ST. PHILIP NERI,
BLESSED J.H. NEWMAN
WISDOM AND GLORY
Holy Family Parish,
Toronto
May 26, 2016
“ Jesus said to his
disciples: Let your loins be girt and you yourselves, like men who wait for
their Lord.” Luke 12: 35
As your guest this evening may I first thank Fr. Robinson
and the Fathers of the Oratory very much for their kind invitation.
The readings and prayers for this Feast of St. Philip Neri
point us to two aspects of the universal Church’s teaching which we need so
much to consider in the world today if we are to be like those who, as our text
says, “wait for their lord”. These two
aspects of Christian life are expressed and highlighted in the worship of the
universal Church.
The first is the gift of “Wisdom.” We read on this feast the Book of
Wisdom:
“I called and the
spirit of wisdom came upon me.” Wisdom
here means the gift of God to those who ask in prayer, not some worldly wisdom
but rather what was called in the English spiritual tradition “ghostly wisdom.”
Secondly “Glory.” Glory is the context into which God has
called St. Philip. That which is glorious is of eternal worth. In the words of the Collect we pray: “O God who didst exalt blessed Philip thy
confessor with thy saints in glory.” And the Collect continues to ask that we may
profit by the example of his virtues; one of which is, of course, the gift of
wisdom. Wisdom and glory are expressed
in the various rites, languages and uses of the Catholic Church, perhaps in
none more so than in the Extraordinary Form of the Mass we celebrate this
evening.
Before we continue to consider some aspects of the
connection between wisdom and glory in the lives of St. Philip Neri and of
Blessed John Henry Newman, I thought that I should, as a visitor, tell you two things about myself and my work.
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| A wedding at Holy Family |
First, I am a priest of the Ordinariate of the Chair of St. Peter
and I serve the small parish of St. Thomas More which came into being in 2012
under the provisions made in Anglicanorum
Coetibus, that is the Apostolic Constitution promulgated by Pope Benedict XVI
welcoming Anglicans, Protestants and others who affirm the Catholic Faith as
set forth in the Catechism of the
Catholic Church into full communion with the Holy See.
Over the past four years, the people of STM have gathered
for Sung Mass on Sundays and Solemnities at Sacré-Coeur Church in
downtown Toronto thanks to the kind hospitality of Cardinal Collins. Many of us
in the Ordinariate are former Anglican clergy and laity and, increasingly, we
welcome Protestants of various traditions who have been, or are now, in
the process of being received into the full communion of the Catholic Church.
In my case, like many priests of the Ordinariate, I was
granted dispensation from the rule of celibacy by the Holy Father in order to
be ordained Deacon by Cardinal Collins and later priest by Archbishop
Prendergast of Ottawa.
Naturally, those of us at the parish of STM are very grateful
to Pope Benedict whose vision and wisdom brought about this dramatic first
movement for the healing of the Reformation rift. “Groups of Anglicans” as the Apostolic
Constitution calls us -- Anglicanorum
Coetibus – are groups who have been received around the world along with
our traditions of liturgy, choral music, pastoral care and patristic theology
which are consonant with the teachings of the Magisterium of the Catholic
Church.
These aspects of patrimony are now beautifully expressed in
the Ordinariate’s new missal entitled DIVINE WORSHIP recently approved for
worldwide use by the Holy See, to the greater glory of God. The DIVINE WORSHIP missal is commended to the
Church for use as a part of the Latin Rite just as the Ordinary Form is and now
again in recent years the more ancient usage of the Extraordinary Form, which
we are privileged to celebrate this evening.
As we know, there are various forms of worship which seek to
communicate the wisdom of God even as they reflect the divine glory. The many Eastern Rite churches in full
communion with Rome use various languages and distinctive ceremonial. The Ordinariate Mass looks very similar to
the ceremonial of the Solemn Mass we celebrate this evening, ad orientem or eastward facing and with
the traditional ceremonial of the Western or Latin Rite of the Church.
Secondly, I should tell you that I
am a Catholic chaplain for the Princess Margaret, Toronto Western and and Sick
Childrens’ hospitals in downtown Toronto where
I encounter and anoint many at all stages of life.
These two biographical notes may explain some of the language
and idioms I employ this evening. So, we continue to consider together the
wisdom and glory of God as expressed in the Catholic faith and as manifested in
St. Philip Neri whose life of prayer, pastoral care, educational concerns and
inspirational service to God and humanity reflect both the wisdom and the glory
of God.
Wisdom and glory are central elements of the Catholic Faith
so much so that the very words are spoken and sung repeatedly throughout the
readings and prayers of the Church’s liturgy especially in these days following
the Feast of the Ascension. Glory is
the reflected wisdom of God; and wisdom is the glory of man fully alive to the
love of God.
Wisdom and glory are in this sense welded together in
the life of St. Philip Neri. The Collect
prayer for his feast has us pray: “O
God, who didst exalt blessed Philip, Thy Confessor, with Thy saints in glory:
mercifully grant that, we who rejoice in his festival may profit by the example
of his virtues.”
