DAUG H TE RS O F ST. PHILIP NERI Secular Oratorians Dedicated to Adoration, Reparation, and Spiritual Motherhood T H E P I T T S B U R G H O R A T O RY 4450 Bayard Street,, Pittsburgh PA 15213 412-681-3181 www.daughtersofspn.blogspot.com
T HE RULE OF THE DAUGHTERS A Way of Life Let us concentrate intensely on Christ s divine love and let us enter deeply into the wound in His side, into the living font of the wisdom of God made man, so as to drown ourselves in Him and not be able to find again the road which leaves Him. (St. Philip Neri) The quote above captures poignantly the desires and hopes of the Daughters of St. Philip Neri who seek like their Patron (Heart of Fire and Martyr of Charity) to enter and remain hidden close to the heart of Christ so that enflamed by His Spirit of love their lives may become a sacrifice of praise to God. Reflecting on the difficult situation in which Christ s Church struggles, they resolve to make their humble contribution to renew the life of the Christian faithful and in particular the priesthood through their dedication to Adoration, Reparation, and Spiritual Motherhood for Priests. The Daughter of St. Philip Neri lives this out in imitation of the Blessed Virgin Mary by embracing the Will of God in joy and in sorrow, health and infirmity, prosperity and want, companionship and solitude, light and obscurity. In a word, she sees in every event of life an opportunity to enter, with the Blessed Virgin Mary, into the sacrifice of Christ the Priest. In this way, a Daughter of St. Philip Neri can participate in the spiritual fecundity of the Mother of the Redeemer who, by her constant intercession, cares for the gift of life that ever flows from the open Heart of her Son, and cooperates with a mother s love in the birth and upbringing of Christ s faithful, her children. It is to be understood, then, that the Daughter of St. Philip Neri embraces these realities not as an occasional devotion; they express, rather, the direction given to her whole life and the very nature of her womanhood and the need that exists everywhere for maternal sympathy and help for all those who are belabored and burdened. For example, her adoration
may be said to be perpetual not because she never leaves her prie-dieu before the altar; it is perpetual because she makes the Most Holy Eucharist the treasure of her life. A Daughter of St. Philip Neri seeks to live only from the life of Jesus Christ in this divine Mystery. She does this, however, not only through her adoration of the Lord in the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass and through continuing that adoration in time spent before the Blessed Sacrament. She also seeks in her heart to love and adore Him always, and in all her actions remain constantly united to Him. Therefore, even if nearly all Christians were ungrateful towards this mystery of love, she, at least, will not be and she will recognize the gift of God. The Lord yearns for souls who would know how to appreciate its value, and it is to this desire that a Daughter of St. Philip Neri seeks to respond; that Jesus may find abundantly in her the glory and the delight that others refuse Him elsewhere She seeks by her ardor, to worthily repair for the coldness and impiety of so many others. The fact that the deepest sorrows of Christ's Heart are the scandals that involve His "other selves," His priests whom He has so loved and has so desired to draw into the highest sanctity, shapes the response of the Daughter of St. Philip Neri. The evidence of infidelity in priests should arouse in her heart the wish to expiate. Not by prayer alone, but by prayer and mortification. This need not mean extraordinary bodily austerities. But it does mean the patient endurance of whatever trials the Lord may send; or the withdrawal of the pleasures and satisfactions previously had; or the silent endurance of rejection and mistrust; or the quiet bearing up with a painful illness, disability or wasting disease. What form the mortification takes is secondary. What is primary is the will to expiate. And this will should become imperative: Progressively, yet always with the restraint that is guided by humble obedience to spiritual direction, the Daughter of St. Philip Neri must develop a thirst for reparation that intensifies as she grows in her love of Jesus Christ. She earnestly seeks to learn the art of reparation so that the very little things that bother her, the little trivia of human limitations around her, the little contradictions and disappointments, can all be gathered up and offered in reparation. They become the myrrh of life. Thus, it is the ever growing love for Christ and desire to make reparation for sins that is the essence and source of the Spiritual Maternity of the Daughter of St. Philip Neri. This "vocation within a vocation" is held out to her as a way of life and a call to a deeper self-offering to God within the context of her daily life and vocation. The espousal of the soul to Christ and the depth of that union is at the core of Spiritual Motherhood and is the source of its generativity and the promise of the fruit of her intercession on behalf of priests
Daily Self-Offering and Prayer for Priests Jesus, my Beloved, I offer You joyfully my daily work. I abandon myself to You, so that it will be You who love with my heart, You who work with my hands. Lord Jesus, I abandon myself joyfully to You. Let my fiat be as complete and fruitful as Your Mother Mary s; born of faith and perfected by love. Accept this offering made in gratitude and may it bring consolation to Your sweet and loving Heart. Lord, through Your Spirit and to the glory of the God the Father, I offer myself to You now and always as a Daughter of St. Philip Neri. I prayer that You enflame my heart with love for You. May you find in me and my desire to do Your will some small comfort and consolation in the face of the world s coldness and impiety. I long to quench Your thirst for love and that the desire of Your Heart may be met with the response of loving gratitude by all; especially Your priests to whom You have entrusted the care of souls and celebration of Your Holy Mysteries. Help me to accept all my trials, small or great; to gather them up and lay them before You in reparation. To these I add my humble prayers and mortifications and offer them all to You in loving adoration. May it be as a sweet smelling ointment and healing balm for the wounds You bear on our behalf.
