Sunday, April 06, 2003

From the homily
Fr. Drew celebrated the noon Mass at Heinz Chapel today. His homily included one of my favorite St. Philip stories, which I duly record here.
One of St. Philip's followers, Agostino Manni, had recently been ordained to the priesthood. Early in his ministry, he was preparing a sermon. Actually, he didn't just prepare it. He polished that sermon until it glistened, and when he preached it, his listeners were spellbound. Afterwards, various people came up and congratulated him on preaching so well. Fr. Manni, listening to all this praise, began to feel, well, pleased with himself.
Philip had been listening as well, and Fr. Manni asked him what he had thought. Fr. Philip said he thought it was brilliant. In fact, he said people ought to hear it again, and promptly ordered he should preach the same sermon again. Word for word. For the next six times he preached ! By the time that was over, Fr. Agostino's temptation to vainglory was dead and buried, mostly from hearing people say as he came in, "Oh, no ! Not that poor priest who only has one sermon again ! "


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