot fail to bring a smile to anyone’s face. I don’t know if they leap because they really feel joy or not. But we should certainly be filled with joy as we run towards our Shepherd.