In Honor of Our Wonder Worker, Saint Philomena

The great Wonder Worker whose feast is celebrated annually, although not universally, on August 11, which is principally the semi-double Feast of Saints Tiburtius and Susanna, could have saved her life—and lost immortal soul in the process—if she had been willing to violate the Sixth and Ninth Commandments by entering into what would have been a bigamous and adulterous "marriage" with the fierce enemy of the Catholic Faith, Emperor Diocletian. Indeed, Jorge Mario Bergoglio and his band of fiends would have told her that she could have kept receiving Holy Communion if she had entered into such a sinful marriage. She never had any intention of saving her life at the expense of losing her immortal soul and giving scandal unto other Catholics.

Saint Philomena's parents, eager to save her life, urged her to do so. Saint Philomena refused. She loved God more than she loved her earthly life. She loved God more than she loved her parents. She would not place human respect, even for the powerful emperor who threatened her very life and who had her imprisoned and tortured mercilessly, above her love of the true God as He has revealed Himself to us exclusively through His Catholic Church.

Moreover, Saint Philomena was unwilling to break her vow of perpetual virginity that she had made to God at the age of eleven, just two years before Diocletian, who was married to Prisca, the Empress of Rome between 286 A.D. and 305 A.D. (she died in 315 A.D.), proposed an illicit union with her.

Cecily Hallack’s Wonder Worker: Saint Philomena, Virgin Martyr, related the following about what is known about Saint Philomena’s life and martyrdom:

Three people, unknown to each other and living far apart, had what was a true revelation about Philomena’s life. When compared, the three accounts were found to be identical. What could the explanation be if they did not come from Philomena?

The most famous revelation was made to  the Foundress of the Oblates of Our Lady of Sorrows, Mother Maria Luisa di Gesu, a Dominican Tertiary, a mystical who wrote more than twenty books of “ineffable wisdom, clearness and simplicity”, and who died in the odor of sanctity.

On the 3^rd of August, 1833, Mother Louisa knelt before a statue of St. Philomena, making her thanksgiving after Holy Communion. She felt a great longing to know the true day of the Saint’s martyrdom, because, after all, August 10^th was only the day the relics arrived in Mugnano—a great deal for Mugnano but of not much importance to people who lived elsewhere. She had often thought of this, but suddenly the desire filled her heart. Then she felt that she must close her eyes as she could not open them to look at the statue anymore. A gracious and soft voice came the direction of the statue, saying,

“Dear Sister, August the 10^th was the day of my rest, my triumph, my birth into Heaven, my entering the possession of such eternal goods as the human mind cannot possibly imagine. That is why my Heavenly Spouse disposed, by His most high decrees, that my coming to Mugnano should be on the day of which he had seen my coming to Heaven! He prepared so many circumstances to make my arrival at Mugnano glorious and triumphant. All the people were joyful even though the priest who brought me was determined that my translation should take place on the 5^th of the month very quietly in his own house My omnipotent Spouse impeded him with so many obstacles that the priest, although he did everything possible to carry out his plan, could not do so. My translation was made on the tenth, the day of my feast in Heaven.”

The result of this happening was that Mother Maria Luisa was overwhelmed with sadness at the thought that she should fall so easy a prey to an illusion. She took refuge in the sacrament of penance, confessing the whole thing to her director. He was not so hasty in disposing of the matter. He tested it. He wrote off to Mugnano, asking Don Francesco whether it was true that he had originally intended to have the translation on the 5^th and quietly in his own house. The reply came that after twenty-six years Don Francesco could still remember clearly how many obstacles prevented his innocent attempt to bring his present from Rome quickly and quietly into his own house.

At that, Mother Luisa’s director gave her an obedience to ask St. Philomena to tell her some more about her life and martyrdom. Mother Luisa went to her, and begged her not to take any notice of her unworthiness, but to consider that it was a matter of holy obedience, and to reveal a little more. One day, while praying in her cell, she felt her eyes being closed and heard a gracious voice. This was what Philomena told of her story.

I am the daughter of the king of a small Grecian state, and my mother, too, was of royal blood. As they had no children, my parents continually offered sacrifices and prayers to the false gods to obtain a child. We had in our family a doctor named Publius who was a Christian. He pitied the blindness of my parents, and especially he had compassion on my mother in her childlessness. Inspired by the Holy Ghost he spoke to them of our Faith, and made them this promise: ‘If you want a child, be baptized and embrace the religion of Jesus Christ.’ Grace accompanied his words. Their minds were enlightened and their hearts were softened. They did consent. They were instructed and were baptized along with a number of their courtiers who were in their confidence.

