St. Philip Benizi, OSM - Religious (August 23rd)

Of the various Saints and Feast Days celebrated this week:

Aug. 19 -- Saint John Eudes, Priest

Aug. 20 -- Saint Bernard, Abbot and Doctor of the Church 

Aug. 21 -- Saint Pius X, Pope 

Aug. 22 -- The Queenship of the Blessed Virgin Mary 

Aug. 23 -- Saint Philip Benizi, OSM, Priest and Religious

Aug. 23 -- Saint Rose of Lima, Virgin and Religious

Aug. 24 -- TWENTY-FIRST SUNDAY IN ORDINARY TIME (Year C)


I’ve chosen to write about Saint Philip Benizi, OSM, who also is the Patron Saint of the Parish where I am stationed, and I’ve increasingly come to appreciate that he’s a Saint who truly could have been “a parishioner” here:

His parents had difficulty having him.  They prayed finally to Mary, and St. Philip was conceived. 

He then became the precocious and perhaps a little bit spoiled child of parents who had difficulty getting pregnant.  At three, he is remembered as giving the Servites their name, calling out to them “Look, the Servants of Mary!” (and the name stuck 😉)

When he grew older, his parents sent him to the best university of their time, in Paris, to study medicine.  He came back as still a somewhat spoiled young adult rejecting the education that his parents paid for, saying he wanted to become a simple Servite friar. 

That appeared to have its consequences: it seems that he and his parents didn’t speak much in the years following.

Perhaps his parents told him that he wouldn’t be able to escape his upbringing or education, and he did not: soon after finding out that he had a University education in Paris, the Servites first asked him to become a priest and later elected him Prior General. 

Here it was remembered that not only did the future St. Philip initially run away from the General Chapter that elected him and hid in a cave by their Monastery at Monte Senario, but he didn’t tell his parents that he got elected the head of the order for 8 years (well into his second term 😉). 

Accepting finally his position, he tried to use it to solve the Servites’ greatest initial problem: to simply get approved by the Holy See.  After many bureaucratic obstacles – including two popes dying – and being sent on missions for the Holy See worthy of Hercules (including one to Forli where he met and converted the future St. Peregrine), he got the Order approved, if then only provisionally. 

But following that extended adventure, this future patron Saint of those fighting bureaucracy, was able to turn his attention to his brother friars, enjoying to cook, clean, garden and harvest with them.  And ultimately died a happy and blessed man. 

St. Philip Benizi, pray for us!

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