The Fool for Love

Compared to all of the other historical figures represented in this book, St. Philip Neri (1515–95) did very little. He did not re-establish and expand an empire, convert it to Christianity, or establish a new capital city, as Constantine did. He did not produce everlasting artistic works that people still admire as did Michelangelo and Raphael. Nor did he found a religious order as St. Dominic did. The group he established, called the Oratory (or Congregation of the Oratory), is the loosest, least organized group of priests one can possibly imagine, with the fewest rules possible. Neri did so “very little” in life, in fact, that he ended up awakening hundreds of people to a deeper experience of faith and even changing the landscape of the capital city of Catholicism, Rome. By the time he died, people said he had done more to reform a corrupt, chaotic, troubled city than anyone else. And he did it not with important writings, political moves, organizational structures, or powerful armies. He did it instead with his own cheerful personality, one person at a time.

In light of his above accomplishments, Neri is known as the Second Apostle to Rome (St. Peter being the first), and is still beloved by Romans—so much so that every year on his feast day, May 26, the mayor of Rome presents a gold chalice to his community at the Santa Maria in Vallicella (Chiesa Nuova). Everyone who encountered Neri spoke of how warm, affable, inviting, and unfailingly cheerful he was, how you could not be around him without feeling this joy. He carried around with him at all times a book of devotions and a book of jokes by a Florentine comic writer, and he was as apt to use the latter on people as the former. He greeted people—especially young men, the kind who think they are tough and cool and sophisticated—with a simple phrase: “How shall we do good today?” or “Gentlemen, when shall we begin to do good?” With this disarming opening, he drew people out, asking about their lives, their struggles, and their aspirations. Few could resist him; many found their lives irrevocably changed. Soon cardinals, theologians, leading women of Rome—as well as street sweepers and plumbers—were changing their lives, all because of their encounters with this man.