A year later—on January 10^th to be exact—I was born, and I was called Lumina, because I had been conceived and born in the light of the Faith, to which my parents were now devoted. Affectionately I was called Filumena—Daughter of Light, of that of Christ which dwelt in my soul by the grace I received in baptism. Because of my birth many families in the kingdom became Christians. I grew up with the teaching of the Gospel printed more and more deeply in my heart. When I was five, I received for the first time Jesus Christ in the Holy Eucharist; and on that day was planted in my heart to be united forever to my Redeemer, Who is the Spouse of virgins. When I was eleven I consecrated myself to Him by vow.

There came the thirteenth year of my life. The peace of Christ which, until that day had reigned in the household and the kingdom of my father, was disturbed by the proud and powerful Emperor Diocletian who unjustly declared war against us. My father, realizing his inferior strength, decided to go to Rome to make a pact of peace with the Emperor. So great was the tender affection my father had for me that he could not bear me out of his sight for an hour, and so I went with him on his journey to Rome.  Rather than be left without us, my mother came too.

Arriving in Rome, he asked an audience with the tyrant, and when it was granted, took me and mother with him to the Palace of the Caesars. While my father pleaded his cause and pointed out that the injustice of the war that was made on him, the Emperor kept looking at me, and finally interrupted my father, saying:

‘Do not distress yourself further. Your anxiety is at an end. Be consoled. You shall have all the Imperial force for your protection if you will but consent to give me your daughter, Philomena, for my wife.’

My parents accepted his condition, and on our return home sought to convince me of my great fortune in becoming the Empress of the Romans.

I rejected the offer without a moment’s hesitation, saying that I was already betrothed to Jesus Christ, as I had made a vow of virginity when I was eleven. My father tried to persuade me that, as a child and a daughter, I had no right to dispose of myself, and he used all his authority to make me accept the proposal. But my Divine Spouse gave me the strength to persevere in my resolution. Then my mother had recourse to caresses, begging me to have pity on my father, on her, and on my country. I replied: ‘God is my Father and Heaven is my mother.’

My parents were unable to do anything in the face of my refusal, which would be taken by the Emperor as a mere pretext of bad faith and the excuse of a deceiver. Diocletian ordered me to be brought into his presence.

My father came for me, but seeing my unshaken in my resolution, he and my mother cast themselves at my feet and implored me to do as they wished, saying: “Daughter, have pity on us, your parents! Have pity on our country and our kingdom!’ I replied: ‘God and virginity come first. My kingdom and my country are Heaven.’

Diocletian at first received me with every kindness and honor to make me accede to his request and to give him my promise. But he obtained nothing from me. Seeing me absolutely firm, and losing all hope of gaining his desire, he began to threaten me. He could not overcome me. Then, in a fit of fury, raging like a devil, he launched this threat:

‘If you do not have me as a lover, you shall have me as a tyrant!’

The Emperor, visibly infuriated, ordered me to be shut up in a dungeon under the armory of the Imperial Palace. I was chained hand and foot, and fed once a day on bread and water. He came himself daily to renew his offer. My heavenly Spouse took care of me. I never ceased to recommend myself to Jesus and His most pure Mother.

On the thirty-sixth day, there appeared to me the most holy Virgin, surrounded by the light of Paradise, with her Little Son in her arms, and she spoke thus to me: ‘Daughter, you will remain three more days in this dungeon, and then on the fortieth day of your imprisonment you will leave this place of sorrow.’

At these words, I was filled with joy: but then she continued to speak: ‘When you leave your cell, you will be exposed to a great battle of atrocious torments for the sake of my Son.’

Thereupon, I trembled, and saw the anguish of death, but the heavenly Queen gave me courage, saying thus: “My daughter, you are dearer to me than others because you have my name and the name of my Son. You are called Lumina, and my Son is called Light, Sun, Star; and I am called Dawn, Star, Moon. I will be your helper. Now is the hour of human weakness which humbles you, but there will come the fortitude of grace which will assist you, and you shall have, besides the Angel who guards you, the protection of St. Gabriel, whose name signified the Strength of God. This Archangel was my protector on earth, and I will send him to help you as my daughter, beloved among all daughters. Gabriel will assist you, and you shall be victorious.”

These words my courage. This vision disappeared, leaving much fragrance in the prison, which consoled me.

At last Diocletian despaired of turning me from my decision, and so he resorted to torture and threats in order to make me retract my vow of faithful virginity I made to my Spouse. When the forty days were fulfilled, he had brought me out of prison and bound to a pillar in the presence of many of gentlemen at arms and other officers of his palace. He had me scourged, saying: ‘Since she obstinately refuses and Emperor, such as I am, for a malefactor condemned to death by His own countrymen, she deserves like Him to be treated by my justice.’

