Saint Philomena: The Little Wonder Worker and Her Miraculous Influence
Summary of Headings
- Introduction to the Feast Day
- Significance of the Shrine and Relic
- Saint Philomena's Unique Canonization
- Miracles and Testimonies
- Challenges and Persecutions
- Devotion and Faith in Saint Philomena
- Conclusion: Faith and Trust in Intercession
Introduction to the Feast Day
The first Sunday of Lent is the 9th Sunday after Pentecost. Today is the 9th Sunday after Pentecost, but we are able to celebrate the solemnity of the feast of Saint Philomena. This is one of her foundational masses. So all the intentions in the book of her foundational masses are being offered to them.
Significance of the Shrine and Relic
I think it's important that we take a moment to contemplate just how amazing it is that we, the Society of St. Pius X, actually have a national shrine of a saint. Considering our position kind of on the periphery of the church, it's something fairly remarkable that we are entrusted with such a beautiful witness of faith. So, it's important that we take a moment to contemplate that. When we mentioned it to Father Leroux, the Secretary General, he was really astonished. We have a what? He couldn't quite understand it. He had to explain how it came about, but even then he's like, that is something really impressive. So something we really need to take into consideration.
Saint Philomena's Unique Canonization
The second collection will be for the building fund, but obviously we are celebrating Saint Philomena, so that means after the mass, after each of the masses, we will be blessing everybody with her holy relic. Then we will give everybody the opportunity to venerate the relic. So first we'll offer the blessing and then you can come up, just like you do for communion, kneel down at the communion rail and we'll present the the relic and you can kiss it. Then go back to your place and wait, because then we'll have the blessing with her holy oil. And, um, that'll be after each of the masses.
Miracles and Testimonies
Then after the mass there will also be a meeting for the Holy Name Society. So all you men who are part of the Holy Name, make sure that you're there and present. And I'm going to make a short appearance, but I have to take off pretty quickly afterwards because I will also have Spanish Catechism, something that hasn't happened in a while. So make sure, because we've got a lot going on, that all the men of the Holy Name Society get In to the feelings a little bit after the Mass so we do a quick Tomorrow the 11th we will also celebrate the foundation of the foundational mast of Saint Filomena So please note that in the bulletin, the mass schedule is very different this week, i'll be here all this week. So we'll have mass seven fifteen every day in the morning. And tomorrow in addition to the 715 mass, I'll also say an elite speech in the Genital Apartments. a 6.30 p.m. Mass for St. Philomena, being one of her foundational Masses. So, of course, everybody's invited to come to either or both, but then also every day we'll have 7.15 a.m. Mass, except Friday, which is a holy day of obligation and tradition.
Challenges and Persecutions
The 15th is the Feast of the Assumption, and we have two Masses, one at 7 a.m. and one at 6.30 p.m., being Friday we'll keep the usual schedule. So, 7 a.m. and 6.30 p.m. on Friday, and Saturday and Sunday back to normal with one big difference. If you're in the habit of going to the 5 p.m. Mass, please note that starting next week, I will be pretty much the exclusive celebrant for the 5 p.m. Mass, which means we'll have reduced time for confessions, which means if you regularly attend the 5 p.m. Mass, take that into account. One, you're not going to be able to escape me that easily, and two, you'll have to get there a little later, a little earlier to make sure you get in time for confessions, because there will not be confessions during the Mass. Please also note that starting in September, the Saturday Masses will be at 9 a.m., not 10 a.m. anymore. So, confessions at 8, Mass at 9. Starting in September, we still have time. But, like I said, I don't want to give anybody any excuses that, you know, I'm not going to be able to get there. You didn't tell me. Well, I'm giving you a month's worth of announcements. So, no more excuses.
