be, "wrestle" with God. Make your claims on His promises.By Father John Rocus
Do you know anybody named Philomena? Before learning of the young 13 year-old martyr from the early Roman persecutions, I was aware of it but I don’t believe I ever met anyone with that name. It’s an unusual name that must have had its origins in the 19th century after the young saint became widely known. And so, for a while anyway, it became a name that was given to many young girls of Catholic backgrounds. With the passage of time, however, its popularity waned and so it’s now quite rare to find a girl with that name.
But recently that changed for me, and a few others as well. I now have met two young Philomenas. But, before I tell you about them, let me tell the story of how I became acquainted with the young Greek girl who became a Christian and then courageously died because of her loyalty to her God and her faith.
Some years ago, well before being called to the priesthood, I was given a cassette tape
(remember cassettes? ) on which an elderly priest related the story of an obscure little girl who was martyred a long time ago in Rome. The tape was about 90 minutes long and, to be honest, it was pretty dry. Nevertheless I decided to listen to it. One winter morning, lying in bed, I played it. The good father droned on for a long time with all of the details of the short life of Philomena. I found myself slipping in and out of consciousness for quite some time until one moment when father said that the birthday of the girl was January 10th.
I laid there for a while longer on the edge of consciousness, and it began to dawn on me that it was January, but I wasn’t quite sure what the date was. So I roused myself to get up and look for a calendar. And wouldn’t you know it, it was January 10th, St. Philomena’s birthday. Well, that was kinda neat. What an interesting coincidence. I filed that little event away in my mind and while no real devotion developed, I always enjoyed telling that story to others.
One evening many years later, now a priest, I was in my first assignment at St. Joseph Parish in Howell, Michigan. I was having dinner at the home of a parishioner when I noticed a holy card with Philomena’s picture on the refrigerator. Well, again, I didn’t hesitate to launch into my story and when I got the punch line, it occurred to me, again, that this was January. I asked what the date was. You guessed it. I suddenly realized that I had moved from the realm of mere coincidence and entered into a new level of reality.
Could it be that the little girl from so many years ago was trying to make a connection? Well shortly thereafter, I decided to tell my story to a Saturday morning Mass crowd. As I told the story, I got the sense that something was going on. A young lady sitting in the first row began to giggle. I asked her later what that was about. She said that Philomena was her Confirmation name. Others that day, and soon afterward, began to come to me with similar connections. Many shared the same birthday or that it was the anniversary of some special event in their lives. And so, my relationship with "Phil" began to grow.
I was to soon find out that Philomena is a patron saint for difficult or impossible causes. She shares that title along with St. Jude and St. Rita of Cascia. But she is also a patroness of Catholic schools. We had a school at St. Joseph and so we began to invoke her help with our various needs and concerns. One of those was that we were looking for new principal.
We went on a search and interviewed several worthy candidates. One of them looked pretty promising. So we puzzled over what to do. Finally, on May 24, 2002, the 200th anniversary of the discovery of the tomb of Philomena in the catacombs under Rome, our new principal peeked in the back door of the church as we were saying a school Mass. She caught my eye up at the altar and gave me the "thumbs up." A great day for St. Joseph School.
There is yet another day of significance in the life of St. Philomena and that is August 11. That was her official feast day for many years, but it was eventually superceded by the feast of St. Clare of Assisi. Perhaps the reason for this is that the Church has no official record of St. Philomena.
She had no history. There is nothing on paper as there is with Clare and Francis and most other saints. All we know officially about Philomena is that she lived, was a young girl, and was martyred. Her tomb showed indications of these few facts. There were three tablets that covered her grave, but they were out of order. the words on them said, "Lumena, Pax Tecum Fi." It was rearranged to read, "Pax Tecum, Filomena" which translates from Latin as, "Peace to you Philomena".
As for the other details, they came from private revelations to Sister Luisa de Gesu in the 19th century and that’s where we got the information about her birthday.
That, along with many signs and wonders and miracles, has helped develop the cult of Philomena all around the world. And I suspect that there are many out there who have been given the special grace of having "met" her through some unusual, divine coincidences, as I have.
I should also point out that one of the early members of that cult was the patron saint of Catholic Priests, St. John Vianney, the Cur'e of Ars. He always gave her credit for all the wonders he performed. Another was Pauline Jaricot who was healed of a terminal illness through the intercession of the saint.
Needless to say, I have brought my devotion to St. Philomena with me here to Holy Spirit Church. We have a fledgling school that has had a difficult time growing. We have been stuck at 60 students for the last four years, and it seemed that we would soon have to have that dreaded discussion about closing our doors. We had prayed faithfully, but with no apparent progress. We
regularly honored Philomena on her several feast days, but it appeared that she was not hearing us. One day, in frustration, I gave an ultimatum to our young patroness. I said, "If you don’t help us, we’ll have to find another patron to help us." I said this publicly, at a school Mass.
"Philomena, if you’re on our side, we need 75 students to make our school viable." And I
gave her a deadline. I’d like to actually call this technique "wrestling with God," as Jacob did
in the Old Testament story. After all, it is God who really accomplishes these things through the intercession of his saints. There is also a precedent of this in one of the stories that came out of Italy in the 19th century. The locals made quite a fuss when their little saint seemed as if
she was ignoring them. They " wrestled," got her attention, and their prayers were answered. And in the process they also learned something about how it all works. It’s the standard test to see if we are really committed to having our prayers answered. Be persistent in prayer, the gospels say.
"Ask and you will receive, knock and the door will be opened. Seek and you will find." And if need be, "wrestle" with God. Make your claims on His promises.
Well, as is often the case, prayers sometimes get answered at the last minute and after a bit of wrestling. As of this writing at the beginning of the school year, we have gained about 10 more students. It’s short of our goal of 75, but still quite an accomplishment considering that many Catholic schools are losing students in these difficult times. In a recent homily, I expressed some cautious optimism and said that I would keep you informed. And, did I mention that one of our first new students was a little girl named Philomena who we knew would be entering our Kindergarten?
This past week we signed up five more students. One family recently moved here from Ohio and signed up two children for our school. They were # 74 and 75. Charles, and his big sister, and you guessed it, her name is Philomena. And guess what? She’s 13 years old.
So, instead of talking about closing our little school, the conversation is now changing to, "When are we going to build a new school?"
As part of my personal deal with Philomena, if she came through for us, I promised to lead a pilgrimage to Rome and Mugnano on or about May 24th of 2012, which will be the 210th anniversary of the finding of her remains in the catacombs of Rome. If you would like to be kept informed of our plans, please fell free to contact me at Holy Spirit Parish in Brighton, Michigan, U.S.A. As of this writing we are in the earliest stages of planning. Our parish website is www.hsrcc.net
I’ll leave you with a simple prayer that I learned way back at the beginning of my Philomena adventure. It can be said on 13 beads with one prayer for each year of her short life. It goes like this:
"Hail O Saint Philomena, whom we recognize, after Mary, as the chief advocate with the Divine Spouse, intercede with us now and at the hour of our death, Amen."
~Fr. John Rocus
Thank you, Fr. Rocus via Susan Schoenstein, for sharing this wonderful story with us, and for providing us with the theme for God Moments IV.
God is at work in you!
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Image Source: http://www.philomena.org/patroness.asp