Then seeing that my body was covered with wounds and blood, and life hardly remained in me, he ordered me to be taken back to prison to die. There I awaited death. Two angels appeared, anointed me with a precious oil, and healed me.

The next morning, the Emperor was astounded on hearing the news. Seeing me in full beauty and health, he tried to make me believe that I owed this favor to Jove who ad cured me because he had destined me to be the wife of the Emperor. Filled with the devil, he gave every honor and with ardent caresses of impure affection, strove to draw to my ruin. I remained firm, convinced that they were only the devices of the demon to take from me the most precious possession of my life, the lily of my virginity, which I had offered to my heavenly Spouse. He that strengthened me in this fight was the Holy Spirit.

Diocletian, not knowing how to answer the reasons I advanced in favor our Faith, displayed the greatest scorn, and snarling like a lion, ordered than anchor of iron should be fastened to my neck and I should be thrown into the Tiber so that I and my memory would perish. But Jesus, to show His omnipotence, for the confusion of the tyrant and of the idolaters, sent again two most beautiful angels who severed the rope on my neck. The anchor fell into the depths of the Tiber, where it remains, covered with mud. Upheld by angel wings, I was brought back to shore without a drop of water having touched me. When the people saw me thus, in safety and glory, perfectly dry, they spread this news abroad, and many were converted to the Faith of Jesus Christ.

The tyrant, in furious despair, shouted that it was all done by magic, and more obstinate than Pharaoh, ordered me to be dragged through the whole of Rome and then shot with arrows. When he saw me pierced with these shafts swooning and dying, he cruelly had me to thrown again into prison so that I might die forsaken and without comfort.

In the morning, expecting to find me dead, he was stupefied to find me rosy and well, singing psalms in praise of God. In the night, the Omnipotent One had given me a sweet sleep, and my body had been anointed by an angel with a fragrant ointment.

This caused the Emperor to be in such a cruel fury that he ordered me to be shot through with arrows until I was dead. The archers bent their bows, but the arrows would not move. The tyrant cursed me for a witch. Hoping that witchcraft would be unavailing against fire, he ordered that the arrows should be heated red-hot in a furnace. Again my Spouse saved me from this torment. I was rapt in ecstasy. The arrows speeding towards my body turned back against my body and turned back against the archers, and six them were pierced and died. At the sight of this new miracle, many more were converted and the people began to turn in favor of the Faith. Fearing more serious consequences, the tyrant ordered me to be beheaded without more ado.

And so my soul fled all triumphant and glorious to heaven, to receive from my Spouse the crown of virginity which had cost me so much.

This happened on the tenth day of August, which was a Friday, at the hour which the Italians call nineteen and a half, which is half pat three in the afternoon. Therefore, as I have told you, the Most High caused my translation to Mugnano to take place on this day, with so many signs of Heavenly assistance, that the glory of it might be shown forth.

This was the chief revelation made to Mother Luisa, but at other times, she received additional lights  . . . .

One night, Mother Luisa had a vision in which she saw Our Lady and Philomena, “Stand firm under the protection of Mary,” said St. Philomena, and placed her under the mantle of Our Lady. In another vision, she saw Our Lady clothed with the sun, Philomena laid down her own crown before the Immaculate’s throne and said, “Lady of Heaven, I am come to ask grace.” She demanded more than thirty graces for different persons. Our Lady replied:

“To Philomena nothing is refused. We concede to her all these graces.”  (Cathy Hallack, Wonder Worker: Saint Philomena, Virgin Martyr, by Cecily Hallack, Anthonian Press, Temple Street, Dublin C14 Ireland, 1945, pp. 29-34, 35.)

Saint Philomena was unwilling to compromise on any point of the integrity of the Sixth and Ninth Commandments. She did not believe it was necessary to be "ends oriented," if you will, to save her life. She had no "grand plan" or "master strategy" of making just a "little" compromise in order to preserve her physical existence.

Why is it that so many traditionally-minded Catholics yet attached to the structures of the counterfeit church of conciliarism are willing to compromise on many points involving the First Commandment as their various false "pontiffs," including most especially Jorge Mario Bergoglio, have blasphemed God openly and repeatedly by praising false religions and esteeming their symbols and by extolling their nonexistent "ability" to make "contributions" to the building of the "better" world?

