Virgin martyr and saint
Philomena ( ), also known as Saint Philomena (; ) or Philomena of Rome (c. 10 January 291 – c. 10 August 304) was a virgin martyr whose remains were discovered on May 24–25, 1802, in the Catacomb of Priscilla. Three tiles enclosing the tomb bore an inscription, (i.e. "Peace be unto you, Philomena"), that was taken to indicate that her name (in the Latin of the inscription) was "Filumena" (), the English form of which is "Philomena". Philomena is the patron saint of infants, babies, and youth, and is known as "The Wonderworker".
The remains were moved to Mugnano del Cardinale in 1805. There, they became the focus of widespread devotion; several miracles were credited to Philomena's intercession, including the healing of Pauline Jaricot in 1835, which received wide publicity. John Vianney attributed to her intercession the extraordinary cures that others attributed to him.
From 1837 to 1961, celebration of her feast day was approved for regional calendars, but was never included in the General Roman Calendar. The 1920 typical edition of the Roman Missal included a mention of her, under 11 August, in the section headed ("Masses for some places"), with an indication that the Mass to be used in those places was one from the common of a virgin martyr, without any proper. The Coptic Orthodox Church celebrate the feast of Saint Philomena on 10 August of the Gregorian calendar which is 4 Misra of the Coptic calendar.
Biography.
On December 21, 1833, the Holy Office declared that there was nothing contrary to the Catholic faith in the revelations that Maria Luisa di Gesù, a Dominican tertiary from Naples, claimed to have received from Philomena herself.
According to Maria Luisa di Gesù, Philomena told her she was the daughter of a king in Greece who, with his wife, had converted to Christianity. At the age of about 13, she took a vow of virginity for Christ's sake. When the Emperor Diocletian threatened to make war on her father, her father went with his family to Rome to ask for peace. The Emperor "fell in love" with the young Philomena and, when she refused to be his wife, subjected her to a series of torments: scourging, from whose effects two angels cured her; drowning with an anchor attached to her (two angels cut the rope and raised her to the river bank); and being shot with arrows (on the first occasion her wounds were healed; on the second, the arrows turned aside; and on the third, they returned and killed six of the archers, after which several of the others became Christians). Finally, the Emperor had her decapitated. The story goes that the decapitation occurred on a Friday at three in the afternoon, as with the death of Jesus. The two anchors, three arrows, the palm, and the ivy leaf on the tiles found in the tomb were interpreted as symbols of her martyrdom.
In the Neapolitan tertiary's account, Philomena also revealed that her birthday was 10 January, that her martyrdom occurred on 10 August (the date also of the arrival of her relics in Mugnano del Cardinale), and that her name "Filumena" meant "daughter of light" (from Latin "filia" and "lumen;" however, it is usually taken to be derived from Greek φιλουμένη "philouménē" (hence Latin "u" for "ου") meaning "beloved."). Publication of this account gave rise to critical study both of the account itself and of the many archaeological finds, leading to uncertainty that her supposed tomb was in fact that of a martyr.
Discovery of her remains.
On May 24, 1802, in the Catacombs of Priscilla on the Via Salaria Nova, an inscribed "loculus" (a space hollowed out of the rock) was found, and on the following day it was carefully examined and opened. The "loculus" was closed with three terracotta tiles on which was the following inscription: "lumena paxte cumfi". It was and is generally accepted that the tiles had not been positioned in the sequence of the words and that the inscription originally read, with the leftmost tile placed on the right: "pax tecum Filumena" ("Peace with you, Philomena"). The skeleton of a female between thirteen and fifteen years old was found within the "loculus". Embedded in the cement was a small glass vial with vestiges of what was taken to be blood. By the assumptions of the time, the remains were taken to be those of a virgin martyr named Philomena.
The belief that such vials were signs of the grave of a martyr was rejected by the investigations of Giovanni Battista De Rossi (1822–1894), but more recently, this original view has found advocates, such as theologian Mark Miravalle.
In 1805, Canon Francesco De Lucia of Mugnano del Cardinale requested relics for his oratory and, on 8 June, obtained the remains discovered in May 1802 (then reduced to dust and fragments). The relics arrived in Mugnano on August 10, and were placed in the Church of Our Lady of Grace. A new Church of Our Lady of Grace was built, containing a chapel to which the sacred relics were moved on 29 September 1805.
In 1827, Pope Leo XII gave the church in Mugnano del Cardinale the three inscribed terracotta slabs taken from the tomb.
Veneration.
In his "Relazione istorica della traslazione del sagro corpo di s. Filomena da Roma a Mugnano del Cardinale", written in 1833, Canon De Lucia recounted that wonders accompanied the arrival of the relics to his church: among them a statue that sweated some liquid continuously for three days. A miracle accepted as proved in the same year was the multiplication of the bone dust of the saint which provided for hundreds of reliquaries without the original amount experiencing any decrease in quantity.
