The Skin of Self Love

Fr. Scott Haynes

A Meditation for the Feast of St. Bartholomew

August 24

Saint Philip Neri writes:

“The skin of self-love is fastened strongly on our hearts, and it hurts us to flay it off, and the more we get down to the quick, the more keen and difficult it is.”

Self-love often hides beneath things that seem harmless: the desire to be praised, the need to have our own way, resentment when we are overlooked, or irritation when someone corrects us. Saint Philip Neri reminds us that these attachments can cling so closely to the heart that removing them is painful. At first, giving up some small preference may seem easy, but as God leads us deeper, we begin to discover how much we depend upon our own opinions, comfort, reputation, and control.

Saint Philip did not merely teach this lesson to others. He spent his own life allowing God to peel away the layers of self-love. Although people admired his holiness and sought him out for counsel, he deliberately resisted the temptation to take pleasure in being regarded as important or saintly. He welcomed occasions of humiliation, made light of his own dignity, and sometimes acted in ways that caused others to think less highly of him. These actions were not empty eccentricities. They were part of his long schooling in humility. Philip understood that praise can quietly feed the ego, even in a person sincerely trying to serve God, so he repeatedly chose the lower place and allowed his reputation to be diminished rather than cherished.

Saint Philip understood that one of the toughest layers of self-love is our desire to be respected. Tradition tells of Philip and another priest standing near a busy public fountain in Rome and deliberately trading insults as a crowd gathered around them. To the spectators they must have appeared ridiculous, yet for Philip the exercise had a serious purpose. He was learning to endure contempt without defending his dignity, while helping another priest do the same. Philip knew that as long as we desperately need others to think well of us, a part of the heart remains chained to itself. Humiliation could therefore become a kind of spiritual knife, painfully peeling away another layer of that “skin of self-love” until the soul became freer to seek God's approval rather than the applause of men.

Over time, this stripping away made Philip freer. The less he needed to defend his image, receive admiration, or appear important, the more completely he could belong to Christ. His humility did not make him gloomy or timid. It helped produce the remarkable joy for which he became famous, because a man who is less occupied with himself has more room in his heart for God and for other people.

The feast of Saint Bartholomew gives Philip’s saying particular force. Christian tradition remembers the Apostle as having suffered martyrdom by being flayed. The image therefore becomes a powerful lesson for the interior life. Christ asks us to allow the old skin of pride and self-centeredness to be stripped away so that His life may become more visible in us. This usually happens through ordinary occasions: accepting correction peacefully, yielding our preference, forgiving an injury, doing good without receiving recognition, or remaining patient when circumstances do not unfold as we wished.

We should not be surprised when this purification hurts. The pain may simply reveal that God has touched something to which we have been deeply attached. Saint Philip learned, little by little, to let those attachments fall away, and his life shows us what can emerge beneath them: humility, freedom, simplicity, and joy. Each small surrender gives God greater freedom within us, until we learn to seek not our own satisfaction but His will.

Prayer

Saint Philip Neri, teach me to recognize the self-love hidden within my heart. Help me, as you did, to accept the small humiliations, corrections, and sacrifices through which God frees me from myself. Strip away my pride and attachment to human praise, so that I may love Christ more purely, serve others more freely, and follow Him with an undivided heart. Amen.