How is that so many millions of saints who gave up their lives to the likes of Nero and Trajan and Decius and Diocletian in the first three centuries of the Church's existence could refuse to make even one slight nod to the nonexistent "sacrality" of false gods while the conciliar "pontiffs" have praised false religions and their false "gods" constantly? Were these saints wrong to refused to praise false religions? Were they wrong to have refused to accept the "place" of these false religions in civil society?

The refusal of our Catholic martyrs, including the dear Wonder Worker, Saint Philomena, whose feast was suppressed by the first conciliar antipope, Angelo Roncalli/John XXIII, to compromise on any point of the Faith stands in sharp contrast to the constant concessions made to false religions one conciliar "pontiff" after another.

The late  Joseph Ratzinger/Benedict XVI praised Mount Hiei in Japan, upon which the Tendei sect of Buddhism worships their devils, as "sacred" in 2007, the same word he used in May of 2009 to describe the Mohammedan mosque of the Dome of the Rock in Jerusalem. What I wrote in 2007 is quite appropriate to relate again, especially on this great feast day in honor of Saint Philomena:

There was a time in 1999 when I asked the editor of a conservative journal in whose pages my articles were carried, although at a very reduced rate by that point, if he planned on addressing the apostasy contained in the Joint Declaration on Justification that had been reached by Joseph Ratzinger, then the Prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the [Conciliar] Faith and representatives of the Lutheran "ecclesial community."

The editor said, "No, some things are best left unreported." In other words, news that would make the Vatican look bad was not going to see the light of day. (By the way, a good treatment of that "Joint Declaration on Justification" has been written by His Excellency Bishop Donald Sanborn. See: Critical Analysis of the Joint Declaration on the Doctrine of Justification .)

Sadly, the issuance of Summorum Pontificum  resulted in the same phenomenon in the Motu world. Matters that once would have been highlighted and discussed in great deal are being ignored as though they are of no relevance whatsoever. Joseph Ratzinger silenced large numbers of people into believing that it is no longer necessary to defend the honor and glory of God and the integrity of the Catholic Faith if that means jeopardizing the "era of good feelings" generated by the supposedly greater access that Catholics in the structures of the counterfeit church of conciliarism are going to have to the modernized version of the Mass of Tradition. The mentality that led the editor of the conservative journal to "spike" any mention, no less critical mention, of the Joint Declaration on Justification in 1999 was the same mentality of those who used to be in the vanguard of pointing out sacrileges and of calling for public acts of reparation to be made by faithful Catholics during the “pontificate” of Karol Josef Ratzinger/John Paul  II when their beloved “restorer of tradition,” the dogmatic evolutionist named Joseph Alois Ratzinger/Benedict XVI was sitting in the chair as the universal public face of apostasy. “Hear no evil.” “See no evil.” “Speak no evil.” “Report no evil, and never once even have the intellectual honesty to admit that none of what has happened since the death of Pope Pius XII on October 9, 1958, can come from the Catholic Church.

This positivistic mentality, which is of the essence of the naturalist farce that is the Judeo-Masonic view of civil governance and popular culture, has not appeared overnight in the the wake of Summorum Pontificum. Oh, no. This positivistic mentality had matured very well as a result of Karol Wojtyla's issuance of the Ecclesia Dei motu proprio in 1988. The situation in what used to be called the "indult" world is so bad that a "priest" in the Priestly Fraternity of Saint Peter told us when we saw him outside of a funeral home in 2007 that he had no responsibility to oppose error. This is an amazing abandonment of the sensus Catholicus. No responsibility to oppose error? One might as well admit that he belongs to a conciliar version of the High Anglican "Church" and be done with it than to say that such a cowardly rationalization has anything to do with the patrimony of the Catholic Church.

Nothing seems to have outraged those who had permitted themselves to be put under Joseph Ratzinger's Hegelian spell. Taking off shoes in that mosque in Turkey and turning in the direction of Mecca while assuming the Mohammedan prayer posture?

No big deal. Ratzinger just "had" to do it.

Calling the heretical and schismatic "patriarch" of Constantinople a "pastor" in the Church of Christ?

What's a few differences among equals, eh?

Permitting the conciliar Vatican to hold the world premiere of a motion picture, Nativity Story, that mocked the doctrinal effects of Our Lady's Immaculate Conception, which is the reason that her body did not had to suffer decay after death and was Assumed into Heaven on this very day, which include the perfect integrity of her human nature, making it a portrayal of her as "moody" and "sulky" and "disobedient" to be completely blasphemous?

