they came to the faith they were catechized
by this man named publius this physician named publius
and very soon after they conceived a child and they wanted to name her lumina
in honor of the light which is our lord jesus christ

00:06
who takes away the darkness of sin the darkness of idolatry
and darkness of all kind of paganism she was born they named illumina and on
the day of her baptism they called her phil lumina film being a greek word which
means the son of or daughter of this in this case the daughter of the light
who is our lord jesus christ philomena uh she's a beautiful little girl a very
christian very catholic learned all her catechism
loved god offered her virginity to our lord jesus christ at the age of nine
smart little girl she had that all figured out at the age of nine
she offered herself as the spouse of our lord jesus christ
so uh greece is a very important place many city-states and we know that rome
was a very very big large empire at the same time
and rome would go around and uh defeat and colonize and make it part of

00:07
the empire etc and the emperor who was diocletian at
that time we're talking about the year 250 again
uh he wanted to um take over that part of greece
where philomena's parents were the governors we'll use the prince and the
princess and so this father of philomena said well let's go
--
by seeing this little girl's face the parents were pleased they
went home the same day they talked to the girl about the situation
and she said absolutely not and she they said to her well
this isn't just for you my darling this is for us your parents
and also for your own country so he does not attack our country
and she said you know that all sounds very impressive
uh it all sounds very persuading and persuasive and all the rest of it but
you don't understand one thing i am a bride
of our lord jesus christ the one that you baptized me
in honor of the light and daughter of the light

00:09
he's my spouse i'm his wife my virginity in this world is not something that i
have power over it's not for me to dispose of
it belongs to christ already i cannot renounce that
without renouncing my lord and savior himself they tried all kinds of you know
pressure with her pleading rewards everything and she said no absolutely not
absolutely not so they brought the girl back with them to the palace of
diocletian the next day to say i'm sorry maybe you can convince her but she does
not want to accept your hand in marriage the emperor was inflamed infuriated
he was angry he threw me into a dungeon i'm sorry this would be philomena
talking he threw me into a dungeon of the palace he came to see me every

00:10
day trying to coax me into changing my mind
--

00:01
i will sing a hymn to our lady or queen of the holy rosary
and then crown the statue and then sing one more verse of the same hymn
o queen of the holy rosary o bless us as we pray and offer thee our roses

00:02
in garland's day by day while from our father's god and

00:03
with loving hearts and bold we gather white and red and gold
o queen of the holy rosary each mystery blends within the sacred life of jesus
in every step divine thy soul was his fair god and thy virgin breast his throne

00:04
thy thoughts is faithful mirror reflecting him alone you may have a seat
so yes let's um take seriously this rosary crusade it kind of
popped up out of nowhere for me just about a week ago
and hopefully we'll all be faithful to it all of us will pray
hopefully all of you will pray the rosary in your home
and mark your tally sheet uh come kind of brings back
memories of the bishop fellaia administration to me uh but we'll do that again
and also here at the church as you know we'll be praying the rosary
one more time than we normally do we normally play the rosary once a day

--
saint in one century solely because she's a miracle worker and for all
if practical purposes she was unsainted the next century because she was solely
a miracle worker somebody's got problems in their heads
up here unless they're purely malicious i wouldn't want to say that
um so that was what pope gregory the 16th did for her
and then pope pius ix during his pontificate just after
um this young man was healed and became a priest about 1849
he gave saint philomena her own mass and her own proper office in the breviary
on the feast day of august the 11th before that time
they were celebrating her feast day but you had to use the

00:13
common of virgin martyrs to pray her mass and then he made her own introit ramon
you know reading from the epistles etc just for her
this had never been done before for a roman martyr with no historical record
uh but as you know she had she had already been canonized by pope gregory 16th
eventually pope pius and knife are met with some difficulty
he was exiled from rome that's to say he had a flea roam
to make sure that he was not kidnapped or held as a hostage
in order to gain in order for some worldly power to gain some
worldly advantage has that hope and head help has had happened with um i
the the pope at the time of the finding of the relics of um
saint philippine about the year 1805. i forgot which pope that was