A Year of Discernment and Devotional Practices Those who are interested in the Daughters of St. Philip Neri begin with an initial period of inquiry including:... meeting with the Prefect of the DSPN to discuss the nature of this vocation within a vocation, its commitments and its relationship to the Pittsburgh Oratory. During this time they are welcome to come to the monthly gathering of of the DSPN on the Third Saturday of each month that includes Mass at 9am, followed by a gathering with refreshments and a discussion focused on one of the posts from the Daughters website. Potential members are invited to participate frequently in the devotional practices of the DSPN as they are able: Mass, Eucharistic Adoration, regular Confession, the Oratory s First Friday Vigil, a Thursday night holy hour in honor of Our Lord s Agony in Gethsemane (prayed in the Oratory Chapel at 10pm or anytime at home), offering Precious Blood of Our Lord chaplet for priests (on back cover), and making frequent acts of spiritual communion throughout the day. Once a person believes she is prepared to take on the commitment and practices of the DSPN and has discussed the matter with her spiritual director or confessor, she may choose to consecrate herself to a year-long period of discernment (see Act of Consecration on the following page) during which she continues to engage as fully as she can in the practices outlined above in a spirit of joy and humility. At the conclusion of that year a more lasting and/or permanent commitment may be embraced.
Act of Consecration My beloved One. My Jesus. Today I make a gift of myself to You, asking You by this consecration to make me holy. I renounce all fear, all selfishness, and all control. My heart, though small and weak, is all Yours. I hold nothing back from You. I wish to become one with You and Your Blessed Mother Mary in uttering a perfect Fiat. Fiat My Jesus, Thy will be done. My intention is to spend my life in adoration of You; to be a constant beholder of Your Holy Eucharistic Face, and a sacrifice on the altar of reparation to Your Sacred and ever-broken Heart. Accept my heart, My Jesus, as a chalice in which Your Precious Blood is received with reverence and love; as a mantle thrown over Your broken body to shield and comfort You amongst the scorn, mockery, and ridicule of the world; as a vessel, filled with the sweet unction of Your love, until at the efficacious time You break this vessel and allow Your love to pour out over the whole world. On all the world, yes, but most especially on Your priests, for whose sake I make this offering. As mother to them I desire to be a means by which Your priests are purified and sanctified a source of nourishment, encouragement, and above all love. Enable me, Jesus, through Your strength, to be a true mother to my sons, allowing me, when they fall short of their glorious calling, I will take their place: when they do not pray, I will pray; when they do not make sacrifice, I will make it. Uniting my acts, small and great, to Your most Divine Life, I desire to offer a continual act of reparation, until every priest becomes the perfect likeness of You, the perfect High Priest, and spotless Lamb of sacrifice. In my heart, united to Yours, let none of them be lost. Embarking then upon this year of discernment, I ask the special protection, patronage, and guidance of St. Philip Neri. As his daughter, I desire to grow in the virtues he so beautifully exemplified: Humility, Purity, Hiddenness, Compassion, Charity, and Joy. My Jesus, form me, so that my life may be concentrated entirely on Your divine love. Allow me to enter so deeply into the wound in Your precious side that I may never be able to find again the road which leaves You. Amen
Members of the Secular Oratory How did the Oratory begin? - With laypeople gathered for prayer and spiritual reading, for conversation and recreation, and for the care of those in need. St. Philip was at the heart of the group, of course. Yet how unobtrusive he was He desired to bring his friends to Christ, not to himself. Christ was to be found in the sacraments, in Holy Scripture, in the lives of the saints and the history of the Church and also in other people, especially the poor and the sick, to care for whom is to care for Christ. The Oratory was not particularly dramatic or especially demanding. All sorts belonged, drawn simply by their sense that here, from St. Philip, they could learn how to make progress in knowing and loving our Lord. Those who participate today in the Secular Oratory are among their successors. Keeping Philip s original way in mind, the Secular Oratory is not so much a formal confraternity or third order as it is an association of all those who wish to serve God under Philip s gentle guidance. No specific commitment is required, other than the desire to attend when one can and to grow in one s faith. It is also a special blessing for us to receive St. Philip s spirit from the hands of Blessed John Henry Newman. Newman understood that spirit; he knew that in our relations with God and with each other, we must try to leave behind all that is wrong, false and pretentious, so that, in all simplicity, heart can speak to heart. This is what Saint Philip wants for those who take him as a special patron: simply and intimately, to know Christ. As members of the Secular Oratory, it is the aim of the Daughters of St. Philip Neri (each one as far she can) to seek that knowledge in Saint Philip s way and Newman s: in prayer and devotion, through the bonds of Christian friendship and in works of practical charity.
Offering of the Precious Blood for Priests Like most chaplets or repetitive prayers, this Offering of the Precious Blood for Priests is meant to be prayed quietly and gently as a way of turning into prayer (oratio), the Word of God received (lectio), and meditated (meditatio). This sort of prayer can, by the grace of God, lead one to a simple abiding in adoration in the presence of God (contemplatio). Offering of the Precious Blood for Priests This chaplet of reparation and intercession is meant to be prayed on an ordinary five decade rosary. Incline (+) unto my aid, O God; O Lord, make haste to help me. Glory be to the Father, and to the Son, and to the Holy Ghost; As it was in the beginning, is now, and ever shall be, world without end. Amen. Alleluia. On the Our Father beads: Eternal Father, I offer Thee the Precious Blood of Thy Beloved Son, our Lord Jesus Christ, the Lamb without blemish or spot (1 Peter 1:19) in reparation for my sins and for the sins of all Thy priests. On the Hail Mary beads: By Thy Precious Blood, O Jesus, purify and sanctify Thy priests. In place of the Glory be to the Father: O Father, from whom all fatherhood in heaven and on earth is named (Ephesians 3:14), have mercy on all Thy priests, and wash them in the Blood of the Lamb.