Philip Neri had the custom of rising late at night or in the first hours of morning, making his way through the sleeping city of Rome, outside the city walls, to the Basilica of Saint Sebastian. There he would descend beneath the church, to the ancient catacombs, where the first Christians of Rome met for Mass, where so many martyrs slept. In that sacred place he would spend time in prayer.
On one such occasion, the Apostle of Rome went to those catacombs on the vigil of Pentecost. As he prayed, the Holy Spirit appeared to him as a globe of fire that entered his mouth and settled in his heart. He felt his heart expand. From that moment on, as people would later testify, there came from his heart a mysterious but perceptible warmth, indeed a heat. After his death an autopsy revealed that two ribs had broken to form an arch, to accommodate the enlarged heart.
It’s fitting that the feast of Saint Philip Neri (May 26, this Tuesday) often falls so close to Pentecost. For his experience in the catacombs is a great lesson on how we should receive the Spirit this day. As is the case with every miracle, his encounter with the Holy Spirit reveals in an extraordinary manner what should be ordinary for every Catholic. And, lest we think Saint Philip’s experience was odd, we should recall that we pray often for the same thing: Come, Holy Spirit, fill the hearts of your faithful and kindle in them the fire of your love.
Namely, heartburn and broken ribs.
First, heartburn. That the Spirit settles in the heart – the center of love – tells us a lot about Who He is and what He does. The Holy Spirit is the Love of God. That’s not just a pious saying but the profound theological truth. Nor is the Holy Spirit only love from God. He is the love of God – that is, the love within God, between the Father and the Son, the love that exists from all eternity. He is the Person Whom Saint John Paul II called the “uncreated Love-Gift.”
As the Person Who is Love, the Spirit is given to us so that we can love. For “the love of God has been poured out into our hearts through the holy Spirit that has been given to us.” (Romans 5:5) All His gifts and graces are given so that we can be perfected in love. All His fruits are ultimately the effects of love. The Holy Spirit effects holiness, which is perfection in love.
Further, the image of fire reveals how this Person accomplishes His work of love within us. The Holy Spirit is like fire, a love that purifies, enlightens, and energizes. He purifies our hearts from the lesser loves that hold us. He enlightens our hearts to know God, to know ourselves, and to know how to love. He gives us the power to love others with God’s own love.
For those around him, the heat radiating from Saint Philip’s heart manifested God’s love within him. Again, this extraordinary event reveals what should be normative. Our union with the Spirit should produce in us a warmth that radiates to others by our words and deeds. In fact, what is most amazing is not that the Spirit’s warmth was manifested through Saint Philip Neri but that it is not so evident in us.
Second, the broken ribs. Now, it should be noted that this injury did not impede Philip’s life. He lived a busy apostolic life for 50 years after the incident. Obviously, there was some pain involved in this gift of the Spirit. But we should think of it as the “gentle violence” of the Spirit that Saint Francis de Sales speaks of. Or as a salutary correction, as we ask the Spirit in today’s Sequence to “Bend the stubborn heart and will.”
In short, to receive the Spirit, something within must give. We typically want to shoehorn God into our lives, to make Him work for us. But the Spirit does not fit into our worldly lives. He’s not, if you will, designed for that. Rather, like a driving wind that brings in fresh air but also sometimes upends things, He dislocates aspects of our lives so that there is more room for Him to work.
Point is, there is nothing convenient or comfortable – in the world’s sense – about the Spirit. He comes, not to continue our lives as they are, but to live within us and to reproduce the life of Christ within us. That requires change on our part. Indeed, even the comfort He brings is beyond the world’s understanding, doesn’t fit the world’s estimating of comfort. Life according to the Spirit requires the unconditional willingness to change.
Our Lord tells us that the Father “does not ration his gift of the Spirit.” (John 3:34) Indeed, He is not stingy. But we are. We place the barriers and obstacles to the increase of His love within us. Or we want His gifts of grace for our pet projects, not for growth in Him.
For this feast and this gift of the Spirit to be effective, we must allow Him to burn and dislocate us. To purify our hearts with His fire of love and to move them to where He needs to them to be.
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