From: richarra@gmail.com   
      
   Meditation for troubled times   
      
   My life cannot flower into success and help fullness unless it is   
   rooted in a strong faith, or unless it feels deeply secure in the   
   goodness and purpose of the universe.   
   --From Twenty-Four Hours a Day   
      
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   May 26th - St. Phillip Neri, Priest, Mystic   
      
   Phillip Neri (1515-1595) was born in Florence of a noble but   
   impoverished family. He studied theology and philosophy and dedicated   
   himself to apostolic works from his youth. Eventually he set aside his   
   studies and founded a society to care for the sick and poor pilgrims   
   in Rome.   
      
   He was ordained a priest in 1551, and founded the Congregation of the   
   Oratory, the Oratorians, a group of priests dedicated to preaching and   
   teaching. He was a great mystic, who received the gifts of prophecy   
   and discernment of spirits. He could read the souls of penitents, and   
   heard confessions by the hour. He was canonized some 25 years after   
   his death along with St. Ignatius of Loyola, St. Teresa of Avila and   
   St. Francis Xavier.   
      
   The religious crisis that took so many provinces from the Catholic   
   Church deeply afflicted St. Phillip Neri. He suffered cruelly to see   
   so many people being drowned in the waves of heresy. He attentively   
   followed the maneuvers of Protestantism and planned a counter-attack   
   against a Lutheran work of propaganda, the “Magdeburg Centuries” This   
   vast compilation was written to persuade readers that the Catholic   
   Church had abandoned her early beliefs and practices. The multi-volume   
   collection was filled with historical falsifications to “prove” its   
   goal.   
      
   To counter this fabrication St. Phillip wanted a complete work of   
   erudition to be written on the History of the Church from the time of   
   Our Lord Jesus Christ up to his own time. He ordered the work to be   
   done by Cesar Baronius, an Oratorian who would succeed him as Superior   
   of the Oratory in 1593 and made a Cardinal in 1596.   
      
   Baronius alleged that he was unworthy and lacked the competence for   
   such a great work; but St. Phillip was inflexible and ordered him   
   under religious obedience to undertake the project. He spent close to   
   30 years to write it (1588–1607), covering the time up to the 12th   
   century. This collection was called “Ecclesiastical Annals”. It was   
   completed after his death.   
      
   The heresy felt the blow. The errors of the anti-Catholic “Magdeburg   
   Centuries” became evident as the work of Baronius eclipsed it. The   
   “Ecclesiastical Annals” contributed powerfully to stem the growing   
   tide of Protestantism in Europe. From Baronius' work the Catholic   
   Church emerged as she had always been, as the pillar of truth.   
      
      
   Comments of the late Prof. Plinio Corrêa de Oliveira:    
      
   St. Phillip Neri was a man with a universal Catholic sense. He was not   
   just interested in realizing a personal work, which certainly was   
   important--the foundation of the Congregation of the Oratory--but he   
   had a general concern for the Catholic Church as a whole. He was   
   personally offended by Protestants attacking the Church through a work   
   that was meant to be monumental – the “Magdeburg Centuries.” Actually   
   it was a monumental lie. The Protestants, as heretics who hated the   
   Church, fabricated another history of the Church full of untruths and   
   slanders, with the specific purpose of denigrating the good name of   
   the Catholic Church and separating her from the faithful.   
      
   These Protestants were from the same family of souls as the Pharisees,   
   who produced false witnesses to condemn the Lamb of God. Analogously,   
   in the beginning of the Church, groups of Jews moved by hatred against   
   her spread many apocrypha documents--false gospels or epistles   
   attributed to the Apostles--in order to confuse Catholics and induce   
   them toward heresies. Until today, from time to time, the discussion   
   of the apocrypha documents resurfaces trying to sabotage the Gospels.   
      
   Also after Protestantism, and in its wake, some authors of the   
   Encyclopedia spread countless lies regarding the past of the Church.   
   This in many ways was continued by Michelet in the 19th century.   
   Today, these revolutionary authors lost credibility and their lies are   
   universally recognized in scholarly milieus, even though they still   
   influence badly those who do not have access to good historical   
   sources. So, it was and still is a rule of the enemies to falsify   
   history in order to slander Holy Mother Church.   
      
   When St. Phillip Neri saw the evil results that the “Centuries of   
   Magdeburg” was having by favoring the spread of Protestantism, he   
   decided to counter-attack. He chose the only way possible which was to   
   make a gigantic work of erudition. A work using the best documents   
   dating from the very beginning of the Church up to his own time, that   
   would present the incontestable reality of the facts. To do this work   
   he chose one of his most capable disciples, Baronius. After some   
   hesitations Baronius dedicated some 30 years of his life to this job   
   and the result was the “Ecclesiastical Annals”, one of the most   
   serious works of all times. The work of Baronius stands forever as a   
   point of reference for any serious historical study. His work   
   pulverized the supposed “scientific” work of the Protestants who were   
   left completely discredited.   
      
   The root of this work was St. Phillip Neri's amplitude of vision, his   
   love of the Church, and his counter-revolutionary zeal.   
      
   An analogous work was made by Fr. Cornelius a Lapide from the Society   
   of Jesus. He received an order to study all the interpretations of the   
   Sacred Scriptures that existed, analyze them, refute the wrong ones,   
   explain the good ones and give the best sources for each of them.   
   Again, it was a counter-revolutionary work to destroy the   
   pseudo-scientific Protestant interpretations which were polluting the   
   atmosphere of piety and studies in the 16th and 17th centuries. Fr.   
   Cornelius a Lapide wrote his monumental “Commentaries to the Sacred   
   Scriptures” encompassing all its books from Genesis to the Apocalypse.   
   To this date it is one of the most--if not the most--complete ensemble   
   of Exegesis that the Catholic Church has. It is an everlasting source   
   of erudition and piety for historians, preachers, and faithful in   
   general.   
      
   Let us ask the great counter-revolutionary St. Phillip Neri to give us   
   conditions to imitate him, hurting the Revolution at its head so that   
   it can be completely destroyed and the Reign of Mary be established   
   over its ruins.   
      
   http://www.traditioninaction.org/SOD/j180sd_St.PhilipNeri5-28.shtml   
      
      
      
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