The truth is what it is: Ratzinger’s calling Mount Hiei "sacred" in 2007 sent the clear signal that Buddhism was pleasing to God and helpful to souls and to the cause of world peace. This was blasphemous and helped  to reaffirm in the minds of Catholics the very indifferentism that they say they are not promoting, and this is not even to mention the fact that Jorge Mario Bergoglio does not even care about anything except what he can conjure up at the inspirations of the demons who hover around him.  No man who can issue a blasphemous, heretical document such as the Document on Human Fraternity for World Peace and Living Together, February 4, 2019, is a Catholic in good standing, no less a true and legitimate Successor of Saint Peter.

A simple review of the words of Pope Pius IX, contained in his first encyclical letter, Qui Pluribus, November 9, 1846, reveals any impression of indifferentism is a grave matter and must be opposed most vigorously:

Also perverse is the shocking theory that it makes no difference to which religion one belongs, a theory which is greatly at variance even with reason. By means of this theory, those crafty men remove all distinction between virtue and vice, truth and error, honorable and vile action. They pretend that men can gain eternal salvation by the practice of any religion, as if there could ever be any sharing between justice and iniquity, any collaboration between light and darkness, or any agreement between Christ and Belial. (Pope Pius IX,  Qui Pluribus, November 9, 1846.)

Pope Saint Pius X explained this as well in Pascendi Dominci Gregis, September 8, 1907:

How far this position is removed from that of Catholic teaching! We have already seen how its fallacies have been condemned by the Vatican Council. Later on, we shall see how these errors, combined with those which we have already mentioned, open wide the way to Atheism. Here it is well to note at once that, given this doctrine of experience united with that of symbolism, every religion, even that of paganism, must be held to be true. What is to prevent such experiences from being found in any religion? In fact, that they are so is maintained by not a few. On what grounds can Modernists deny the truth of an experience affirmed by a follower of Islam? Will they claim a monopoly of true experiences for Catholics alone? Indeed, Modernists do not deny, but actually maintain, some confusedly, others frankly, that all religions are true. That they cannot feel otherwise is obvious. For on what ground, according to their theories, could falsity be predicated of any religion whatsoever? Certainly it would be either on account of the falsity of the religious .sense or on account of the falsity of the formula pronounced by the mind. Now the religious sense, although it maybe more perfect or less perfect, is always one and the same; and the intellectual formula, in order to be true, has but to respond to the religious sense and to the believer, whatever be the intellectual capacity of the latter. In the conflict between different religions, the most that Modernists can maintain is that the Catholic has more truth because it is more vivid, and that it deserves with more reason the name of Christian because it corresponds more fully with the origins of Christianity. No one will find it unreasonable that these consequences flow from the premises. But what is most amazing is that there are Catholics and priests, who, We would fain believe, abhor such enormities, and yet act as if they fully approved of them. For they lavish such praise and bestow such public honor on the teachers of these errors as to convey the belief that their admiration is not meant merely for the persons, who are perhaps not devoid of a certain merit, but rather for the sake of the errors which these persons openly profess and which they do all in their power to propagate.  (Pope Saint Pius X, Pascendi Dominici Gregis, September 8, 1907.) 

How can anyone with a modicum of the sensus Catholicus say that this is not a perfect description of the mind of the conciliar "popes," including the retired Ratzinger/Benedict and the Energizer Apostate himself, Jorge Mario Bergoglio? 

Pope Pius IX also warned in Qui Pluribus, November 9, 1846, against the wiles of those, identified sixty-one years later by Pope Saint Pius X in Pascendi as Modernists, who would like to convince Catholics that our understanding of truth can be adapted to the "modern" age:

It is with no less deceit, venerable brothers, that other enemies of divine revelation, with reckless and sacrilegious effrontery, want to import the doctrine of human progress into the Catholic religion.  (Pope Pius IX, Qui Pluribus, November 9, 1846.)

Pope Pius IX furthermore identified the method by which the champions of Judeo-Masonic Modernity in the civil world, those cousins of theological  Modernists, were seeking to insinuate their errors into the bosom of the Church:

To this end also tend the most dark designs of men in the clothing of sheep, while inwardly ravening wolves. They humbly recommend themselves by means of a feigned and deceitful appearance of a purer piety, a stricter virtue and discipline; after taking their captives gently, they mildly bind them, and then kill them in secret. They make men fly in terror from all practice of religion, and they cut down and dismember the sheep of the Lord. To this end, finally -- to omit other dangers which are too well known to you -- tends the widespread disgusting infection from books and pamphlets which teach the lessons of sinning. These works, well-written and filled with deceit and cunning, are scattered at immense cost through every region for the destruction of the Christian people. They spread pestilential doctrines everywhere and deprave the minds especially of the imprudent, occasioning great losses for religion. (Pope Pius IX, Qui Pluribus, November 9, 1846.)

