Newbie question about saint Philomena

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Is anyone a member of the Archconfraternity of Saint Philomena? I submitted an application to it on the shrine of philomena website- or at least I think I did, I didn’t get a confirming email in response. what is it about? And the red and white cord which “fans " of Philomena wear around their waists ( ? if I understand that correctly ) what is that about? what ritual or purpose attends the wearing of it? It looks to be made of yarn or some such material. I am an arborist, I cut down trees, I do hard physical labor out of doors, so I am hard on clothes. Would it be practical to wear such a thing around my waist under those circumstances? Why don’t they sell them on the shrine website, or do they? I read widely conflicting things about the canonization of philomena, some, like the catholic encyclopedia, seem to be exceptionally skeptical. The " fans” of Philomena seem to take the tact that she WILL be canonized, “we will pray her in!” The folks at the shrine website seem hopefully optomistic that she will be canonized. So what’s up with that?Sorry if these questions seem terribly elementary, I haven’t even been through RCIA yet, I just know I’m crazy about Saint Philomena - for some imponderable reason! God bless you!
 
Have you read any books on St. Philomena? We got one a while back, and my husband is reading it first, so unfortunately I don’t have answers to many of your questions.

BUT, I think St. Philomena is adopting you 🙂 Let me tell you what happened to me. For many months, whenever I would go to our Catholic store, I would see the little red and white cords of St. Philomena on the bottom shelf where the scapulars are kept. I kept feeling drawn to it and had a strong urge to buy one. But I told myself, “I already wear a Brown Scapular–what would I do with a cord?” Still, whenever I went to that store I wanted to buy one.

Then it was the Feast of St. Philomena, and I had such a strong urge to pray the Chaplet of St. Philomena. I did, and at the back of the prayers, I saw who St. Philomena is the patron saint of. In particular, of children (we have a toddler), of women in childbirth (I’m due Dec. 26 and was pregnant at the time), and of students taking exams (my husband was in the middle of intense studying for work-related exams). So basically she is the patron saint of everyone in our family! I was very excited to learn this, and finally my husband and I got St. Philomena cords and wear them daily. Mine actually sits above my big pregnant belly 😃 I plan on wearing it when I have my baby, and if I need a c-section I will tie it on my wrist or in my hair.

The ones we got were by the scapulars in our Catholic store, and they come with a leaflet containing the special blessing that a priest needs to say over them before being worn. If you eventually find a St. Philomena cord that doesn’t come with the blessing, feel free to PM me and I will send it to you–it’s not very long at all.

As for your work situation being rough on the cord, I would buy a spare, get it blessed, so that if/when your first cord gives out, you have another one ready.

By the way, you get a plenary indulgence the first time you wear it, so make sure it’s on a day that you receive Holy Communion and within 8 days of going to Confession so that you qualify for it 🙂
 
What would be a good book to read on this sister saint of ours? 🙂
 
havemercy said:
What would be a good book to read on this sister saint of ours? 🙂
Click to expand...
My husband is reading (and enjoying) *St. Philomena, the Wonder Worker *by Fr. Paul O’Sullivan: amazon.com/St-Philomena-Wonder-Worker-Paul-OSullivan/dp/0895555018/sr=8-1/qid=1165000903/ref=sr_1_1/105-3255948-5571667?ie=UTF8&s=books

But another one I’ve heard recommended is *Saint Philomena, Powerful with God *by Sister Marie Helene Mohr: amazon.com/Saint-Philomena-Sister-Marie-Helene/dp/0895553325/sr=8-1/qid=1165000989/ref=sr_1_1/105-3255948-5571667?ie=UTF8&s=books

By the way, if you’re going to buy something from Amazon, go to www.rosaryarmy.com and click on the Amazon link to send some of the proceeds of your purchase to that wonderful apostolate 👍
 
Let’s clear up some confusion here, first of all.
St. Philomena IS ALREADY CANONIZED.
She was infallibly canonized by Pope Gregory in 1837.
Once canonized, always canonized.
End of story.

A good book on saint Philomena is
I ASK SAINT PHILOMENA by Rick Medina, available
at amazon.com it is short and very nice.
Also, on the Shrine in Italy’s website is a great article
by Mark Miravalle detailing the facts about St. Philomena, including recent archaeological studies which prove beyond all shadow of a doubt that the girl in that shelf-tomb in the catacombs, was indeed St. Philomena and that she was, indeed, martyred.
God bless,
Jaypeeto3 (aka Jaypeeto4)
St. Philomena, powerful with God, Pray for Us !!!
 
St. Philomena has always been a saint and no one can ever take that fact away from her. She was canonized and the most that happened was the removal of her feast. The cord should be worn around the waist and the prayer that accompanies it. There are indulgences attached to it.

The official website does offer cords, blessed oil and relics (2nd Class) as well as other devotional items for St. Philomena. Just look under devotional items. You can have it shipped to you from Italy.
 
No I haven’t read any books about her yet, I’ve just been reading about her on the web. Clearly I misunderstood concering her canonization. I read about the feast day being withdrawn, but no explaination as to the why-s and wherefores. And a lot of talk about was that person in that grave a girl named Philomena, if so, was she indeed a martyr, and, considering that there is virtually nothing known about her in the excepted historical sense, could she even qualify for sainthood?
by the way, the online New Advent Catholic encyclopedia sometimes makes statements that puzzle me. For example, in an article on Saint Margaret of Antioch, the writer uses the word “mythological” in relation to her, and certainly seems to implie that she is mythological. Weelllll, Joan of Arc specifically named St. Margaret as one of her voices- which would implie ( ?) that Joan of Arc did not recieve visitations, she was seeing things.
If I’m understanding it correctly, wouldn’t that be a rather curious statement for a Catholic source to make???