00:14
--
the charity of god the mercy of god is so much greater than
just what is required and our lord paid that debt to the last drop of his blood
on the cross in order to fulfill that decree of his father that this payment
must be only by the cross but keep in mind that he did not have to do that

00:15
it would have been a sufficient payment for our sins just
any act as a human being to pay for our pray for our sins because
of the huge condescension of our lord coming from above
it's very important that we remember and that we
emphasize that our lord jesus christ is god and therefore he can pay the
price of our sin but he's also a man he belongs to our human family
he was born of the virgin if our lord jesus christ had kind of
come out of nowhere and become a man already at the age of
what appears to be 30 years old kind of like adam and eve came into this world
he would never have been a member of our human family
our blessed mother is a daughter of adam which is she's a perfect daughter of

00:16
adam our divine lord is the son of the blessed virgin mary he
belongs to the same human family he assimilates our nature
in himself in order to pay in order to pay the debt of our nature i'm sure
we worked out this way and our lord jesus christ was obedient to it
there's there there's a magnificent expression of saint augustine
right around the time of christmas where he says what was not assumed
was not redeemed what was not assumed was not redeemed
meaning as long as our lord jesus christ became a human being
with a human intelligence with human suffering because
adam caused it made it so that men would suffer hunger fatigue
temptation towards anger our lord jesus christ had all that and

00:17
--
00:06
with that i'll continue the story in the year 1805 which was
uh three years after the discovery of the relics
bishop to cesare went to rome he's a bishop of certain
diocese called potenza he went to rome to congratulate the pope
pius vii on his return to italy from france
why was the pope in france he was there held captive under
napoleon so we're talking about the french revolution
and spreading the revolution to the rest of the world napoleon was
conquering and occupying other countries he
bishop de chester was accompanied by don francesco a priest
de lucia from the parish of munyano italy near naples this priest wanted to
bring back a full body relic of a virgin martyr to his parish which only a saint
could convert his perish it had gone so worldly and indifferent
and immoral because it was suffering so much from the french

00:07
revolutionary spirit his parish was infected with revolutionary ideas
resentment against authority of the church unbelief and immorality
father francesco went to visit the custodial generale
that's a place where all the relics are kept in rome
there were 13 such relics of full body saints
only three of them were known saints including saint philomena
for the past three years when he approached the
relics he had an inexplicable joy in his heart and all the heaviness of the sad
--
and then forgot to consecrate the other one or there was an earthquake and had
to bend in the altar as i don't know what there would be the presence of christ
but there would not be the sacrifice of christ that's how important is the
two things are consecrated one after the other
so we have uh the sacrificial gift which is the wine which uh water bread
and wine made into the body and blood of christ then we have the
sacrificing priest who is our lord jesus christ but through the
minister that we see at the altar and since i'm on that point i better

00:28
stay there uh the priest has a great obligation to sanctify himself
we might reflect who is the very first one who brought christ down from heaven
to this earth and the answer is the mother of god the blessed virgin mary
the blessed virgin mary had no sin the blessed virgin mary was always
working on a greater or greater obedience to god's will and a
greater submission of her own will just like her son eventually would do
in his human nature our lady suffered greatly in order to unite
herself with a passion all of this is very sanctifying in the blessed mother
there was no room for not sanctifying so as the church fathers used to say
it's true that the priest will always have the power

00:29
to draw down god from heaven and put him on the altar there's no
doubt about that he is the ordained minister
just as our lord gave that power to his own apostles and very likely judas
himself just our lord gave that part of the apostles all priests have it
--
rome with the relics of saint philomena and the relics of another saint the
saint philomena's relics were placed on the in the seat
under the seat of the bishop he felt raps on his legs three times in a row
and even though everything was closed and sealed and secured
secured he understood those striking the striking to his legs coming
somehow from the box of relics of saint philomena
so he put the relics on his lap and there was no more problem
because feminina would be carried in the most uh dignified of ways
and if you think of the reality you know just sort of pull down the curtain

