‘It is placed there for your Eminence,’ replied St. Philip.
‘What must I do to escape it?’ exclaimed the Cardinal, horrified and self-convicted.
Padre Filippo read him a lecture on penitence and amendment of life, and for the practical part of his advice warned him to devote to good works moneys he had been too fond of heaping up. The Cardinal after this became very devout, and the poor were great gainers by St. Philip’s instructions to him, and the two churches you see at the end of the Corso and Babbuino in Piazza del Popolo were also built by him with the money Padre Filippo had warned him to spend aright, and you may see his arms up there any day for yourself.[4]
2
Some of their stories of him are jocose. There was a young married lady who was a friend of the Order, and had done it much good. She was very much afraid of the idea of her confinement as the time approached and said she could never endure it. Padre Filippo knew how good she was and felt great compassion for her.
‘Never mind, my child,’ said the ‘good Philip’; ‘I will take all your pain on myself.’
Time passed away, and one night the community was very much surprised to hear ‘good Philip’ raving and shouting with pain; he who voluntarily submitted to every penance without a word, and whom they had often seen so patient in illness. That same night the lady’s child was born and she felt no pain at all.
Early next morning she sent to tell him that her child was born, and to ask how he was.
‘Tell her I am getting a little better now,’ said ‘good Philip,’ ‘but I never suffered anything like it before. Next time, mind, she must manage her affairs for herself. For never will I interfere[5] with anything of that sort again.’