This is where her story gets interesting. In the year , a young Italian priest named Father Francesco de Luca, who served a parish in Mugnano in the diocese of Nola, approached the Vatican and asked for the body of a saint to be given to him to establish a shrine in his otherwise obscure parish. This was a difficult request, as the relics of most saints were buried in churches and cathedrals long ago and only long after were recognized as authentic saints.
However, Father Francesco had contacts in the Vatican, who told him of this otherwise unknown Philomena, and Pope Pius VII gave permission for the priest from Mugnano to remove her bones to his church for burial.
This was accomplished on Sept. Her bones remain there in a special shrine in Mugnano to this very day. What is interesting about this story is that no sooner were her bones given a special shrine than alleged miracles began to be reported left and right. If we are to believe the early 19th-century stories, cripples who visited the shrine walked, the blind received their sight, addictions were undone and relationships in families were healed. When the local bishop of Nola wanted to give fragments of her bones to all of the parishes in his territory, the story goes that her relics multiplied and more than enough bone fragments were available for all the congregations that wanted them.
Such stories tend to strain the credulity of even the most devout of the modern faithful. Another of her devotees was Father John Marie Vianney, the Cure de Ars, the beloved confessor of thousands who was later widely acclaimed as a saint in France. In , a devout nun in Naples declared that she had a vision that informed her that St. Philomena had been a Greek princess who was murdered in the time of the Roman Emperor Diocletian, and this witness did much to popularize her cult.
At the very least, the newly discovered Philomena had good friends in the modern church. Holy cards, medals and devotions to St. Philomena were commonplace. But there remained a problem in the church.
Philomena, whatever her popularity, had never once been recognized a legitimate Catholic saint. At the age of about 13, she took a vow of consecrated virginity. 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 St. 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 ; 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 nun's account, Saint Philomena also revealed that her birthday was January 10, that her martyrdom occurred on August 10 the date also of the arrival of her relics in Mugnano del Cardinale , and that her name "Filumena" meant "daughter of light".
It is usually taken to be derived from a Greek word meaning "beloved". Publication of this account gave rise to critical study both of the account itself and of the archaeological finds, leading to uncertainty that the tomb was in fact that of a martyr.
To read the full story and for excerpts from Fr. Philomena Patroness and Protector of the Living Rosary. Philomena Virgin, Martyr and Wonder Worker The very name of Philomena contains the words: filia luminis, daughter of light. Seeing the beautiful young girl, the Emperor lusted after her.
When she refused his advances, he subjected her to a series of tortures from which she was delivered by heavenly aid, until at last she was beheaded, and earned the palm of martyrdom.
The symbols on her tomb in the catacombs -- two anchors, three arrows, a palm branch, and a flower -- were taken as the symbols of her martyrdom. Later historians would cast doubt on the version of events related by Sr Maria Luisa. Some suggested that the tiles covering her tomb had been re-used, and that the relics were not of Philomena at all. But devotion to St Philomena remains. To this day, Saint Philomena intercedes for many souls and the numerous faithful who visit her shrine to pray before her relics.
She is considered the patroness and protectress of newlyweds; and she has often given the joy of motherhood to women who had been sterile. Allegro molto.
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