00:08
of this material world in which you live one thousand five hundred years had
passed since this this virgin had been [Music]
giving her life completely for our lord jesus christ
in at least three martyrdoms and she kept surviving or being
kept being renewed to life again so that she'd go through another martyrdom
but as you know with heaven with the supernatural life
there is no time so even though 1 500 years had elapsed for her this was
just like there had been a commercial break and
now it's time to get back to the program something like that and what was her
program the demons had tried to take from her
the virtue of virginity the virtue of purity and the
the vow of virginity that she had and she wrestled against all hell
against all the demons to maintain that virtue which she did all the way to the
end and now she goes to sleep for a few days

00:09
as far as she's concerned and wakes up a few days later
brand new fresh and ready to carry on the battle again
but not in herself but rather all these other members of the mystical body
which were in munyano as far as she was concerned and then
the rest of the world a point that was given to us in our retreat
this past week was all this impurity unchastity if that's a word
lack of innocence the whole lack of this virtue that we see in the world today
is an attack against our blessed mother how is that because our blessed mother
is the virgin if we just say the virgin we
know we're talking about the mother of god
and all of us are children of the virgin mary

00:10
in so far as we are brothers of her son and so when people go trying to attack
purity in a sense virginity in the life the world that we live in
that is the devil trying to attack our blessed mother maybe he couldn't make her
be a non-virgin but he can make all of her children be a non-virgin
that's what he's after it appears that he has great success
but that's just numbers and he's lost that battle for many centuries
saint philomena is coming back to win this battle of virginity
against the same demons one thousand five hundred years later
not in her own person but now in members of the mystical body members of
our lord jesus christ of which she is a member

00:11
so she had already worked a few miracles in naples we saw a few weeks ago
the mother the woman don angela teres with her illness of 12 years the lawyer
with his sciatica and the woman with the gangrene in the hand these people just
prayed at her to him and then well the for the for the lawyer was for
the lawyer was the next morning for the woman with the ganger in his
hand the same the next instant for don notheres it had been a few weeks
and now the pilgrimage if you will of the relics
--
necessarily the pope which is the pope said

00:11
didn't say anything against it different theologians and priests got together to
say that she's not truly a saint because we have we have no historical evidence
well if a pope canonized her without any historical evidence
how can you un-canonize her so to speak uh
because you have no historical evidence that seems like we have um
you know a contradiction going on in rome in any case soon after a mass and an
office of the breviary were established just
for her which is very special because that's unusual that someone who has no
historical evidence in the church gets a mass in their honor usually they
would say well just follow the mass of a virgin martyr the common of a virgin
martyr but in her case there was a mass made especially for her it was placed
actually on the date of august the 11th because you may
know that the day august 10th is already dedicated to saint lawrence

00:12
and and also an office in the breviary was dedicated to her so that's pauline
jerichot and she did the right thing by um following the order of saint curie of
ours saint john vienne to go to the tomb of saint philomena
very good last week speaking about the holy mass we were in the
third purpose of prayer which is the begging of pardon for sins
there were the two others adoration and thanksgiving which applied
to god and now we were on the two last purposes which was the propitiation
--
kind of her comeback or her return after 1500 years of being in the catacombs
so you have stories of uh saint philomena

00:02
working out cures for people and they'll hear her voice kind of
laughing in the distance or helping someone
uh get through a forest completely lost some young girl of 13 years of age shows
up and says well just follow me and they follow her until they get to a
clearing or something like that and then she disappears and they hear her
laughing in the distance but they don't see anyone anymore
so there's something childlike and playful about her
and what's beautiful about that is that if you were to take away her
virginity or her purity and also her martyrdom
then all of this playfulness would have no purpose anymore
let me explain that it's because she was such a warrior for the virtue of purity
to stay innocent and it's because she was so
persevering in that virtue all the way to her death

