You're listening to Catholic Sprouts, the daily podcast for Catholic kids that strives to plant seeds of faith.

Hey there, Sprouse. Today is Wednesday, May 26, 2021. Today is also the feast day of one of my favorite saints, St. Philip Neri.

St. Philip Neri is the patron saint of Rome. He is also the patron saint of laughter.

Now, if you think that all of the saints in heaven are very serious and stuffy, then you need to meet St. Philip Neri.

He loved a good laugh. He would oftentimes play pranks on young seminarians. He would tell them to go somewhere but deliberately give them the wrong directions and then laugh about them getting lost. But he also knew that humor or being

able to laugh at ourselves is the great way to practice humility. If we can't make fun of ourselves

and laugh, then we're probably becoming too proud.

And as Christians, we know, we need to be humble. We need to not take ourselves quite so seriously.

One of my favorite St. Philip Nerey's stories is he was a priest and he was the leader of a group of priests that were doing

some incredible work among the poor and just in reforming the church. So he was the leader, a very

well-respected man. And he went to a meeting, but he knew he was a little worried that he was

becoming too proud, that people were helping him fall in

love with himself a little too much.

So what he did before he went to the meeting is that he shaved off half of his beard, just

half of it.

So imagine person with a big bushy beard and they shave off just the left side of their

beard.

They would look pretty strange. Even beard, they would look pretty strange.

Even then, you would look pretty strange. So he showed up to this meeting where everyone

respected him and loved him so much. And he pretended like he had no idea what they were talking

about when they giggled or when they looked confused, just because he thought it was funny and it was helpful

for him to stay humble. So stay humble, be able to laugh at yourself and St. Philip Neri, pray for us.

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