Philomena

Does everyone know about this saint but me? How had I not learned about her earlier?! The last two days I had a lot of driving time and I listened to the story of Saint Philomena; I am completely enthralled with her. Her story is truly amazing.

In 1801, a new tomb was found in the catacombs in Rome, Italy. It turns out these relics belonged to Saint Philomena. At the same time, a Church in southern Italy had become 'weak in virtue', so the priest asked Rome if he could bring relics of a saint to his Church for encouragement and revival. Rome sent the relics of this unknown saint to southern Italy. As soon as Philomena arrived in this town, miracle upon miracle began happening, mainly consisting of healing. Word got out and over the course of the next 30 years countless miracles took place; in 1837, Pope Gregory XVI canonized her upon the healing of Pauline Jerrico whom he himself witnessed being healed; she was so sick that he said she was a 'living corpse'.

Soon after Philomena was canonized - keep in mind the fact that no details are known about this saint when she is canonized - three individuals in various places in Italy are visited by Saint Philomena and she tells her story to them. All three stories agree in detail.

Saint Philomena was the daughter of Roman royalty. Her parents were pagan and often made sacrifices to idols; the mother was unable to have children. One of their servants told them about Jesus and converted them to Christianity. Soon after the queen concieved a child. The queen said since Christianity gave her light (lumina), she would name her daughter Philomena which means 'daughter of light'.

Philomena went everywhere with her parents. During a trip to Greece, the Emperor Diocletian immediately fell in love with Philomena and wanted to marry her. At the age of 13, Philomena refused because she had consecrated her body to her husband, Jesus Christ. Diocletian was so enraged that he went on to torture her for 40 days. He tied her up and flogged her until her entire body bled. Diocletian said if she wouldn't marry him, this was a fit punishment to be tortured like her husband Jesus was tortured. This, however, did not kill her. He then tied an anchor around her neck and flung her into the river. Angels, however, rescued her and delivered her to the crowd that had gathered to watch her die. Diocletian was convinced she was using magic. So he next had archers shoot arrows at her to kill her. Again, God directed all the arrows around her so that she was never harmed. Diocletian was so mad that he had the archers put the arrows in the hot fire and then shoot them at Philomena. This time, the arrows turned around and shot the archers themselves and killed them! The archers who were not killed converted to Christianity. Finally, Diocletian had Philomena's head cut off on the 40th day of torture.

This young woman was only 13 years old! Her courage and strength is stunning and there is a great deal of devotion to this saint. I told Mike the other night that I think we may have a middle name if we are fortunate enough to have any more girls. :)