00:03
that what you have in heaven is not just a person who
arrived there after being battered and just going through a hard time in this
life but you have a person in heaven who has never left their state of childhood
and i don't mean that in a juvenile way you know there's also the
the vice of being childish infantile juvenile etc what i do mean is that
in a sense is a virtue that you have to be a warrior to preserve
and she did and so she has this great victory in heaven
she kind of has a win-win situation she gets to be
a a warrior in heaven someone who really won the battle for our lord for his
divinity because the practice of virtue is always a profession
of the divinity of our lord in our own souls so she is a warrior in heaven

00:04
but she gets to be a child at the same time she's 13 years old but
she's 13 years old and she has all the virtues of being a child
but she also has all the virtues and all the merit of being a warrior
so that's it i repeat the point if it weren't for her
virginity and her martyrdom all of this playfulness and childlike
behavior which is really quite refreshing would be pointless
you might know this in the spanish-speaking countries
i would guess also in the philippines they don't have what we call an april
fool's day you know we usually play little jokes on
people on the first day of april and it's all sort of justified in good
fun because that's the first it's around the first day of spring or
something like that i know they don't do that they have um
in in the spanish-speaking countries they have the day of

00:05
day of the holy innocents the innocent children the 28th day of december
in honor on all those thousands of children that were martyred that were put to
death in the place of our divine lord they went to heaven like warriors also
for the divinity of our lord jesus christ with all of their innocence as well
so when you think of child child-like behavior and in a sense these children
are the ones we celebrate on the 28th of july
20th of july 20th of december and uh they give a lot of glory to god in
heaven and that's why in the spanish-speaking countries
anyway the um that's a day for playing little games on your friends or
tricks on your friend etc so that's a point that stands out kind
of a encompassing point of saint philomena is that her virginity
and her martyrdom are her claim to having this sort of

00:06
childlike refreshing behavior with other other souls
i'm going to tell one serious story which is a lead into telling another story
which has something to do with this childlike behavior saint philomena
so you might remember that the priest from muniano
who went to rome to get a known martyr for his parish was don francesco
de lucio and so he came back to munyano with saint philomena her relics and then
the miracle started happening and he became her main
archivist the main the one who mainly recorded her history and uh he wrote books
he wrote a book i should say about you know her history the finding of her
--
that sounded like someone banging around up there you know moving furniture and
joking around up there like a little kid uh raising a bunch of um ruckus so
he went up to his room and he found still three stacks of books of 45
most of the stack of books of the other 45 and the floor just sort of
littered with books all over the place and the chairs and the bookshelves and
just everything sort of thrown around in there and um
well what was happening same philomena had paid him a visit
she had multiplied the books uh and she did in such a way that she was kind of a

00:10
nuisance to him with a good kind of nuisance and the situation was resolved so
um that's saint philomena and i repeat the point
if it had not been for her virginity her war for her virginity and her war
for professing the divinity of our lord jesus christ all the way to the death
she would not have had this right to share her glorious child-likeness with us
and those are just some of her stories in that way
you know how it is um when a person gets to a certain age
and unfortunately not always but many times they lose innocence
they may still laugh they must have a good time
they might even be able to tell good jokes all the rest of it
but their presence is not as refreshing as it used to be

00:11
there's some sort of a compromise they have made with the world
or with the devil unfortunately that has um
--
the dignified altar which we have and the vestments
and the vessels though the chalice and the ciborium and the incense etc
those are things we add to the mass because our lord deserves
all that dignity but what is really drawing us is that holy sacrifice

00:58
um i just saw a um vocational video from night the year 1959
it was really well done now you can tell it's kind of a dramatization and they
they uh they had actors doing it but in the because everything was so well
memorized etc but uh so you have about a 13 year old boy who goes to his first
kind of like a summer camp to be present in the seminary
to find out what priests are all about and so forth and eventually that
virgins into him um or blossoms into him going to the seminary one day and
becoming a franciscan priest after about like
13 years something like that uh but so he's in this church and the years 1959
and uh he's a young teenager and he says uh i had never seen an altar so
beautiful in all my life and he's a normal boy he likes football
and he likes ice cream and he likes goofing off and studying sometimes but

