Philip Benizi (1233-1285) was an Italian friar, the fifth Prior General of the Order of the Servants of Mary (Servites), known for his profound spirituality and rigorous humility. His spiritual work was marked by the expansion and consolidation of the Servite Order, establishing convents and encouraging devotion to Our Lady of Sorrows. His humility was so exemplary that, upon being elected to the pontificate in 1268, he fled to avoid accepting the position, demonstrating complete detachment from worldly honors, which perfectly echoes the Gospel of the day.
🌿 Introit (Ps 91, 13-14 | ib., 2)
Justus ut palma florébit... The just man shall flourish like the palm tree; he shall grow up like the cedar of Libanus: they that are planted in the house of the Lord, shall flourish in the courts of the house of our God. Ps. It is good to give praise to the Lord: and to sing to thy name, O Most High.
⚔️ Epistle (I Cor 4, 9-14)
Brethren: We are made a spectacle to the world, and to Angels, and to men. We are fools for Christ’s sake, but you are wise in Christ; we are weak, but you are strong; you are honourable, but we without honour. Even unto this hour we both hunger and thirst, and are naked, and are buffeted, and have no fixed abode. And we labour, working with our own hands. We are reviled, and we bless; we are persecuted, and we suffer it. We are blasphemed, and we entreat; we are made as the filth of the world, the offscouring of all even until now. I write not these things to confound you; but I admonish you as my dearest children, in Christ Jesus our Lord.
🕊️ Gospel (Lk 12, 32-34)
At that time, Jesus said to his disciples: Fear not, little flock, for it hath pleased your Father to give you a kingdom. Sell what you possess and give alms. Make to yourselves bags which grow not old, a treasure in heaven which faileth not: where no thief approacheth, nor moth corrupteth. For where your treasure is, there will your heart be also.
💡 Reflections
📜 The heart of man follows its treasure; if earthly, the heart is earthbound; if heavenly, the heart is lifted up. (Saint Augustine, Sermon 38, On the words of the Gospel, Luke 12:34). We are made a spectacle because we endure those things which the world finds contemptible, yet in which true wisdom resides. (Saint John Chrysostom, Homily 12 on First Corinthians). If we are a small flock, let us not fear the wolves, for the Father, whose pleasure it is to give us the Kingdom, is greater than all. (Saint Cyprian of Carthage, Treatise 3, On the Unity of the Catholic Church).
⚖️ While Luke 12:32-34, by commanding, “Sell what you possess and give alms,” demands an active and practical renunciation of property for immediate charity, Matthew 6:19-21, though addressing the same topic of inexhaustible treasure, focuses primarily on the intrinsic opposition between storing riches on earth versus in heaven, placing this teaching within the broader context of the Law’s fulfillment during the Sermon on the Mount.
🔗 The Gospel on detaching from earthly goods to focus on heavenly treasure is powerfully supplemented by Saint Paul in the Epistle to the Colossians, where he exhorts the faithful to seek the things that are above, and not those on earth, for their life is hidden with Christ. The attitude of extreme humility and detachment shown by Saint Philip Benizi, who fled the honor of the Papacy, is justified by the Pauline exhortation to the Philippians, where the Apostle counts all his achievements and advantages as loss and refuse in order to gain Christ.
🏛️ The Church, throughout its magisterial documents, confirms the centrality of charity and the evangelical detachment exemplified by Saint Philip Benizi; the Encyclical Rerum Novarum (1891), in discussing private property, emphasizes that the primary purpose of material goods is to enable the individual to live virtuously and practice charity, aligning directly with Luke's command to "give alms" as a means of accumulating heavenly treasure. The focus on the Kingdom, as the goal of the "little flock," is reinforced by the condemnation of materialism and excessive attachment to earthly riches in documents like Quadragesimo Anno, which reiterates that the solution to social crises lies in returning to the evangelical law of detachment and love.
