“Evaristus, Lent, and the Joy of St. Philip Neri — How the Early Church Formed Us”

0:15 Hi everyone, I am Jeff and this is fundamentally Catholic. It's where we take the big ancient Catholic story and make it simple, clear and actually interesting. Now today we're going to step into the early second century. It is when Christianity is shifting from the age of the Apostles to the age of the Church Fathers. And right in the middle of the transition stands the fifth Pope, Pope Saint eva Ristas. Now I'll be straight with you, Everistas, it's not like Pope Clement. We don't have letters from him, and we don't have dramatic accounts of his martyrdom. We don't have a long biography. What we do have, though, is enough to paint a surprisingly rich picture if we understand the world that he lived in. Let's start with what we know for a fact, then we'll move into what the early Church strongly believed about him. He was born in Bethlehem, sometimes in the late first century. His father was Jewish Greek. That means, Everistas, he grew up where Jewish faith in Greek and culture that was constantly interacting.

1:08 So that brings us to a word that might be new to some of you. So what is a Hellenized Jew. Well, think of it this way. If you were raised in a Hispanic household in the United States, you might speak English at school and then speak Spanish at home. Now you're fully a part of both worlds, and neither world actually councils the other one out Helenized jew it was pretty similar. They were Jewish in faith and ancestry, but they lived in a world shaped by Greek language, Greek education, and Greek cultural norms. So Everistas he would have spoken Greek, understand Jewish scripture, navigated Roman society, and been comfortable in multicultural settings. Now that actually made him perfectly suited for leadership in the early Church, which was exploiting across cultural boundaries. Everista He became pope between ninety eight and one hundred eight d. He served into about one oh seven or one o eight. Now what is huge. His papacy overlapped with the death of Saint John the Apostle. That means, Everistas he was the first pope to lead the church after the Apostolic era officially ended. No more living eyewitnesses to Jesus, no more apostles to consult. The church is now fully in the hands of the bishops. The most historically granted claim about Everistus is administrative. He divided the city of Rome into districts. He assigned priests to specific titles that early as perishes. He formalized the role of the deacons, especially as official witnesses and assistants to the bishop.

2:24 In other words, if Pope Clement were the voice of authority and unity of the Catholic Church, Pope Everistus he was the quiet architect who helpedformed the Roman Church into a functioning, organized community. This is when the Church starts looking yeah, less like a persecuted movement, more like a structural body. What is strongly believed but not proven is his martyrdom. Now, many early lists they call Everistus a martyr, but there is no surviving ed as the subscribing power. When he died, it's possibly died peacefully, as possibly died violently. We simply don't know. Now the early Church, they tended to assume that any pope under a hostile emperor was a martyr. Aristus he lived under Tajhon. Yeah, he was not friendly to Christians, so the tradition was understandable, but it's not historically confirmed. As for his exact writings. Some ancient sources they claim he issue decrees, but none of have survived. We don't know his teaching style, his personality, or his pastoral voice. What we can't say is the church remembers him as a stabilizer, someone who kept the community unified and structured during a delicate transition. So why have eristis? Did it matters today? Well, if you've ever had a priest assigned to your church, are you interacted with the deacon or are you've seen a church organized into a diocesis and districts and that kind of stuff? Yeah, you've seen. The legacy of everistis. He is the pope to well turn the church from a family of believers into a structured shepherd or fluck. He is reminded that not every scene is dramatic. Some states build quietly, some states organized, and some states they stabilized. So from Bethlehem to Rome, from multicultural Jewish Greek cup bringing to the chair of Saint Peter Everista as he stands as one

3:56 of the early architects of the church that we know today, a man who led the flog says, the last apostle left the world, and he helped shape the structure that would carry the gospel forward for centuries. All right, since we're in lint right now, let's take a moment and talk about where the season actually comes from. Because, believe it or not, the early Christians did not wake up one day and just say, hey, forty days of fasting. That sounds fun, let's do it. Nah, Like most things in the church, lint grew slowly, organically and with purpose. In the very earliest church, like when Everistus was there, Christians the absolutely fastest. But it wasn't a forty day season. Yet. What we do know Christians fasted before Easter. Now the lenk varied by region. Some fasted one day, some fasted two days, some fasted an entire week leading up to Easter.

4:39 So the instinct was there preparation for the resurrection with prayer and fasting, but it wasn't standardized. The forty day pattern emerges in the third and fourth century. By the two hundreds we start seeing references to a longer preparation period. Why forty days, well, because in scripture, forty is a number of preparation, purification, and transition. Think about it, forty days of rain in the flood, forty years in the desert, forty days Moses fasted, and forty days Jesus fasted than the wilderness. So Christians began to imitate Jesus's forty day fast as a way I prepare for Easter. The Council of Nicea three twenty five eight D. Now, this is the moment that LNT became universal. The Council of Nicea, it's the same council that gave us a Nicean creed, refers to the forty days as something the whole church recognizes.