My friends, what is more pestilential than calling a mountain upon which is offered worship to the devil sacred? And while it is undoubtedly that case that most Catholics across the ecclesiastical divide will never learn of Joseph Ratzinger's offense to God in this regard, the offense is grave and it is merely representative of the larger apostasy of conciliarism itself, which involves, among many other things, an abandonment of the rights of Christ the King in civil society in order to adopt the inter-denominationalism of The Sillon, condemned by Pope Saint Pius X in Notre Charge Apostolique, August 15, 1910, and the "integral humanism" of Jacques Maritain.

What is more pestilential than calling a mountain upon which is offered worship to the devil sacred?

Oh, well, any number of words and actions that Joseph Ratzinger/Benedict XVI between the time of the issuance of Summorum Pontificum on July 7, 2007, and the time of his retirement on February 28, 2013, to say nothing of the apostasies, blasphemies and sacrileges that have been committed in the past fifty-three months by Jorge Mario Bergoglio, who has in that very short span of time surpassed all of the heresies, blasphemies, sacrileges, and apostasies of his five predecessors in the conciliar "Petrine Ministry" (Angelo Roncalli/"Saint John XXIII," Giovani Battista Enrico Antonio Maria/Paul the Sick, Albino Luciani/John Paul I, Karol Josef Wojtyla/"Saint John Paul II, and Joseph Alois Ratzinger/Benedict XVI).

The conciliar "popes" have gone to mosques and synagogues, giving "joint blessings" with the "ministers" of non-Catholic sects. They have done quite a lot to offend the honor and glory and majesty of the Most Blessed Trinity, and anyone who denies this publicly is either willfully deluded or a liar. There is no middle ground.

Would our Wonder Worker, Saint Philomena, have entered into a mosque on her own power, no less taken off her shoes so as to signify that it is a "sacred' place?

The conciliar "popes" have done so.

Would our Wonder Worker, Saint Philomena, have assumed the Mohammedan prayer position so as to please leaders of this false religion?

The conciliar "popes" have done so. 

Would our Wonder Worker, Saint Philomena, have entered into a synagogue and treated the false religion of Talmudic Judaism as a "valid" religion that is pleasing to God and that serves a role in "sanctifying" its adherents?

The conciliar "popes" have done so.

No saint of the Catholic Church has ever done or said the things that the conciliar "popes" have said and done in violation of the First Commandment.

No saint has made the compromises that those who are now serving as the false "pontiff's" spin-doctors are making in order to clothe an apostate in the garments of the true Faith.

Never before in the history of the Catholic Church have feast days of saints been suppressed for the alleged "lack of historical evidence," meaning, of course, that God the Holy Ghost failed the Church in the matter of her Sacred Liturgy.

Leave it to the Modernists, rationalists to the core of their hardened hearts, to denigrate the very existence of Saint Philomena, who showed forth her miracles in great abundance in the Nineteenth Century and is still doing so to this very day. For the Modernists to be rite to have suppressed the cult of Saint Philomena, then Pope Gregory XVI was wrong to have recognized her cult on January 13, 1837, following the miraculous cure of Pauline Jaricot, the foundress of the Society for the Propagation of the Faith and the Universal Living Rosary Association, at the shrine of Saint Philomena in Mugnano, Italy, on August 10, 1835.

More importantly, however, Pope Saint Pius X, the great foe of Modernism and all other forms of rationalism that denigrated the miracles attributed to many saints and even the existence of some saints, must have been wrong when he gave the following testimonies in behalf of Saint Philomena:

On June 16th, 1907, the Supreme Pontiff Pius X, receiving in audience Father Petit, from Paris, the director of the Work of Saint Philomena, exclaimed:

"Ah, Saint Philomena! It is very sad to read what has been written recently against her" (The Holy Father was referring to certain detractors of the cult of Saint Philomena who dared to maintain that our Little Saint did not even exist.) "It is incredible," continued the Holy Father, "that such things can come about without them (the detractors) looking at the great argument in favor of the saint, the Holy Curé of Ars. By her, in her name, and through her intercession, he obtained innumerable graces and continual prodigies."

