Our holy father St Philip had a knack for winning souls in a manner which could be simultaneously gentle and discomfiting. Francesco Zazzara was one of the jeunesse dorée of his day in Rome, a talented student of law with a circle of fashionable friends and a promising future at court. On one of his visits to the Oratory, he found himself lavished with compliments by our saint. “Oh happy you!” said St Philip, “now you are studying, then you shall be a doctor and begin to make money, and to advance your family; you will become an advocate and perhaps someday be raised to be a prelate...” As St Philip continued to list the honours and riches that young Zazzara could look forward to, he repeated “Oh happy you!” Zazzara's eyes widened in excitement as his spiritual father reached a crescendo in this panoply of praises with the exclamation: “Oh happy you! Then you will look for nothing more.” St Philip then pressed the boy's head close to his chest and whispered in his ear, “And then?” Those two words made such a searing impact on Zazzara that he could not sleep. Recalling all of the prospects that Philip had lain before him, he found himself asking himself over and over again “and then?” Unable to banish these words from his heart, he resolved to turn all of his thoughts and plans to God, and eventually entered the Congregation of the Oratory, in which he persevered until death and played an invaluable role in securing the canonisation of St Philip.
Most disciples of Our Lord are not called to the consecrated life. The majority of Christians must make a living in order to shelter and feed themselves and their loved ones. Commerce and the professions have their proper place within the dynamics of civilised society. Saint Philip, however, was acutely aware of the spiritual perils of disordered ambition and acquisitiveness, which can easily derail the sanctification and ultimately the salvation of the best of men. Our Lord Himself warns us that we cannot serve God and mammon. Some theologians have personified Mammon as a ferocious demon, to whom we enslave ourselves when we give in to the temptation of making worldly gain, and especially money, a priority in our lives. Mammon certainly becomes an idol when we allow it to topple Our Lord from the throne which He occupies in our hearts through Baptism. An expanding bank account might give us the impression that we are secure and prosperous, while all the time our soul is becoming ever more desiccated, malnourished and shrivelled.
The Gospel makes it clear to us where true riches are to be found: “Seek ye first the kingdom of God and His justice,” Our Lord teaches us, “and all these things shall be added unto you.” We reap in eternity what is sown in this life. We know from what has been revealed to us that Heaven is a hierarchy, where Our Lord reigns as King, and His Mother is Queen over the Angels and Saints. In contrast to earthly societies, however, the hierarchy to be found in Heaven is one of holiness. It is those saints whose hearts have been expanded most by the exercise of the supernatural virtue of Charity who are most like God and closest to His Throne. Whether we are able to enter the glory of Heaven will depend on whether our souls are found to be in a state of grace at our particular judgment. If, pray God, that judgment is favourable, then we must be purified in Purgatory of any undue attachments that we have retained towards earthly possessions. Our eventual capacity for participating in the glory of Heaven will depend on how much we have loved God and our neighbour in this life. Now, then, is the time for us to be earning treasures for ourselves in eternity. Saint Philip, who was vouchsafed extraordinary glimpses of heavenly realities during his life, and who enjoyed a profound peace and joy made possible by a detachment from created things, to which we are all called, used to say, “He who desires anything other than God deceives himself, and he who loves anything but God errs miserably.” To be truly and magnificently rich in eternity, we must cultivate poverty in spirit and detachment from worldly gain in the here and now. The more we give, now, for the love of God, the more we shall receive in the way of imperishable treasures.
Our Lord's warning about mammon is issued in His Sermon on the Mount, soon after He has taught us to petition God for “our daily bread” in the Our Father. The Douay Rheims version of Holy Scripture renders “daily bread” in St Matthew's Gospel as “supersubstantial bread”. The two translations are beautifully complementary and mutually illuminative. Praying for our daily sustenance saves us from habits of hoarding and avarice which create spiritual starvation. In the Blessed Sacrament, Our Lord feeds us with His very Self so that we are truly rich and well-nourished beyond imagination.
Like young Francesco Zazzara, we should learn to ask ourselves often the question “and then?”, with an eye on that eternally-defining moment when our souls depart from our bodies and we find ourselves naked, with no earthly possessions to hide behind, at our particular judgment. We ask our holy father St Philip to intercede for us, so that like him we may be blessed with a spirit of detachment from worldly goods which liberates us to love God and our neighbour with the greatest possible generosity.
Father Julian Large