Philip Benizi de Damiani was born in Florence to a noble family. He was born on the feast of the Assumption, 15 August 1233, on the very day that the Blessed Virgin Mary first appeared to the Seven Founders of the Order of the Servants of Mary (the Servites). From his very cradle he gave signs of his future sanctity. When he was just five months old he received the power of speech by a miracle, and exhorted his mother to bestow an alms on the Servants of the Mother of God. As a youth, he pursued his studies at Paris where he was remarkable for his ardent piety, and kindled in many hearts a longing for our heavenly fatherland. After his return home and hearing the words of the Epistle at Mass on the Thursday after Easter, “Draw near and join yourself to this chariot,” he decided to embrace the religious life. In 1253 he made his religious profession as a member of the newly-founded Order of the Servites, He therefore retired into a cave on Mount Senario, and there led an austere and penitential life, sweetened by meditation on the sufferings of our Lord. Afterwards he travelled over nearly all Europe and great part of Asia, preaching the Gospel and instituting everywhere the Sodality of the Seven Dolours of the Mother of God, while he propagated his Order by the wonderful example of his virtues.
Philip was consumed with love of God and zeal for the propagation of the Catholic faith. In spite of his refusal and resistance he was chosen to became fifth Father-General of the Order in 1267. He sent some of his brethren, to preach the Gospel in Scythia, while he himself journeyed from city to city of Italy repressing civil dissensions, and recalling many people to the obedience of the Roman Pontiff. His unremitting zeal for the salvation of souls won the most abandoned sinners from the depths of vice to a life of penance and to the true love of Jesus Christ. He was very much given to prayer and was often seen rapt in ecstasy. He loved and honoured holy virginity, and preserved it unspotted to the end of his life by means of the greatest voluntary austerities. He was remarkable for his love and pity for the poor. On one occasion when a poor leper begged an alms of him at Camegliano a village near Sienna, he gave him his own garment, which the beggar had no sooner put on than his leprosy was cleansed. The fame of this miracle having spread far and wide, some of the Cardinals who were assembled at Viterbo for the election of a successor to Pope Clement IV, then lately dead, thought of choosing Philip as they were aware of his heavenly prudence. On learning this, the man of God, fearing lest he should be forced to take upon himself the pastoral office, hid himself at Montamiata until after the election of Pope Gregory X. By his prayers he obtained for the baths of that place, which still bear his name, the virtue of healing the sick.
Philip died in 1285 at the age of 51, a most holy death at Todi while in the act of kissing the image of his crucified Lord, which he used to call his book. The blind and lame were healed at his tomb, and the dead were brought back to life. He was beatified by Pope Innocent X in 1645 and was canonised by Pope Clement X in 1671.
Dom Prosper Guéranger:
Our Lady is now reigning in Heaven. Her triumph over death cost her no labour, and yet it was through suffering that she like Jesus entered into her glory. We too cannot attain eternal happiness otherwise than did the Son and the Mother. Let us keep in mind the sweet joys we have been tasting during the past week. But let us not forget that our own journey to Heaven is not yet completed. “Why stand ye looking up into heaven?” said the Angels to the disciples on Ascension day, in the name of the Lord, who had gone up in a cloud. For the disciples, who had for an instant beheld the threshold of Heaven, could not resign themselves to turn their eyes once more down to this valley of exile. Mary, in her turn sends us a message today from the bright land to which we are to follow her, and where we will surround her after having in the sorrows of exile merited to form her court: without distracting us from her, the Apostle of her dolours, Philip Benizi, reminds us of our true condition as strangers and pilgrims on Earth.
“Combats without, fears within” (2 Corinthians vii. 5): such is for the most part was Philip’s life, as it was also the history of his native city Florence, of Italy too, and indeed of the whole Christian world in the 18th century. At the time of his birth, the city of flowers seemed a new Eden for the blossoms of sanctity that flourished there. Nevertheless it was a prey to bloody factions, to the assaults of heresy, and to the extremity of every misery. Never is Hell so near us as when Heaven manifests itself with greatest intensity. This was clearly seen in that age when the serpent’s head came in closest contact with the heel of the Woman. The old enemy, by creating new sects, had shaken the faith in the very centre of the provinces surrounding the Eternal City. While in the east Islam was driving back the last crusaders, in the West the Papacy was struggling with the empire which Frederick II had made as a fief of Satan. Throughout Christendom social union was undone, faith had grown weak, and love cold. But the old enemy was soon to discover the power of the reaction Heaven was preparing for the relief of the aged world. Then it was that our Lady presented to her angered Son Dominic and Francis, that, by uniting science with self-abnegation, they might counterbalance the ignorance and luxury of the world. Then too, Philip Benizi, the Servite of the Mother of God, received from her the mission of preaching through Italy, France and Germany the unspeakable sufferings by which she became the co-redemptress of the human race.