Principle amongst St. Philip’s virtues was the gift of holy
wisdom. Spiritual wisdom is the gift of God for discerning the ways of God and
applying them to the salvation of souls. We might say that this is the wisdom
at the very heart of human living in which the sacred Heart of Christ speaks to our
hearts. This holy wisdom relates directly to the hope which is given to
humanity in Jesus Christ, the incarnate wisdom of God who interprets the
meaning of our human lives in and through our relationship with the divine
glory of God.
The Holy Ghost given to the Church after the Ascension of
Christ is the power of wisdom guiding the corporate life of Christians into the
unity for which Jesus prays: “That they
all may be one.” Guided by the Holy Ghost the thoughts and actions of the
truly wise, from the simple apostolic fishermen who followed Jesus to the
luminous theologians like Pope Benedict XVI speak to the hearts of sincere
Christians about how we are to live together before God.
Blessed John Henry Newman following the example of St.
Philip Neri was, like St. Philip, concerned for the education of the whole
person: spiritually, intellectually and socially. This integrated approach to the education of
individuals was, as they both clearly believed, for the glory of God and was
dependent upon the virtue of wisdom which is a reflection of the will of God in
the souls of the faithful.
Newman, since his days at Oxford had advocated the nurturing
of students in faith and morals as well as in the pursuit of knowledge. The
personal commitment of teachers to their students and devotion to the needs of
each student as a whole person is highlighted in Newman’s work Idea of a University. Scholars have said
Newman found these principles mirrored most fully and remarkably in the life
and wisdom of St. Philip Neri.
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| Low Mass at Holy Family |
In 1955 Professor Culler in his
consideration of St. Philip and Blessed John Henry Newman pointed to the important
truth that in St. Philip, Newman saw the realization of his own educational and
pastoral ideal. Both men were deeply
ascetical with regard to the prayer and discipline of the Church, and were
committed to the sacramental life, to the ministry of the confessional and to
individual counsel and instruction in pursuit of wisdom.
All of these aspects of St.
Philip’s life are seen in relation to and undergirded by a community of
Catholic liturgical celebration and social intercourse, which was really a dialogue with culture as we might say
today.
True wisdom, in this sense, is in the
discernment of what is valuable to the City of God in the midst of the Earthly
City as St. Philip, the Apostle of Rome, so powerfully and joyfully exemplified
in his pastoral encounters with people at all levels of society.
Newman, like St Philip, fused
devotion with dogma. The life of prayer
and ascetical discipline was at one with the doctrine – the magisterial
teaching of the Church. This wisdom was the model of faith and practice which
St. Philip saluted, we are told, when he encountered students at the Venerable English
College in Rome. Upon seeing these English seminarians coming out the gate
across from his own residence he would shout to them: “Hail
the flower of the martyrs!” This
was, of course, in reference to the sacrifices for the Faith of the priests who
faced great peril having gone to England to minister to faithful Catholics
during the persecutions of the sixteenth century.
In hospital ministry, I have seen
that the realities of “wisdom” and “glory” proclaimed and embodied by the
Church as the Body of Christ, can be a focus for those struggling with the many
questions that surround pain, suffering and the end of life in a way which
gives meaning to life at all stages.
The reality of divine wisdom as it
relates to the glory of God has much to say to patients and families as they
face the very intense life challenges that illness brings. Indeed we need the gift of wisdom and the
hope of glory particularly as those who are gravely ill, along with the rest of
society, seek to address the current and extremely important issue of care at
the end of life while we struggle to honour all human life under the spectre of
legislation that proposes to endorse assisted suicide.
The Catholic Church speaks clearly
and distinctly about the sanctity of all human life. This is an expression of wisdom, the gift of
the Holy Ghost, guiding the bishops of the Church in proclaiming the unchanging
Gospel to a society which seems to be possessed by a spirit of narrow and corrosive
individualism, the very antithesis of the holy wisdom and the hope of glory.
The Church must respond to the
idiocy of rampant choice-obsessed individualism – and I use the term ‘idiocy’ advisedly:
idiot meaning one fixated upon
oneself and, we might add, fixated upon one’s own choices to the exclusion of
others.
The Church, by contrast, offers
what R.R. Reno described recently (First Things, May 2016) as living
communities of obligation and commitment. He said, and I quote: “We need to
provide atomized people with non-optional solidarity . . . revitalizing the mediating layers of
society.”
This was the wise vision of St.
Philip for the Church of Rome in a society which, like our own, had become
idiocentric, obsessed with materialism and entertainment. St. Philip wisely pointed people back to a
community of obligation and commitment, a community of mercy, hope and glory –
the Catholic Church.
Archbishop
Bernard Longley described St Philip and Cardinal Newman, as: "Wise,
joyful and prayerful priests." Their lives give glory to God by the wise
application of their talents and their openness to the direction of the Holy
Ghost.
May their
prayers and example guide us in our lives.
“ Jesus said to his
disciples: Let your loins be girt and you yourselves, like men who wait for
their Lord.” Luke 12: 35