To definitively affirm the cult of Saint Philomena and to give the final word, on May 21, 1912, Pope Pius raised the Venerable Arch Confraternity of Saint Philomena into the Universal Arch Confraternity with the Apostolic Brief, "Pias Fidelium Societates," in which he states very clearly:

"We decree with the present words that it shall remain always stable, valid and effective, that it receive and obtain its effects fully and completely, in this way it must be regularly judged and defined, and if it proceeds in any other way, it will be null and without value, whatever the authority might be…" (History of the Universal Arch Confraternity (Archconfraternity) of Saint Philomena. For a very good account of the life of Saint Philomena the Wonder Worker that is found on the website of the Universal Living Rosary Association that, most sadly, accepts the legitimacy "canonizations" of the conciliar "pontiffs." Please see About Saint Philomena, Patroness and Protectress of the Universal Living Rosary Association.)

Nothing, of course, is stable with Modernists, who are so full of pride. Everything associated with the true Faith is "open" for "re-evaluation" and discarding, if necessary. Pope Saint Pius X himself noted this in Pascendi Dominci Gregis, September 8, 1907:

It remains for Us now to say a few words about the Modernist as reformer. From all that has preceded, it is abundantly clear how great and how eager is the passion of such men for innovation. In all Catholicism there is absolutely nothing on which it does not fasten. . . 

To penetrate still deeper into the meaning of Modernism and to find a suitable remedy for so deep a sore, it behooves Us, Venerable Brethren, to investigate the causes which have engendered it and which foster its growth. That the proximate and immediate cause consists in an error of the mind cannot be open to doubt. We recognize that the remote causes may be reduced to two: curiosity and pride. Curiosity by itself, if not prudently regulated, suffices to account for all errors. Such is the opinion of Our predecessor, Gregory XVI, who wrote: "A lamentable spectacle is that presented by the aberrations of human reason when it yields to the spirit of novelty, when against the warning of the Apostle it seeks to know beyond what it is meant to know, and when relying too much on itself it thinks it can find the truth outside the Catholic Church wherein truth is found without the slightest shadow of error."

But it is pride which exercises an incomparably greater sway over the soul to blind it and lead it into error, and pride sits in Modernism as in its own house, finding sustenance everywhere in its doctrines and lurking in its every aspect. It is pride which fills Modernists with that self-assurance by which they consider themselves and pose as the rule for all. It is pride which puffs them up with that vainglory which allows them to regard themselves as the sole possessors of knowledge, and makes them say, elated and inflated with presumption, "We are not as the rest of men," and which, lest they should seem as other men, leads them to embrace and to devise novelties even of the most absurd kind. It is pride which rouses in them the spirit of disobedience and causes them to demand a compromise between authority and liberty. It is owing to their pride that they seek to be the reformers of others while they forget to reform themselves, and that they are found to be utterly wanting in respect for authority, even for the supreme authority. Truly there is no road which leads so directly and so quickly to Modernism as pride. When a Catholic layman or a priest forgets the precept of the Christian life which obliges us to renounce ourselves if we would follow Christ and neglects to tear pride from his heart, then it is he who most of all is a fully ripe subject for the errors of Modernism. (Pope Saint Pius X, Pascendi Dominici Gregis, September 8, 1907.)

Those, such as Joseph Alois Ratzinger/Benedict XVI and Jorge Mario Bergoglio, who reject the Catholic Church's official philosophy, Scholasticism, will live their lives steeped in error after error, including the errors of rationalism, something that Pope Saint Pius X, a true friend of Saint Philomena, noted in Pascendi Dominci Gregis:

If we pass on from the moral to the intellectual causes of Modernism, the first and the chief which presents itself is ignorance. Yes, these very Modernists who seek to be esteemed as Doctors of the Church, who speak so loftily of modern philosophy and show such contempt for scholasticism, have embraced the one with all its false glamour, precisely because their ignorance of the other has left them without the means of being able to recognize confusion of thought and to refute sophistry. Their whole system, containing as it does errors so many and so great, has been born of the union between faith and false philosophy. (Pope Saint Pius X, Pascendi Dominici Gregis, September 8, 1907.) 

It is no accident that our true popes have confirmed the cultus of Saint Philomena while the false ones have disparaged her. Angelo Roncalli/John XXIII abolished her cult altogether and ordered that her shrine in Mugnano, Italy, to be closed! Saint Philomena had the last laugh, however. The corpulent heretic died before his order could be carried out, and Giovanni Batista Enrico Antonio Maria Montini/Paul VI chose not to enforce it. After all, he was focused on the "Second" Vatican Council and the planning and implementation of the Protestant and Judeo-Masonic Novus Ordo liturgical service, and a lot of his fellow Italians would have stormed the Vatican, which is pretty much the same reason that Montini/Paul VI rejected 

The false "pontiffs" have disparaged anything about the Catholic Faith that puts into question their own rationalism, which is why they can have nothing to do with "legends" that they cannot "prove" to their own Modernist satisfaction.