“Philip, draw near, and join yourself to this chariot” (Acts viii. 29). When the world was smiling on your youth and offering you renown and pleasure, you received this invitation from Mary. She was seated in a golden chariot which signified the religious life, a mourning mantle wrapped her round, a dove was fluttering about her head, a lion and a lamb were drawing her chariot over precipices from whose depths were heard the groans of Hell. It was a prophetic vision: you were to traverse the Earth accompanied by the Mother of Sorrows, and this world which Hell had already everywhere undermined, was to have no dangers for you: for gentleness and strength were to be your guides, and simplicity your inspirer: “Blessed are the meek, for they will possess the land” (Matthew v. 4).
But this gentle virtue was to avail you chiefly against Heaven itself: Heaven, which wrestles with the mighty, and which had in store for you the terrible trial of an utter abandonment, such as had made even the God-Man tremble. After years of prayer and labour, and heroic devotedness, for your reward you were apparently rejected by God and disowned by the Church, while imminent ruin threatened all those whom Mary had confided to you. In spite of her promises, the existence of your sons the Servites was assailed by no less an authority than that of two General Councils, whose resolutions the Vicar of Christ had determined to confirm. Our Lady gave you to drink of the chalice of her sufferings. You didst not live to see the triumph of a cause which was hers as well as yours. But the ancient patriarchs saluted from afar the accomplishment of the promises, so death could not shake your calm and resigned confidence.
You left your daughter Juliana Falconieri to obtain by her prayers before the face of the Lord what you could not gain from the powers of this world. The highest power on Earth was once all but laid at your feet. The Church, remembering the humility with which you fled from the tiara, begs you to obtain for us that we may despise the prosperity of the world and seek heavenly goods alone: deign to hear her prayer. But the Faithful have not forgotten that you were a physician of the body before becoming a healer of souls. They have great confidence in the water and bread blessed by your sons on this feast in memory of the miraculous favours granted to their father: graciously regard the faith of the people, and reward the special honour paid to you by Christian physicians. Now that the mysterious chariot shown you at the beginning has become the triumphal car on which you accompanied our Lady in her entrance into Heaven, teach us so to condole, like you, with her sorrows, that we may deserve to be partakers with you in her eternal glory.Also on this day according to the ROMAN MARTYROLOGY:
The vigil of St. Bartholomew, Apostle.
At Antioch, the birthday of the holy martyrs Restitutus, Donatus, Valerian and Fructuosa, with twelve others, who were crowned after having distinguished themselves by a glorious confession.
At Ostia, the holy martyrs Quiriacus, bishop, Maximus, priest, Archelaus, deacon, and their companions, who suffered under the prefect Ulpian in the time of Alexander.
At Ægaea in Cilicia, the holy martyrs Claudius, Asterius, and Neon, brothers, who were accused of being Christians by their step-mother, under the emperor Diocletian and the governor Lysias, and after enduring bitter torments, were fastened to a cross, and thus conquered and triumphed with Christ. After them suffered Donvina and Theonilla.
At Rheims in France, the birthday of the Saints Timothy and Apollinaris, who merited to enter the heavenly kingdom by consummating their martyrdom in that city.
At Lyons, the holy martyrs Minervus, and Eleazar with his eight sons.
Also St. Luppus, martyr, who, though a slave, enjoyed the liberty of Christ, and was likewise deemed worthy of the crown of martyrdom.
At Jerusalem, St. Zaccheus, bishop, who governed the church of that city the fourth after the blessed Apostle St. James.
At Alexandria, St. Theonas, bishop and confessor.
At Utic, in Africa, blessed Victor, bishop.
At Autun, St. Flavian, bishop.
At Clermont in Auvergne, St. Sidonius, a bishop distinguished for learning and sanctity.
And in other places, many other holy martyrs, confessors and virgins.
Thanks be to God.
