Sermon from Cardinal Wiseman on St Philip Neri. Excerpt: Sermon Psalm 118:23 "Viam mandatorum tuorum cucurricum dilatasti cor meum." "I have run the way of Thy commandments, when Thou didst enlarge my heart." If we saw a man running with the greatest speed and anxiety along a steep and arduous path, we should naturally expect to find his eyes intently fixed, his countenance flushed and glowing, his limbs, and his whole frame, convulsed and quivering. And we should well know that all these visible and exterior symptoms were only indicative of one which we could not, indeed, behold: we should know that his heart was beating and throbbing, that it felt to him as though it were seeking to burst through the very walls of its prison, against which it was beating, heavy and distinct. And when at length he rested in his flight, were it from the influence of fear or the eagerness of hope, we should not perhaps see him seek to repose his weary limbs by casting himself down, but we should see him press his hands upon his bosom, as if to check and compose the panting of his swelling heart, and to confine it within its ordinary limits. It is the same in the world of grace, which bears such analogy to that of nature. He who runs in the way of God's commandments may, like David speak the words of my text, "Viam mandatorum tuorum cucurricum dilatasti cor meum," "I have run the way of Thy commandments, when Thou didst enlarge my heart."-but he will check himself, and since "non volentis, neque currentis, sed miserentis est Dei," "it is not of him that willeth, nor of him that runneth, but of God alone who gives mercy"-he will say "cum dilatasti cor meum," "when Thou hast enlarged my heart." I have run to the best of my power along the way of Thy commandments, but it is Thou alone who hast enlarged my heart. If this could have been, at any period, and in any part of the Church, the language of a Saint, in none surely has it been more simply, more completely and more literally fulfilled, than in the Saint of this day, the Saint to whom the Church especially applies these words: the Saint who of all others, addressing God, could have said at the end of his life, "I have run the way of Thy commandments, for Thou hast enlarged my heart." The Blessed Saint Philip could have spoken those words, and no doubt often did speak them, in the fervour of his love, his gratitude and his praise; especially in that last hour of his life, when he looked up smiling to Heaven, and rendered back to God, not only the soul, which had already tasted the joys of Heaven, but the heart, that had gone before him, overflowing beyond the ordinary measure with grace and with love. Then let us see this day how these words could be applied to him; how they give us the key to the peculiar character of holiness with which God was pleased to adorn him.
Excerpt: The subject of the address which I am about to deliver is as follows: Events and things which have been considered legendary, or even fabulous, have been proved by further research to be historical and true. Before coming directly to the subject upon which I wish to occupy your attention, I will give a little account of a very extraordinary discovery which may throw some light upon the general character and tendency of our investigation. In the year 1775 Pius VI. laid the foundation of the sacristy of St. Peter's. Of course, as is the case whenever the ground is turned up in Rome, a number of inscriptions came to light; these were carefully put aside, and formed the lining, if I may so say, of the corridor which unites the sacristy with the church. It was observed, however, that a great many of these inscriptions referred to the same subject, and a subject which was totally unknown to antiquarians: they all spoke of certain Arval Brethren-Fratres Arvales. Some were mere fragments, others were entire inscriptions. These, to the number of sixty-seven, were carefully put together and illustrated by the then librarian of the Vatican, Mgr. Marini. It was an age when in Rome antiquarian learning abounded. There were many, perhaps, who could have undertaken the task, but it naturally belonged to him as being attached to the church near which the inscriptions were found. He put the fragments together, collated them one with another, and with the entire inscriptions. He procured copies at least, when he could not examine the originals, of such other slight fragments as seemed to have reference to the subject, the key having now been found, and the result was two quarto volumes, (Footnote 80) giving us the entire history, constitution, and ritual of this singular fraternity. Before this period two brief notices in Varro, one passage in Pliny, and allusions in two later writers, Minutius Felix and Fulgentius, were all that was known concerning it. One merely told the origin of it from the time of the kings, and the others only stated that it had something to do with questions about land and there the matter ended.
There have been some men in the world's history-and they are necessarily few-who by their deaths have deprived mankind of the power to do justice to their merits, in those particular spheres of excellence in which they had been pre-eminent. When the "immortal" Raphael for the last time laid down his palette, still moist with the brilliant colors which he had spread upon his unfinished masterpiece, destined to be exposed to admiration above his bier, he left none behind him who could worthily depict and transmit to us his beautiful lineaments: so that posterity has had to seek in his own paintings, among the guards at a sepulchre, or among the youthful disciples in an ancient school, some figure which may be considered as representing himself. When his mighty rival, Michelangelo, cast down that massive chisel which no one after him was worthy or able to wield, none survived him who could venture to repeat in marble the rugged grandeur of his countenance; but we imagine that we can trace in the head of some unfinished satyr, or in the sublime countenance of his Moses, the natural or the idealized type from which he drew his stern and noble inspirations. And, to turn to another great art, when Mozart closed his last uncompleted score, and laid him down to pass from the regions of earthly to those of heavenly music, which none had so closely approached as he, the science over which he ruled could find no strains in which worthily to mourn him except his own, and was compelled to sing for the first time his own marvelous requiem at his funeral. No less can it be said that when the pen dropped from Shakespeare's hand, when his last mortal illness mastered the strength of even his genius, the world was left powerless to describe in writing his noble and unrivalled characteristics. Hence we turn back upon himself, and endeavor to draw from his own works the only true records of his genius and his mind. (1)