We must show our love and appreciation for Saint Philomena by invoking her intercession from Heaven to help us remain steadfast in our refusal to associate with those who believe in the very Modernist precepts condemned by the true and sainted pontiff who wrote that her cultus "shall remain always stable, valid and effective." I believe our last true pope to be raised the altars of Holy Mother Church as a saint. What about you?

To advance her cult, I have published  the Mass propers for Saint Philomena's feast on August 11, which were provided to us by a friend in 2014: Feast of Saint Philomena Mass Propers.

Saint Philomena did not make even a single compromise to save her life. We cannot make a single compromise with the counterfeit church of conciliarism and its false shepherds.

Saint Philomena was privileged to have Our Lady appear to her in prison after she, Saint Philomena, had been tortured severely. Pauline Jaricot associated the Living Rosary Association with Saint Philomena, whose cult was, of course, spread also by Saint John Mary Vianney, who had a statue of her made according to how she appeared in an apparition to him.

It is by keeping close to the ever sinless Blessed Virgin Mary, especially through her Most Holy Rosary, that we can obtain the graces necessary to reject conciliarism and to denounce the apostasies of the moment. She will console us as we are tortured, perhaps just spiritually and emotionally, by the difficulties of the present era of apostasy and betrayal as we pray as many Rosaries each day as our states in life permit.

Our Lady will help us to be ever ready to defend the honor and the glory of the Blessed Trinity to Whom she is Daughter, Mother, and Spouse. She will lead us to be ever mindful of making reparation for our own many sins by offering our daily penances to the Most Sacred Heart of Jesus through her own Sorrowful and Immaculate Heart, ever desirous of spending time with her at Holy Mass and in front of her Divine Son's Real Presence in the Most Blessed Sacrament as a foretaste of the Heavenly glories that will await us if we die in a state of Sanctifying Grace as members of the Catholic Church.

There is no such thing as a small sacrilege or a small blasphemy.

We are very devoted to our dear Wonder Worker, Saint Philomena, in our family. Each of us wears her holy cord as a means to protect the Virtue of Purity, and pray her Chaplet. I have taken to doing so daily to fulfill a promise to our Wonder Worker to grant and then fulfill a special intention, promising additionally to pray the Chaplet of St. Philomena every day for the rest of my life. We care not about those disparage devotion to Saint Philomea and/or even cast doubt about her very existence. There are no rationalists in our house, only those who are dedicated, despite our sins and failings, to that which rationalists find impossible to believe, including, of course, the miraculous intercessory power of St. Philomena, who came to be known to the world specifically for the very perilous times in which we find ourselves.

May we ask Saint Philomena to give us that purity of mind and heart ,and soul that she had to make no compromises with the Faith so that we will flee from false shepherds and seek out the protection the true shepherds in the catacombs where no attempts are made to justify the apostasies of the moment.

Immaculate Heart of Mary, pray for us now and the hour of our death Amen

Vivat Christus Rex! Viva Cristo Rey!

Our Lady of the Rosary, pray for us.

Saint Joseph, pray for us

Saint Philomena, pray for us.

Saints Tiburtius and Susanna, pray for us.

Saint Lawerence the Deacon, pray for us.

Isn't time to pray a Rosary now?

Appendix A

The Chaplet of Saint Philomena

From the Website of the Universal Living Rosary Association

The Rosary, also known as the chaplet or Little Crown of Saint Philomena, is made up of red beads to signify her martyrdom and white beads; a token of her virginity and purity.

The Rosary is one of the simplest ways of praying to the Saint. First the creed is recited on the Crucifix or medal of St Philomena to ask for the gift of faith. Three Our Fathers on each of the white beads to thank the Blessed Trinity for the gifts given to the Holy Virgin, for in whose honor, laid down her life. The red beads are thirteen in number and signify the 13 years our martyr lived on earth and this prayer is:

"Hail, O Holy St. Philomena, whom I acknowledge after Mary as my advocate with the Divine Spouse, intercede for me now and at the hour of my death. St. Philomena, beloved daughter of Jesus and Mary, pray for us who have recourse to thee".

At the end say:

"Hail, O Illustrious Saint Philomena, who so courageously shed thy blood for Christ, I bless the Lord for all the graces He has bestowed upon thee, during thy life, especially at thy death, I praise and glorify Him for the honor and power with which He has crowned thee, and I beg thee to obtain for me from God the graces I ask through thy intercession. Amen."

Appendix B

The Litany to Saint Philomena

As found at: Saint Philomena--Officium Divinum

Lord have mercy on us.