Devotion and Faith in Saint Philomena
In the name of the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Ghost, Amen. As I mentioned in the announcements, it's something really to be marveled at that we actually have the, this is the location of a national shrine. There are two other places in the country that claim to be the national shrine, but as far as I know, we're the only one with a charter from Rome, and we're the only one with a charter from Rome, and we're the only one with a first-class relic of this saint. And now, it's almost impossible to get a first-class relic. Practically impossible. I think you'd have to be the Pope to actually get one. So, we are uniquely blessed to have Saint Philomena with us, and in such a way. She's an extraordinary saint. Unique, completely and totally in her own right, because of, first of all, how she is a saint. Most everyone else, there is a particular formula about how her sanctity comes about. There has to be some sort of historic record. There has to be witness statements. There has to be a lot of different things. And then, the miracles are simply testimonials of the fact that all these things are true, and that she truly is in heaven because she has pull with God. She has such direct contact with God to shower His grace upon their chosen ones. But in the case of Saint Philomena, the only real record we had of her life was from a private revelation, an apparition. And so, she was the one who revealed herself to us through this apparition. We had very little historic commentary about her, witness statements, or anything else. We had her tomb, and this message, and that was about it. So, of course, naturally, the process for Rome would have been to discard her. We had very little historical commentary about her. We had very little historical commentary about her canonization process. But the preponderance of miracles, the amount of miracles, the sheer quantity and power of her miracles in such a short amount of time, which were so clear and so evident, which is not always the case, was so enormous that they actually canonized her based strictly upon that. Strictly speaking, that is unique. She is a one-of-a-kind saint in the history of the Church for that purpose alone. That's the reason she's known as the little wonder worker. She performs miracles. That's what she does. St. John Vianney, who, of course, is an extraordinarily holy man in his life, who did incredible work throughout his long life and long service as a priest, and through his hours and hours in confessions every day, did extraordinary good, but also was one of the most important witnesses to many miracles. Many people attributed them to him. He refused to take credit for them and insisted that it was actually St. Philomena who did all of these miracles. She was the one that he turned to for anything, and he swore up and down that anything he ever asked her to do, she accomplished and then some. She always delivered. Of course, that's St. John Vianney. His faith was unbelievably pure. But then also we have the testimonials of Padre Pio. He was a great Christian. Padre Pio, more recently, closer to our time, who dearly loved her as well and had a close connection to her, and also witnessed many miracles through her power, through her intercession during his lifetime and during his ministry. And even we can say within our own little community here, I have heard so many stories about the miracles that she has performed. We have seen these miracles. It's truly phenomenal. She never stops. She never stops. showing us just how close a friend of God she is. So her name, depending on whether you're going to take it as Latin or Greek, means in Latin, daughter of light. Which, if we think about it, would make sense why she's so powerful with God, why she is a wonder worker, if she is the daughter of light, the daughter of God himself. Not in the same way that Our Lady is, but at the same time, still, she had such a proximity to him that that was the name given to her. And if it's Greek, if we use it as Greek, her name is Beloved. Obviously, also beloved by God. She was a young lady whose testimonial was the fact that she was offered, quite literally, the position as wife of the most powerful man on earth. But she refused him to choose Christ. She suffered. She was martyred five times before she was actually killed. And one other remarkable thing about her is that she is constantly persecuted, in one form or another, even to this day. Of course, in the moment when she was martyred at 13 years old, she was being persecuted for being a Christian, for rejecting the emperor, and for holding true to her devotion to her chastity, to her vow of chastity. So she was martyred. She was martyred and persecuted for that. Then on top of that, she was persecuted and attacked through history where she was just forgotten. She was buried and forgotten for centuries. But then when she was revealed, the rationalists of her time, of the time of her revelation, insisted that we couldn't believe this. It was pure fairy tale to dupe. The pious mind. The ignorant. To lead people on. Her reputation was attacked and slandered. That the miracles were just simply the reaction of the enthusiasm of the masses around her. Nothing else. And even by the Vatican, as late as 1961, her name was taken off the liturgical calendar by John XXIII. Why was this done? Well, because... She was a modernist. And the modernists taught a distinction between the Christ of faith and the Christ of history. They rewrote the Gospels to kind of explain how Christ's miracles weren't really miracles. For example, a more recent pontiff explained that the multiplication of loaves and fishes was because of the miracle of everybody learning how to share. It takes away the divine power. It removes it entirely. John Paul II actually called into question the fact of whether we could claim St. Christopher and St. Philomena specifically were saints. The persecution continues. But the magnificent thing is she always triumphs. And the worse the persecution, the worse that she is ignored, belittled, put aside, the more glorious her miracles are. To those who are faithful to her. We see it again in our own little community. But it's also crucial that we understand this when it comes to our faith. Our faith is under attack constantly. The church is under attack constantly. The world's faith is hated and despised. So this is the time for the daughter of light, for the beloved, to really show forth her miraculous power. Specifically for us, but for all the intentions we bring to her. Because she also had a specific version, a specific way of being martyred, according to the revelations that she granted. She faced a firing squad with arrows three times. The first time, the arrows stopped and dropped before they got to her. The second time, they moved around her. The third time, they actually went back and attacked. The arrows actually attacked the people who fired them. Killing several, and the rest converted. She has the power to turn the attacks back upon the attackers. She has the ability to save the souls of those persecuting her and us. She has the miraculous power of being protected by God, even in the worst moments of history.
