St. Philip Neri: He Who Wants Anything Other Than Christ Does Not Know What He Wants
The patron saint of joy: We knew we had to learn his story when we saw ‘Philip Neri: The Laughing Saint’
The best way to prepare for death is to spend every day of life as though it were your last. St. Philip Neri said those words more than 500 years ago.
That may explain why Neri was convinced “There is nothing the devil fears so much, or so much tries to wonder, as prayer.”
The cross, he added, is “the gift God gives to his friends.”
We knew we had to learn more about St. Philip Neri (1515–1595) when we spotted a copy of Philip Neri: The Laughing Saint, essentially a softcover comic book developed by Pauline Kids. It was early March 2020 when people started to worry about COVID-19.
But here was this beautiful book in Chicago’s Pauline Bookstore about a blond-haired funny young saint, always cracking jokes, finding the humor — and God — in everything. Of course, that was what we needed, so we scooped it up.