5:22 That means by the early three hundreds, LNT is forty days. It is tied to baptismal preparation, it is tied to penance, and is tied to the Peshal mystery. That's all mystery. It's the story of Jesus suffering, dying, rising and returning to Father. For us, this is where LNT starts looking like what we know today. By the Middle Ages, LENT becomes a strict fast, no meat, no dairy, one meal a day, and a heavy emphasis on confession and penance. It's at this time that we get things like Marti Gaus, you know, Fat Tuesday and Carnival farewell to meat. Yeah, people were literally cleaning out their pantries before the fast. Today, the modern church, it keeps the spirit of lent, prayer, fasting, alms, giving preparation for Easter. But the discipline is gentler. Ash Wednesday and Good Friday are both fast days. Fridays are days of abstinence. Now the focus on his conversion of heart, not just dietary rules. The heart of Lint remains the same.

6:12 It's a season of turning back to God. So all right, after talking about lint, fasting, discipline, self denial, let's talk about a saint who reminds us that holiness does not have to feel like spiritual tax season. Some saints fot dragons, some wrote theological masterpieces. And then there was Saint Philip Neary, who once shaved half his beard before an important meaning, just to keep himself humble. Yeah you heard that right. Half The one side was smooth as a baby. The other side made him look like a renaissance lumberjack. Philip Neary, he is a saint who proves that joy is not only allowed in Christian life, it's essential. He played jokes, he made people laugh, He broke down pride with humor, and he had an uncommon ability to make holiness feel well human. Now here's the thing, Philip. He wasn't canonized because he was the class clown of the fifteen hundreds.

6:56 His human was the surface. Underneath was a man of astonishing depth, discipline, and spiritual fire. Let's meet that man behind the jokes. Philip was born in Florence in fifteen fifteen. It was right in the middle of the Renaissance, the time of art and beauty. But there's also a whole lot of corruption going on. Everyone expecting him to become a successful businessman. Instead, he moved to Rome as a young man and lived almost like a lay monk. He spent his nights in prayer. He spent his days serving the poor. He studied scripture, visited hospitals, and tutored kids for free. He wasn't ordained, yet, he wasn't famous. He was simply falling in love with God. Rome. In Philip's day it was spiritually exhausted. People were cynecal the skurs and drifting. Philip. He didn't fix Rome by preaching doom and gloom. He fixed it by loving people back to God.

7:39 He walked the streets, he talked to strangers. He listened to people's stories. He brought warmth where there was coldness. People followed him because he radiated something they wanted, peace, joy, authenticity. Eventually, he founded the Oratory, a community dedicated to prayer, music, preaching, service, and joyful fellowship. You can think of it as the original Catholic small group movement. Philip's humor was holy. His jokes, they weren't random, they were strategic. He knew pride was the root of most sins, and he knew that the best way to kill pride wasn't punishment, it was humility. So he used humor as a spiritual tour. If someone bragged about their holiness, he'd give him a really silly task to do. If someone was too serious, he'd lightened them up. If someone was proud, he gently poked fun to bring him back down to earth. He believed that if you could laugh at yourself, the devil couldn't get a foothold. Why is Philip Neary canonizes well? He re evangelized Rome. He guided countless souls to holiness. He founded a community that still exists today. He lived a life of deep prayer and radical humanity. He combined spiritual fire with disarming joy. His humor wasn't an entertainment, it was evangelization.

8:45 One I will. Praying in the catacombs, Philip felt an overwhelming surge of God's love. Witness to say, he cried out and collapsed. Now, after his death, doctors discovered something extraordinary. His heart had physically enlarged. Two ribs had actually bent outward to make room for it. Now this wasn't a metaphor, This wasn't legend. This was a medical reality. It was fifteen ninety five. He was seventy eight years old. On that night he died, he had hurt confessions and celebrated mass. No marty dumb, no dramatic visions, no big final speech, just a peaceful death. Philip made people laugh, but he also made Rome holy again. His joy wasn't a distraction from holiness, It was a doorway into it. He reminds us that during lent, repentance and joy aren't opposites, they are partners. Well, thank you for joining us today at fundamentally Catholic, we sure appreciate you listening. Make sure you follow us so we're easy to find and you always get the newest episodes when they first come out, and today's show description. There will be a link to our website, coolmedia dot com. So until next time, God bless,