Saint of the Day – 11 August – St Philomena (c 291 – 304) “The Wonder Worker”

Saint of the Day – 11 August – St Philomena (c 291 – 304) “The Wonder Worker”  Virgin, Martyr.   Patronages – against barrenness, infertility, sterility, against bodily ills, against mental illness, against sickness, sick people, babies, infants, newborns, toddlers , children, young people, youth, Children of Mary, desperate, forgotten, lost or impossible causes, Living Rosary, orphans, poor people, Priests, prisoners, students, test takers.

The tomb of this virgin and martyr, unknown until the first years of the 19th century, was providentially discovered in 1802 in the catacombs of Priscilla on the Via Salaria, Rome, Italy.   It was covered by stones, the symbols on which indicated that the body was a martyr named Saint Philomena.   The bones were exhumed, catalogued and effectively forgotten since there was so little known about the person.

In 1805 Canon Francis de Lucia of Mugnano, Italy was in the Treasury of the Rare Collection of Christian Antiquity (Treasury of Relics) in the Vatican.   When he reached the relics of Saint Philomena he was suddenly struck with a spiritual joy and requested that he be allowed to enshrine them in a chapel in Mugnano.   After some disagreements, settled by the cure of Canon Francis following prayers to Philomena, he was allowed to translate the relics to Mugnano.   Miracles began to be reported at the shrine including cures of cancer, healing of wounds and the Miracle of Mugnano in which Venerable Pauline Jaricot was cured a severe heart ailment overnight.   Philomena became the only person recognised as a Saint solely on the basis of miraculous intercession as nothing historical was known of her except her name and the evidence of her martyrdom.

God, by many miracles, made the discovery of Saint Philomena’s body famous and the cult of the young Saint spread everywhere with an extraordinary rapidity.   She received such exceptional homage, that she deserves to be placed in the first ranks of the virgin martyrs, whom the Church venerates.   The Holy Curé of Ars called her his dear little Saint and performed wonders himself by his prayers to her.

Certain revelations having the character of authenticity say that Saint Philomena was the daughter of a Greek prince, who accompanied her parents to Rome on a journey and that her glorious martyrdom occurred there under Diocletian in the third century.   The two arrows engraved on her tombstone in opposite directions referred to the efforts of the persecutor to slay her with a volley of arrows, after Angels preserved her from death by drowning;  the arrows turned against the archers.   Finally she was beheaded, like so many other miraculously protected heroes and heroines of Christ.   This opinion, which certain circumstances attending the translation of her relics in 1805 to the city of Mugnano appeared to verify, has prevailed.   In that city, devotion to her has been extraordinary and remains so to this day, miracles have multiplied both there and elsewhere for those who invoke her.

Other very serious studies, maintain that she was a child of the Roman people, immolated in the first century for Jesus Christ, at the age of twelve or thirteen years.   An examination of her bones permitted her age to be estimated and the vial of dried blood in her tomb clearly indicated her martyrdom.   The instruments of torture painted on the terra cotta plaque which enclosed her tomb — an arrow, an anchor, a torch — show us what sort of tortures she bore, all of which are known to us through other martyrdoms of the same early centuries.   The inscription:   Peace be with you, Philomena, reveals her name.

What is beyond doubt is that this Saint responds unfailingly to the faith of those who invoke her.   Invoked everywhere with wonderful success, she was entitled the wonder-worker of the 19th century.   She has shown herself to be the protectress, in particular, of small children.   A mother whose young son died despite her prayers, placed a picture of the Saint on his corpse, begging that he be returned to her.   And the child rose as though from sleep, stood up beside his bed and had no more symptoms of any sickness whatsoever.   A little girl who had put out her eye playing with a pair of scissors, which injury was declared irreparable by physicians, had her eye restored when she washed her face in oil taken from the Saint’s lamp and this eye seemed to everyone more vivid and bright than the other.

Many doubts remain about this little Saint, however, although she is no longer anywhere on the Church’s calendar, devotion to her has never floundered or diminished.   Personal devotion to any saint and we know ourselves, that there are many unknown saints around us and when they leave this earth, we ask them for their prayers of intercession and therefore, the faithful continue without doubt to venerate St Philomena.

Popes loved her and they were joined in fervour by some of the era’s greatest saints  . John Vianney, the Cure of Ars, called Philomena the True Light of the Church Militant.   He built a basilica in her honour, where he installed the relic he had been given by the Venerable Pauline Jaricot, foundress of the Society for the Propagation of the Faith. (Innumerable “pagan babies” were given the name Philomena in honour of the foundress’s favourite saint, as I recall.)   Father Damien dedicated the first leper chapel on Molokai in her honour.   The American missionary saints John Neumann and Frances Cabrini spread devotion to Philomena throughout the Catholic United States.   St Peter Julian Eymard was a great devotee as was St Anthony Mary Claret.  Padre Pio, himself no mean wonder-worker, once silenced critics of her cult by snarling, “For the love of God!  It might well be that her name is not Philomena but this Saint has performed many miracles and it is not the name that did them.”