00:59
when he went on that visit to the seminar with all the other
young men he said i'd never seen an altar so beautiful
in my life and i saw the altar in the film too it actually didn't look that
great the year was already 1959 so some of
those traditional looks were starting to disappear already
--
it's actually saint john the boss saying
john boswell said one out of every three boys has a vocation well
leaving saint john bosco aside will go to father summer's
um odds one out of ten boys should be a priest so that means we'd have
thousands and thousands of priests going around in this country and we certainly
don't so something's lacking there with people that are ready to give up all the
attractions that this world has to offer because they wish to be more intimately

00:05
connected with our lord jesus christ and when these saints uh make big
sacrifices and become martyrs and so forth uh the prayer for um
the chord with saint philomena begins with um oh uh most holy
virgin over almost fully virgin and glorious martyr saying philomena
um when these people make these big sacrifices like that
don't think that it's only a question of example
you know saying filamino's was a great example and so we're going to follow her
it is that but it's also much more and that would be that by their hard working
life by their self-sacrificing life they are gaining merit for the rest of us
so when you pray to a saint it can be any saint

00:06
you are gaining the merits or sharing in the merits which
which they gained while they lived on earth and that's what you're praying for
for from these saints so it was said to um or i should say st philomena said to
sister luisa de jesus the sister that recorded her life
--
uh useful and efficacious intentions eventually
the holy ghost said well yes you're the one
i'm going to overshadow you and you'll be the mother of the son of the most high
when the priest is at the altar i know i know that it's not by the merits of
the priest that this happens our lord comes down on the altar
simply because of his dignity of order that's given to him by a bishop but

00:09
it makes most sense if the priest has a life which is very much like the
life of our blessed lady insofar as it is a constant renunciation of self
a constant separation from the world a constant separation from anything that
makes us feel kind of comfortable and consoled in this world
if a priest has a heart like that then he has a heart like the blessed virgin
mary so when he says come down upon the altar
which the words are this is my body it is fitting it's not only by the
dignity of order he says that and it will always work by the dignity of order
but it's also by this likeness to the mother of god
so saint philomena is especially a friend of priests because they like her
make this separation from the world and hers was very valiant

00:10
and also very violent you know we know about her martyrdom one step of the way
it's as if um god kept saving her from one martyrdom after another
so that he could make herself for another martyrdom
and if you remember the words of our blessed mother to saint philomena in prison
--
bring so much more merit to men especially in this in regards to this virtue of
purity and also renouncing the world so those two points for sure i wanted to
say which is saint philomena is the special
uh friend of priests because she wants to separate them from the world
and she wants them to live in a marian purity

00:15
and also saint philomena is working for our lady
she and our lady have the same angel we can't say the same guardian angel but
at least the same angel which is involved with their mission
he's the strength of god to make sure that the incarnation happens
he's the strength of god to make sure that all of this persecution against the
church and the holy virgins etc that all of this turns into
virtue for the next generations you know saint gabriel made the
incarnation possible through our lady and now he makes this uh translation or
this passing of all this virtue and grace through these
holy virgins that suffered so much before the year 300
and now that i'll pass it to all the christians afterwards
so that's why it's fitting that saint gabriel is the um
protector of uh saint philomena and then i'll go through a few more stories of

