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"To play the fool for the love of God was the delight of St. Philip Neri."

~ Fr. Joseph Husslein, S.J., Ph.D.

Last Sunday was the feast of another saint with a strong sanguine streak in his temperament - St. Philip Neri. As he grew closer to God, he used his sense of humor to build the virtue of humility. Instead of becoming hoity-toity and impressed with his own sanctity, he played the fool. When he fasted and did penance and became thin, he told people he wasn't eating because he didn't want to get fat. When someone came to visit because he'd heard of Philip's sanctity, Philip purposely mispronounced words to make himself sound idiotic or illiterate.

Do you see his white beard in the picture? He once joked with a serious clergyman about wanting to know how to make it black again. He used the trivial to not take himself too seriously.

According to Theodore Maynard in his masterful biography of this saint, Mystic in Motley, "He was convinced that the gloomy could make no advance in the spiritual life... One of his favorite sayings was, 'A cheerful and glad spirit attains to perfection much more readily than a melancholy spirit.'"

As I recently posted on Instagram, https://www.instagram.com/p/C7dXNrAM-2T/, St. Philip loved to go to the Catacomb of St. Sebastian in Rome to pray alone and undisturbed. One day, as he begged the Holy Spirit to fill his heart with love, he had a mystical and physical experience in which his heart swelled so much that his ribs cracked. Ever afterward, his heart burned both physically and spiritually.

One time when the pope was very ill with gout, Philip grasped his hand and pulled it to his burning chest. The pope was healed at that moment.

The Offertory for his feast is taken from Psalm 118:32, "I have run the way of Thy commandments, when Thou didst enlarge my heart." The Church thereby gives her sanction to this miracle. And in the Secret prayer of the Mass, we pray, "Grant that the Holy Spirit may kindle within us that fire with which He miraculously penetrated the heart of blessed Philip."

Sanguines are often affectionate and loving like Philip, and sometimes they are quirky and humorous like him too. He gave young men who came to him for spiritual advice eccentric penances to help them to conquer pride and learn humility. He sent one out with purple taffeta and gold lace on his hat and made another walk into the priests' dining room with a monkey wearing a priestly biretta. He himself would meet important people with his clothes on inside out or wearing oversized white shoes. He used humor to learn and to teach others the beautiful virtue of humility.

Humility can be hard for sanguines, because they do like to be the center of attention. We can see how the saint turned this weakness into a strength. He became the center of attention in a ridiculous way, like when he walked into church with his beard shaved on one side. In spite of all his silliness though, the people closest to him knew that his heart burned with love and virtue.

His sanguine nature drew many people to him, and they even found joy in visiting his room when he wasn't there. His boundless cheerfulness and good humor banished depression and discouragement. We can all learn this from sanguines - to serve the Lord with joy and not to take ourselves too seriously.

I am posting weekly Substack articles on the theme of joy - click here to follow!https://rosemarymcguireberry.substack.com/​

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