Saint Philip Benizi

Philip was born in Florence on August 15, 1233, into a noble family. ¹³ The 1913 Catholic Encyclopedia names his parents' families as the Benizi and the Frescobaldi, and says they had been childless for many years and received him as an answer to prayer. ¹ Its writer, Charles McGinnis, passes on a story from the Servite tradition: that at five months old, seeing two of the order's founders come to the door begging, the baby told his mother that Our Lady's Servants were coming and she should give them alms. ¹

The date of his birth mattered to his order. The encyclopedia's article on the Servants of Mary notes that he was born on the feast of the Assumption, the day in 1233 when, by the order's account, the Virgin first appeared to the seven Florentines who founded it. ⁴

At thirteen he was sent to the University of Paris, and he finished his studies in medicine at Padua. ¹³ The Dicastery for the Causes of Saints says he took a doctorate in medicine and philosophy there at nineteen. ³ He practiced medicine in Florence for a year, mostly among the poor, and the Dicastery adds that he spent his spare time reading the Bible and the Fathers of the Church. ¹³

McGinnis says a vision of the Virgin directed him to the Servites, and that Saint Buonfiglio, the order's first superior, received him in 1254. ¹ He asked to be enrolled as a lay brother rather than as a cleric, and was sent to Monte Senario, the order's hermitage in the hills north of Florence, where McGinnis says a fountain sprang up in his grotto and was still to be seen, enclosed in a small chapel, in 1911. ¹² The Dicastery says he spent five years doing the humblest work of the house. ³

In 1258, on a journey to Siena, the learning he had kept to himself was discovered, and he was at once told to prepare for ordination. ¹ He was ordained the next year by the Bishop of Florence. ¹ McGinnis says he drew his holiness chiefly from the Passion of Jesus and the Sorrows of Mary, which the "Servants of Mary" article names as the order's distinctive spirit. ¹⁴ The Dicastery says he was made master of novices, and McGinnis that he rose quickly through the offices of the order until, on June 5, 1267, he was elected prior general unanimously. ¹³

Philip Griffin, writing on the Servites in the same encyclopedia, says that with Philip's election the order "entered into the crisis of its existence." ² The Second Council of Lyons in 1274 suppressed every mendicant order not yet approved by the Holy See, and the Servites' enemies pressed the point; in 1276 Innocent V wrote to Philip declaring the order suppressed. ² Philip set out for Rome, but Innocent died before he arrived, and his successor lived only five weeks. ² It was John XXI who, on the advice of three consistorial advocates, decided that the Servites should go on as before. ²

McGinnis says Philip was at the Council of Lyons in 1274 and spoke there with the gift of tongues. ¹ The Dicastery credits him with the writing of the order's constitutions, and the "Servants of Mary" article says he carried on the founders' work so fully that he earned the title of the order's Eighth Founder. ³⁴

After Clement IV died in 1268, McGinnis says, the cardinals were about to elect Philip pope, and he fled and hid until they had chosen someone else. ¹

The quarrel between Guelphs and Ghibellines was at its fiercest in these years, and McGinnis says Philip worked as a peacemaker in city after city, especially in Florence, Pistoia, Arezzo, Forli and Bologna. ¹ Griffin tells what happened at Forli, where Philip had gone at the request of Martin IV to preach peace. ² A young man named Peregrine Laziosi, son of a Ghibelline leader, insulted him and struck him. ² The mildness with which Philip took the blow moved Peregrine to ask his forgiveness, and in 1283 Peregrine entered the Servites himself; he too was later canonized. ²

Among those Philip received was Juliana Falconieri, the niece of one of the seven founders. ⁵ He gave her the habit of the order's Third Order and a rule to live by, about 1285 according to Johann Peter Kirsch and in 1284 according to the "Servants of Mary" article. ⁴⁵ She became the foundress of the Servite sisters called the Mantellate. ¹⁵

Knowing his end was near, McGinnis says, Philip handed the government of the order to Blessed Lotharingus and went to Todi, in Umbria, where he chose the smallest and poorest house of the order to die in. ¹ The Dicastery says he died there on his way back from Rome. ³ It dates his death August 22, 1285; McGinnis gives August 23. ¹³

McGinnis reports many miracles at his intercession afterward, "even the dead were raised to life." ¹ Innocent X beatified him on October 8, 1645, according to the Dicastery. ³ It names Clement X as the pope who canonized him, on April 12, 1671; McGinnis names Clement IX. ¹³ His body is kept at Todi, in the sanctuary dedicated to him. ³

None of the sources consulted names a patronage for Saint Philip Benizi, and this page does not supply one. ¹³ He is honored above all within his own order, which the 1910 encyclopedia says called him its Eighth Founder. ⁴

The Dicastery for the Causes of Saints lists Saint Philip Benizi's liturgical memorial on August 22, the date it gives for his death. ³ The 1913 Catholic Encyclopedia lists his feast among the Servite saints on August 23, and dates his death to that day as well. ¹²

He came to the Servites with a medical degree from Padua and asked to be the brother who did the chores. ¹³ For five years, by the Dicastery's account, that is what he was, until his learning was discovered by accident on a journey to Siena. ¹³

Most of what he did afterward was administration under pressure: a general whose order was declared suppressed, who went to Rome to argue for it and found the pope dead. ² The sources do not record any single dramatic victory. A council, three popes and three consistorial advocates decided the matter, and he kept the order going while they did. ²

The encounter at Forli is the one people remember. A young man struck him, Philip did not answer in kind, and the young man asked to be forgiven and later joined the order. ² Griffin tells it in a few lines, and there is no more to it than that.

He ended his life by choosing the poorest house he had, at Todi, and giving up the office before he died. ¹