Anyway, I’m greatly relieved to hear that the issue is not in any doubt, especially since I have become so fond of the girl!

I think I was first drawn to her because - there is a Quaker graveyard in a park in Jamestown NC , and in that graveyard is an Ann Eaton, and if you count up the years between birth and death, she died at 13 years of age, in 1820. Otherwise, she is anonymous to me, and I wondered if any potential descendants of hers was even aware of her existence for so brief a time, so long ago, but really just yesturday. ( crying buckets:( )I ran across that grave 15 years ago, but it always stuck in my mind.
And then- I hope you don’t take this comment in the wrong spirit- this whole story of Philomena seems so delightfully, whimsically, FANTASTICALLY ABSURD - IT MUST BE TRUE!
A near- anonymous 14 year old girl dies horribly and fades into obscurity. Many hundred years later someone takes an interest in her, miracles begin to happen, and countless numbers fall in love with a near-anonymous 14 year old who died hundreds of years ago. Ha, Ha, Ha, how marvelous!
I grew up in the Southern Baptist church, which has nothing remotely similar to Philomena, save the “absurdity” of a divinity being nailed to a cross out of love for man of course.
No wonder the Catholic church soldiers on 500 years after Calvin and Luther. 🙂 God bless you all !
 
oh, Catholicsam, I don’t know you, but enjoyed reading about you. I don’t suppose I have to tell you that , after Heaven, nothing matters so much as family, marriage, and children!
I don’t have the marriage and children, but such things are quite gratifieing to hear. 🙂
 
The Cure of Ars (St. John Vianney) had a great devotion to St. Philomena.
 
kesa wrote:

<<by the way, the online New Advent Catholic encyclopedia sometimes makes statements that puzzle me. For example, in an article on Saint Margaret of Antioch, the writer uses the word “mythological” in relation to her, and certainly seems to implie that she is mythological. Weelllll, Joan of Arc specifically named St. Margaret as one of her voices- which would implie ( ?) that Joan of Arc did not recieve visitations, she was seeing things.>>

I haven’t seen the article in question, but perhaps there is a misunderstanding about the word “mythological”. Sometimes events in a saint’s life from very long ago may have been embellished, because of a lack of documents.

That wouldn’t detract from that particular person’s sainthood, though. It is their heroic virtue that is pointed to when they are proclaimed a saint.
 
Newbie,

To answer your original question, yes, you should get an e-mail reply when you sign-up to become a member of the Universal Archconfraternity of Saint Philomena.

If you have not already done so, please go to the official website of the Sanctuary of Saint Philomena, http://www.philomena.it

Marie Burns, the Director General of the Universal Archconfraternity of Saint Philomena, will reply once you fill out the online form to join.

I noticed some of the discussion here and there is a lot of confusion about Saint Philomena, mostly generated by wrong information originally published in the early 1900’s in the Catholic Encyclopedia about Saint Philomena.

Her liturgical feast was removed in 1961. No official reason was given, but the assumption that has been printed that the reason was because nothing is known about Saint Philomena historically. However, the name on her tiles sealing her loculus (tomb) was Filumena. The Italians popularly refer to her as Filomena, the English, Philomena and the French, Philomène.

Regardless of “her story” revealed to Sr. Luisa di Gesu in August of 1833, revelations which received approval by the Holy Office, (presently the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith) on December 21, 1833.

The Catholic Encyclopedia wishes to ignore that fact, as they do many other more significant facts. They base their opinion principally on the questionable conclusions of one early twentieth century archeologist, Oracio Marucchi. In 1903, he posited that the apparent mis-ordering of the 3 tiles on the grave alleged to be Philomena’s—starting with “Lumena” on first tile, instead of “Paxte”—proved that the tiles had come from another, earlier, grave and had been re-used in hers. Therefore, he argued, the grave and remains discovered in 1802 were not that of “Filumena” but of another, unknown person.

Marucchi’s theory that the order of Philomena’s tiles argued against the grave being hers was shown to be groundless. Furthermore, the tiles used on Philomena’s grave date at least from the third century, precluding them from being those of an earlier second-century grave, as Marucchi alleged. The early Christians did not re-use brick tiles, only marble, because marble was very expensive and brick was not, and those of Philomena’s are of brick.

Two more contemporary archeologists, Prandi and Mustillo, after examining the actual tiles in 1963 also stated that the stance of Marucchi had no foundation. The evidence rested not only on tile position but on tile condition. The two archeologists pointed out that had the tiles been removed from another grave in order to be re-used for Philomena’s, damage would have been done to the outer edges of the tile where previously cemented. However, no damage was found on the tiles from St. Philomena’s loculus: “During the process of going from first to second usage, chips would have very likely been made to the edges of the brick tiles… [These tiles of Philomena] still have sound and undamaged matching edges along the line of fracture.”

Marucchi had never examined the gravesite nor the tiles themselves, but rather had made an abstract hypothesis without the necessary archeological investigation. Contemporary Austrian historian, George Markhof, strongly criticized Marucchi’s conclusions: “I hold the judgment of the Italian archeologist Marucchi to be superficial… something extremely surprising considering the excellent renown he enjoyed. Evidently he was prejudiced against Saint Philomena, and not disposed, as is suitable for a scientist, to investigate the merits of this affair in an objective manner.”

philomena.it
philomena.us
 
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