00:16
saint philomena talking about people that give testimony to her to her miracles
there was a saint john nipple machine newman or neumann in
pennsylvania he's not saying john nipple messine of
the middle ages that died a martyr for not telling the secret of the
confession of the queen but he's someone named after him i think
he lived from 1811 until 1860 he joined the priestly congregation
of the most holy redeemer the redemptorists
--
00:17
wherever she went she brought along a tiny statue of saint philomena in her
journeys and she was always propagating devotion
to saint philomena in the americas padre pio who is now a canonized saint
living from 1887 to 1968 he was born on the day
of the translation of the relics of saint philomena may 25th 1887
so the relics would have been translated from a smaller altar to a larger altar
but in the same place in munyano he was born on that very day
a sister of his was named philomena and um he had an art and devotion to the
saint as you know saying to padre pio receive the stigmata
and guides the faithful to the intercession of saint philomena
and one more saint or there's a blessed bartolo longo 1841-1926
he penned the life of saint philomena virgin and martyr

00:18
based on mystical experiences of sister maria luisa
and he blessed bartolo founded the seminar seminary of pompeii so we are very
holy and very you know active saints who swear by or give their total
confidence to this saint i'll continue with where we left off a
few weeks ago and the holy sacrifice of the mass
we're going to be switching soon from talking about principles and
what is adoration what is sacrifice what is propitiation
uh we're going to be switching soon from these big principles
to how this all looks in real life on the altar
talking about candlesticks and the missile stand and things like that
--
four corners they represent the five wounds of our lord jesus christ
in the very center cross there is what's called a sepulcher

00:48
it's probably a little box about oh five inches by five inches
a square and in that box are three relics and they're literally buried in
that sepulcher the relics are at least two of a martyr
and one of another saint and then there's certification of those
martyrs in there as well all sealed with the bishop's ring
wax seal and covered over why is that so important that relics
be on an auditory in an altar and the answer is they are
chiefly relics of martyrs but it can be other one
one one can be a different one a confessor or a virgin something like that
but they are all people who have lived the crucifixion of our lord
well you might say that it's sufficient of the crucifix of our lord above the

00:49
altar or on the altar and because it's a sacrifice of our lord
and yes you're right yes you're right it would be but
by the tradition of the church and from the very beginning
the christians saw that the more they united to the sacrifice of our lord and
the altar the more they were singled out to be persecuted
and then they were you know tortured and martyred etc
and finally they made the connection that the way to be a true christian
is to be martyred and usually at that time was to be martyred
--
religious but the same thing would be in the married life
or the life of being the mother of a family the father of a family or the
the in our careers just that time before the blessed sacrament
identifying with the sacrifice of our lord does miraculous things
so where there's no blessed sacrament if you take it away
there is no inspiring power of love oh gosh inspiring power of love that
would mean our lord shedding his blood for us and

00:54
we willing to shed our blood with him to create saints
the eucharistic sacrifice has made of millions um living holy sacrifices
pleasing unto god we should make of ourselves the same
young virgins young ladies have sacrificed their charms and youth to the
service of god rather than themselves you know i suppose it's especially
inviting for inviting for young ladies to think that they're
going to marry going to have a family going to have a house

00:55
and that's all virtuous to think that and it's hard to do that
but also a young girl who's between 15 and 20
who's saying that she wishes to give those things up in order to
live exclusively for lord jesus christ that person is really giving up a lot
and they're they want to give up their youth for the service of god
rather than themselves and it's the holy sacrifice of the mass which inspires
that and makes it possible they will not look
--
benediction to the blessed sacrament you know when the blessed sacrament
is exposed and just be in the presence of our lord
whom we know is only present because of his sacrifice he said
that will convert your perish just get them to love our lord and his sacrifice
and that's especially when we see him exposing the blessed sacrament but also
during the holy mass he said that will convert your perish
that's what we all need the converted parish the parish which is not living

00:58
in in a way to be conformed to the world but rather in a way to be conformed to
christ in his sacrifice so let the mass do that for us that's
the main reason for the mass to make all
of us live this renunciation the blessed virgin mary
this renunciation of our lord jesus christ and let our lord continue
his life of grace through us very good next time we get together i'll
start to talk with you about the liturgical um necessities of the mass
we'll say our prayer now name the father and the son of the devil
come in america will praise the lord and blessed is the tribe of god jesus

00:59
name the father and son you