Ven.

Sister Philomena de Ste-Colombe

Religious Sister, Order of Minims
Deceased at the Valls Monastery

Presented by the Marian Devotional Movement

For Educational Purposes
QueenofIntercessors.com - StMichaelSword.com
 Foreword

“May these pages encourage pious souls to pray more fervently to

the Heart of Jesus, the Immaculate Virgin, St. Joseph and St. Michael,
through the intercession of the one who, during her lifetime, so
recommended to seek their protection!”
Fr. Pie de Langogne

On occasion, through God's providence, one discovers a treasure of

great price elevating the heart to ponder the Author of all things good
and holy. Such was the case with this present text that the Marian
Devotional Movement is making available for the edification of souls.
Although only an abridged account of the life and writings of the mostly
unknown Venerable Philomena, it finally makes accessible to the English
reader the personal experiences of this religious sister while at the same
time making it clear she is not to be mistaken for the Saint of antiquity
she was named after.
Why is the Marian Devotional Movement highlighting the writings of
a Spanish mystic? Simply, her writings illuminate and affirm the
providential leadings of Our Lady of the Cape, Queen of Intercessors'
orchestration of the Marian Devotional Movement's direction and
trajectory. “... Blessed is the nation, blessed is the country... inflamed
with this devotion!” (The devotion to St. Michael and the Two Hearts as
relayed by Jesus to Venerable Philomena in 1867) These words, heard by
the Venerable in the same year Fr. Luc Désilets found a pig chewing on a
Rosary in the chapel at Cap-de-la-Madeleine, mysteriously galvanize the
MDM and the Intercessor Family's work in establishing the New World
Sword of St. Michael "Pilgrimage and Prayer Experience."
 This treasure of great price, yet to be fully unwrapped, brings to
bear how Our Lady of the Rosary neatly ties bows of roses around the
gifts she continues to lavish on souls through her story as Our Lady of
the Cape.
As of yet, we have not spoken of the author of the French version
from which this English translation was produced. A previous Superior of
the Order of the Capuchins, Fr. Pie de Langogne, compiled the French
version in 1893. His introductory remarks add clarity and gravity to the
pages you will soon have the opportunity to digest. Pope St. Pius X, who
canonically crowned Our Lady of the Cape in 1904, elevated him to
archbishop, thus leading to his installation as Archbishop of Corinth in
1911. As part of the papal entourage, he was confessor to the greatly
esteemed Pope. He also served as Consultor to the Congregation of the
Index - the institution within the Roman Catholic Church tasked with
examining books to determine those which needed correction or forbade
to be read by the faithful. It is this cleric who so highly praised the
writings of Venerable Philomena as shall be seen in the preface of the
text.
As a postscript, an addendum about the New World Sword of St.
Michael is included. It is the firm hope of the Marian Devotional
Movement that the writings of Venerable Philomena and the, "Pilgrimage
and Prayer Experience," described in the addendum will lead souls: to
increased devotion to the Sacred Heart of Jesus, the Immaculate Heart of
Mary, St. Michael and St. Joseph; to enrol in the Confraternity of the Most
Holy Rosary and the Scapular of St. Michael; to participate in First Friday
and First Saturday devotions; to the recitation of the Holy Rosary, Divine
Mercy Chaplet and St. Michael Chaplet; to Consecration to Jesus through
Mary thus facilitating a soul’s greater participation in the life of the Holy
Trinity – the Divine Invitation to all souls. “I ask not only on behalf of
these, but also on behalf of those who will believe in me through their
word, that they may all be one. As you, Father, are in me and I am in you,
may they also be in us, so that the world may believe that you have sent
me.” John 17:20-21 NRSVCE

Dennis Girard, Director of the Marian Devotional Movement
 THE VENERABLE

PHILOMENA DE SAINTE-COLOMBE

DISCALCED RELIGIOUS SISTER, ORDER OF MINIMS

HER LIFE AND HER WRITINGS

BY

FR. PIE DE LANGOGNE

ORDER OF MINOR CAPUCHINS

PARIS

MAISON DE LA BONNE PRESSE

8, RUE FRANÇOIS 1er

1893
 DECLARATION

In the spirit of full submission to the requirements of the Holy

Church and particularly to the decree of Urban   VIII on the subject of
beatification and canonization causes, I declare:
1o That, in this LIFE OF THE VENERABLE PHILOMENA, the title of Saint and
the term miraculous do not prejudge in any way the infallible decisions of
the Holy See.
2o That my praises of the writings of the Venerable must be
understood, until the decision of the Holy Church, who is the only one to
be so authorized, as expressing only my personal appreciation.

THE AUTHOR.
 J.M.J.F.

Each work has its own history, whether it be a short essay or a

major project.
For me, the history of a work is a combination of circumstances,
usually unforeseen, that determine us to undertake this work rather than
another, to postpone or sometimes to neglect very dear studies, for the
purpose of concentrating on the current work.
Such was the case for this life of the admirable Sister Philomena. I
like to consider the sequence of small incidents that brought me to write
it as an indication of God’s will.
These incidents, too insignificant and too personal, would not
interest the reader. They can anyhow be summarized in one word: a
photograph, fortuitously glanced, of the head of a Religious Sister of the
Order of Minims, obviously taken of a marble bust; a visit to see this
original bust, and then the sculptor, Felix Ferrer, who had given it such a
celestial expression and who happened to be the very brother of the
Venerable Philomena: that’s it.
Mi hermana! He was pronouncing these words: my sister, with such

respectful tenderness and Christian pride that my companion and I, even

though we certainly admired the technical beauty of his artwork, admired

in our heart of hearts the profound and communicative joy that he felt

while speaking to us about his sister.

