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
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