Conclusion: Faith and Trust in Intercession
So again, we have a distinct and unique grace to have a devotion to this saint here among us. And it is something that we need to be proud of, something we need to share, and it is something that we need to have so much confidence in. It's easy for the more skeptical side of our nature to treat these devotions that we have to her, or the extraneous devotions like our devotion to her, as kind of just a devotional. Something that we can do or not do according to our whims. Something that we can chalk down to just an overabundance of sentimental piety. But if we do that, we are dead wrong to do so. When we come up to reverence the relic that we are able to actually see and touch, something, again, so few people in the history of the world actually can do. We can claim to be able to do. When we have that ability, we need to make sure that it is something that really we appreciate and we reverence the grace that we have, but also the grace of her being present with us. Her protection, her support, her guiding light, her strength of faith, that we beg her for those graces. When we come and reverence her, we are reverencing that aspect of her. Somebody who is a believer, somebody so strong, despite being a 13-year-old girl, that she could reject the most powerful man on earth. Somebody so completely convicted in her faith that she was willing to undergo martyrdom after martyrdom, suffering and pain again and again, and sacrifice her life for Christ. That is the kind of faith we have to have. When we come forward, we all bring with us, all of the baggage we have inside. The over-worry about everything going on in the world. The concern about the political situation or the wars in different areas or whatever else may be the case. We bring all of that with us and we give it to her because that was not what she was concerned with. If she had been more politically motivated, she could have thought, well, I could use this situation to my advantage. Sure, I marry Diocletian and then I can use him to protect the church and make it a better place for me. Make it grow. She might have thought more spectacularly, shall we say, of all the good she could have done materially. But that was not what she chose. She chose the harder route, even if it meant sacrificing her life. She chose the correct path, knowing what she was giving up, knowing that she would do more good for the church and for souls by sacrificing her life. That's what she chose. So all of our doubts, all of, all of our confusion and all of our weaknesses, we can bring forward and give them to her. Ask her to give us her strength and her faith. Ask her to exchange with us all the fears and doubts and worries and everything else that we have going on inside and exchange them for her strength and conviction. Our desire to live the faith, even if it means giving up our lives. And a desire that, even though we may feel persecuted and put upon, like we are isolated because we are, you know, the weirdo traddies in the corner there or whatever else, or because we can see so many problems in the church, or whatever it may be, that we bring them all to her and we give them all to her and ask her for her peace of soul and her strength of conviction and her desire to live the faith and to love God above all things. And then when we come forward to receive her oil, we should also bring all of our intentions. Among them, we should pray for our enemies, the enemies of the church, the enemies of God. Those who tried to kill her were actually converted, some of them anyway, because they saw the witness of her faith. They saw the strength of her conviction and they saw the special power of God around her. We have that witness, also we have seen the miracles that she can cause. Some of us have been recipients of those very graces and miracles. It is something truly extraordinary that we have this advocate over here on our side, and how much she has blessed us, and how much she has blessed the church over history, and how little we seem to actually notice. But it is something that really needs to powerfully, instill within us, a deep love and respect for her. So much so that we should never be afraid to bring any difficult or seemingly impossible case to her. Saint Philomena, my child is lost. They have abandoned the faith. They are in a terrible situation. I don't know how to save them. When you receive that oil, give them to her. My friend is dying and doesn't want a priest. I give him to you. Saint Philomena will conquer through miracles. But we have to trust in her. The reason why Padre Pio and Saint Gianviani and Saint Julian Falcagnieri and so many others received so many miracles from her was because of their absolute steadfast faith that she would always come through. She is called the little wonder worker. And if you read the list of all the things that are entrusted to her, children, difficulties in conceiving, pregnancies, youth, all of these things are consecrated to her. She takes charge of them. But then it is just kind of a big parenthesis. Any other difficult or impossible intention. That's everything. She's in charge of everything. It is something that is crucial that we appreciate. She's on our side. She's right here. We should spend a little more time looking to her and asking her for help and support. We should trust her a whole lot more. There should be no grace. There should be no fear. Weakness, difficulty, persecution, or anything else that we should fear to take to her or have lack of confidence that she can sort out for us. She's powerful with God. She is his beloved. And she is here for us. We must learn from her and we must live with her. We must pray to her. And we must trust her. There is nothing that we have that is too difficult. And there is nothing in this world that is so powerful that she can't cure it. There is no wound so deep that she can't fix it. Her list of miracles is long. We must trust in her. She is little wonder worker. And there is no soul so hard that if we turn to her for that soul, the miracle can be performed. Grace can live even in the souls furthest from his grace. And salvation can be possible even for such great sinners as we are. And we can actually be able to find her in heaven and thank her for all of her intercession and for all of her support and her many, many miracles. And be grateful. And hear her own life story from her own lips. And be able to know her as she has been our advocate and our support each and every day. So that we can actually be eternally happy with her in heaven. In the name of the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Ghost. Amen.