St. Philomena: Powerful With God by Mohr Sr. Marie Helene

Author:Mohr, Sr. Marie Helene [Mohr, Sr. Marie Helene]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: TAN Books
Published: 2015-05-31T16:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER IX

St. Philomena's Popularity

IN FRANCE

NO POLISHED PROSE OR EXOTIC COLOR is necessary to publicize St. Philomena in France. She herself brings contagious enthusiasm because of her power with God. And she is never outdone in generosity.

As early as 1834, three years before her canonization , Philomena was rising to fame. Not drenched with emotion is the story of St. Philomena in a small town in France. It is stark reality.

The Archbishop of Paris gave a small relic of St. Philomena to the church in Sempigny , a poor ghost town, close to Noyan. The parish was most grateful. Then a flame caused by a spark from a candle started a fire. The altar, aged and shoddy, seemed beyond hope of preservation. The maddening tongues of fire licked the altar cloth but stopped their feeding within a few inches of the St. Philomena reliquary. The flames encircled the treasure without touching the wood beneath it.

The little parish of Sempigny felt desolate when deprived of its church. Only their faith sustained the people. "If Philomena has no altar, she will provide one for herself," they said. And St. Philomena did not let them down.

How the Saint took affairs into her own hands is just another instance of her executive power. A rich young man found a leaflet about St. Philomena's intercessory power in heaven. He went direct to Sempigny. Imagine his shock when he saw a pile of charred wood instead of a church! Seeing the reliquary of St. Philomena standing on timber blackened by smoke, he determined to build the Saint a shrine more worthy of her bones.

St. Philomena's new friend spent his fortune in building a stone church at Sempigny. The altar and the shrine are of fine marble. The walls of the chapel today are covered with ex-votos , gifts of those for whom St. Philomena showed her pleasure by obtaining innumerable graces.

From Mrs. Jameson's book on sacred and legendary art 72 comes the assurance that Paris , the style shop of the world, took time out to honor the Virgin-Martyr, St. Philomena. In a somewhat perplexed tone the artist, Jameson, remarks: "I did not expect to encounter St. Filomena at Paris; but to my surprise, I found a chapel dedicated to her in the church of Saint Gervais; a statue of her with the flowers, the dart, the scourge, and the anchor under her feet; and two pictures, one surrounded after the antique fashion, with scenes of her life."

Literature preserves a record of things we want to be preserved. Sometimes this literature is written on the fleshy tablets of men's minds and hearts. And then we have tradition.

In written and vocal record the story of the Philomena shrine at the Church of St. Gervais is ever new. One of the side chapels is strikingly famous the world over. St. Philomena's power among the people of Paris reaches out to cure the sick and ease the heartsick, to stifle despair and revive hope.

Her miraculous protection saved the church of St.

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