Devotion to Philomena includes the wearing of the "Cord of Philomena", a red and white cord, which had a number of indulgences attached to it, including a plenary indulgence on the day on which the cord was worn for the first time, indulgences that were not renewed in "Indulgentiarum doctrina", the 1967 general revision of the discipline concerning them. There is also the chaplet of Saint Philomena, with three white beads in honour of the Christian Trinity and thirteen red beads in honour of the thirteen years of Philomena's life. A sacramental associated with devotion to Philomena is the Oil of Saint Philomena, used for the putative healing of the body and soul.
In August 1876, the first issue of "Messenger of Saint Philomena" was published in Paris, France. On October 6, 1876, Louis Petit, a priest, founded the Confraternity of Saint Philomena in Paris. In November 1886, the Confraternity was raised to the rank of Archconfraternity by Pope Leo XIII. On May 21, 1912, Pope Pius X raised it to the rank of Universal Archconfraternity with the Apostolic brief "Pias Fidelium Societates" stating, regarding the historical authenticity of Philomena, that: "The current statements (regarding St. Philomena) are and remain always fixed, valid and effective; in this way it has to be judged as normative; and if it is proceeded in another way, it will be null and void, whatever its authority."
Liturgy.
In 1834, due to many supposed miracles, Pope Gregory XVI allowed the veneration of Saint Philomena and, in 1837, authorized the celebration of the feast of Saint Philomena on 11 August or, according to another source, 9 September, first in the Diocese of Nola (to which Mugnano del Cardinale belongs), and soon in several other dioceses in Italy.
The name "Philomena" was not included in the Roman Martyrology in which venerated persons are included immediately upon beatification or canonization. In the 1920 typical edition of the Roman Missal, Philomena is mentioned under 11 August with an indication that the Mass for her feast day was to be taken entirely from the common liturgy.
On February 14, 1961, the Holy See ordered that the name of Philomena be removed from all liturgical calendars. This order was given as part of an instruction on the application to local calendars of the principles enunciated in the 1960 Code of Rubrics that had already been applied to the General Roman Calendar. Section 33 of this document ordered the removal from local calendars of fourteen named feasts but allowed them to be retained in places with a special link to the feast. It then added: "However, the feast of Saint Philomena, virgin and martyr (11 August), is to be removed from all calendars."
Criticism.
Although correlation does not prove causation, the Holy See's instruction to remove the name of Philomena even from local calendars followed the raising of questions by certain scholars, whose interest had been drawn to the phenomenon more especially in connection with the revelations of Sister Maria Luisa di Gesù. The questions were raised in particular by Orazio Marucchi, whose study in the late 19th Century won the support of Johann Peter Kirsch, an archaeologist and ecclesiastical historian who is the author of the 1911 article on Philomena in the "Catholic Encyclopedia". Orazio Marucchi had argued that the inscription on the three tiles that had provided the Latin name "Filumena" belonged to the middle or second half of the second century, while the body that had been found was of the fourth century, when the persecutions of Christians had ended. Thus, on his theory, not only the name but also the leaf, the two anchors and the palm that decorated the three tiles, and which had been believed to indicate that Filumena was a martyr, had no relation to the person whose remains were found. The alleged disarrangement of the tiles would be explained by a fourth-century practice of re-using materials already engraved, with the aim of indicating that it was not the same person who was now buried in the place.
More recently, Mark Miravalle has argued that Marucchi's conclusions should not be taken as the final word on the historicity of St. Philomena. His book, "It Is Time to Meet St. Philomena", cites several specialists who disagree with Marucchi's conclusions. Historian Michael S. Carter (who supports Miravalle's position) has written about devotion to Saint Philomena within the broader context of veneration of "catacomb martyrs" and their relics in the history of the United States. Moreover, In April 2005, at the "Conference of Philomenian Studies – 1805-2005", findings of a study carried out on the tiles by the Opificio delle Pietre Dure e Laboratori di Restauro (Factory of Hard Stones and Restoration Laboratories) of Florence were made public. The analysis confirmed that only one type of mortal lime could be found on the tiles, thus giving strong support to the theory that the tiles had not been re-arranged.
Others stress that the authenticity of her cult can be grounded on account of the miracles attributed to her, its long-standing papal approbation, and the saint's continued popularity. This has been the position of the rector of the shrine in Mugnano del Cardinale and the view presented in the Italian-language "Enciclopedia Dei Santi". Pilgrims from all over the world arrive continually at Philomena's shrine in the Diocese of Nola, Italy, displaying an intense degree of popular devotion.
The website of "The National Shrine of Saint Philomena, Miami, Florida" (associated with the SSPX) sees "the action taken in 1960 as the work of the devil in order to deprive the people of God of a most powerful Intercessor, particularly in the areas of purity and faith at a time when these virtues were so much being challenged as they continue to be up until now!"
References.
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