Going to Mass last Friday, the feast of St Philip Neri, I read that he had “a mystical experience in the catacombs in 1544, when he 'felt himself divinely filled with the power of the Spirit', causing his heart to dilate.”
Seemingly this incident wasn’t known to Fr James Spencer Northcote, author of The Roman Catacombs, who relates in his fascinating book that “From the middle of the ninth century till nearly the end of the sixteenth, the Roman Catacombs had no history and were practically unknown.” Then, in 1578, some labourers accidentally broke into a gallery of ancient graves. Unfortunately, this led to many precious relics and memorials being destroyed or vandalised.
