Saturday, June 27, 2009

St. Philip Neri's Maxims - Part III On Prayer and Purity of Young Men

St. Philip Neri

The following are from the Month of March, the focus being on prayer:

- When a spiritual person feels a great calmness of mind in asking anything of God, it is a good sign that God either has granted it, or will do so shortly.

- To leave our prayer when we are called to do some act of charity for our neighbour, is not really a quitting of prayer, but leaving Christ for Christ, that is, depriving ourselves of spiritual sweetnesses in order to gain souls.

- It is good for a man to go from prayer rather with an appetite and desire to return to it, than satiated and weary.

- The wisdom of the Scriptures is learned rather by prayer than by study.

- Let women remain indoors, and look after their families, and not be desirous of going into public.

- We must pray incessantly for the gift of perseverance.

- If in times of dryness in prayer we make acts of humility, self-knowledge, protestations of our own inability to help ourselves, and petitions for God’s assistance, all this is real and substantial prayer.

- The best remedy for dryness of spirit, is to picture ourselves as beggars in the presence of God and the Saints, and like a beggar, to go first to one saint, then to another, to ask a spiritual alms of them with the same earnestness as a poor fellow in the streets would ask an alms of us.

- We may ask a spiritual alms even corporally, by going first to the church of one Saint, and then to the church of another, to make our petition.

- If young men wish to protect themselves from all danger of impurity, let them never retire to their own rooms immediately after dinner, either to read or write, or do anything else; but let them remain in conversation, because at that time the devil is wont to assault us with more than usual vehemence, and this is that demon which is called in Scripture the noonday demon, and from which holy David prayed to be delivered.

- If young men would preserve their purity, let them avoid bad company.

- Young men should be very careful to avoid idleness.

- In order to preserve their purity, young men should frequent the Sacraments, and especially confession.

- We must never trust ourselves, for it is the devil’s way first to get us to feel secure, and then to make us fall.

- We ought to fear and fly temptations of the flesh, even in sickness, and in old age itself, aye, and so long as we can open and shut our eyelids, for the spirit of incontinence gives no truce either to place, time, or person.

- One of the most efficacious means of keeping ourselves chaste, is to have compassion for those who fall through their frailty, and never to boast in the least of being free, but with all humility to acknowledge that whatever we have is from the mercy of God.

- To be without pity for other men’s falls, is an evident sign that we shall fall ourselves shortly.

- The devil generally makes use of the weaker sex when he wishes to cause us to fall.

- In order to begin well, and to finish better, it is quite necessary to hear mass every day, unless there be some lawful hindrance in the way
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