Mi hermana! When these pages are read by Felix Ferrer, he will

learn that this hagiography, for which his personal information was so

useful to me, was the result of the vibration of his own soul.
 The life of the Venerable Philomena was written in Spanish by Fr.

Narcisse Dalmau, her confessor and spiritual director, and originally

published in separate articles, in the Mensajero del S. Corazon de Jesus. It

was appropriate that the virtues of the person who so loved the divine

Heart be first revealed to the associates of the pious Revue.

These articles were then assembled in a volume under the title:

Vida de la Sierva de Dios Sor Filomena de Santa-Coloma, Religiosa del

convento de Minimas descalzas de la Villa de Valls: escrita por su

confesor el P. Narciso Dalmau, Pro. de la misma Orden, y consagrada al

Augusto Corazon de Jesus y a su Madre la lmmaculata Virgen Maria.

The second edition, published in Tarragon in 1880, presents as

appendices most of the writings by Sister Philomena.

In 1881, the Very Reverend Fr. Augustin Donadio, Postulator of the

beatification cause, translated and published in Italian, with important

add-ons, but without the writings, the work of his Catalan colleague, who

had since died with a reputation for sanctity.

Based on this Italian version, the Civilta cattolica, 1 which is known

for its theological caution and undeniable competence, did not hesitate,

notwithstanding the authorization to do so, to compare the humble

Religious Sister from Valls to the great heroes of sainthood. “We often

hear and read that our century is no longer one to produce heroes like

1 Civilta cattol. Anno XXXII, Vol. 3, p. 600, and mainly Vol. 4, p. 213.

Rose de Viterbe, Catherine of Sienna, Julienne Falconieri and so many

other Christian heroes, whose virtues were at the level of their faith,

which was so well known in the Middle Ages. And yet, here is a child of

modest background, who was born in 1841 and died in 1868, and whose

27 years on earth were spent in the obscurity of her paternal home and

then in an unknown cloister located in a small Spanish town: she was so

admirable in her works and her suffering, so blessed by God’s gifts that

she reveals to us a reproduction of the most marvellous wonders that we

can read without surprise in the lives of Catherine of Sienna and Rose de

Viterbe.”

The learned Revue concludes with a very wise observation that

gives, in our opinion, the truest comment on this marvellous life, and that

would explain, even if human language, in the face of divine prowess,

would be reduced, as St. Gregory said, to simple babbling: Balbutiendo,

ut possumus, excelsa Dei resonamus. “Apart from what is inimitable in

this life where miracles play such a large part, Catholics will find here rich

and magnificent teachings to console and encourage them in these times

of depravation, non-belief, apostasy and satanic persecutions against the

Church of Jesus Christ.

The secret of the eminent sainthood of Philomena was her double

devotion, which applies more particularly to our 19th   century, to the

Immaculate Mary and to the divine Heart of the Redeemer. Furthermore,

the strongest impulsions that encouraged her to sanctify herself by the

sacrifice of her whole being were based on her insatiable desire to help

souls and to bring relief to the Church and the papacy in the midst of

their concerns and tribulations. This child, living more for heaven than

earth, was therefore a voluntary victim, a holocaust of mercy to God for

the redemption of Christian souls, as well as for the triumph and peace of

the Church.”

Since these lines were written, the name of Sister Philomena, hardly

known in France, has become famous in Italy. Even in Rome, clerics,

prelates and eminent personalities keep in their heart of hearts the

memory of blessings received through her intercession and look forward

to the moment when, with the completion of the canonical case, they will

be able to publicly venerate the one whom they honour privately.

Following the works of Fr. Dalmau and Fr. Donadio, the French

hagiographer who wished to inform his fellow citizens about the virtues

of the humble Catalan nun could simply have translated and combined

both documents; however, Sister Philomena de Sainte-Colombe2 probably

wished for something else. Just when the translation was going to print,

the ordinary cases, completed in Tarragon, were deferred to the Sacred

Congregation of Rites. Providentially, I received communication of the

2It would have been preferable to translate Philomène de Sainte-Coloma. The patron
saint of a small city bearing this name, in the province of Gerona, is named Saint
Coloma. The Bollandists, referring to two Sainte-Colombe, one Spanish and the other
Portuguese, decided to call both Columba and not Coloma. Should this version be seen
as a purely phonetic modification of the Catalan language?
printed Summarium of the said cases and, after reading and studying

these testimonies, so vibrant and moving, from witnesses who almost all

had known this servant of God for many years, I did not hesitate to start a

new work, using widely the story and often the very texts of Fr. Dalmau

and Fr. Donadio.

I did not pretend to do better than my esteemed predecessors, but

I was convinced that I should proceed differently.

For the writings, the French translation was based on the Catalan

text prepared by Fr. Dalmau. To keep close to this text, I respected

everything, even the repetition of the same words, even the breaks and

choppy sentences.

May these pages encourage pious souls to pray more fervently to

the Heart of Jesus, the Immaculate Virgin, St. Joseph and St. Michael,

through the intercession of the one who, during her lifetime, so

recommended to seek their protection!

May also the Venerable Philomena tell me, one day in Heaven, that

the eulogies addressed to her tender and saintly memory were not

without result for her glory here on Earth!

Rome, January 13, 1893.

 THE VENERABLE

PHILOMENA DE SAINTE-COLOMBE

DISCALCED RELIGIOUS SISTER, ORDER OF MINIMS

______________________________________________________________________________
______________________________________________________________________________

CHAPTER I

FIRST YEARS

BIRTH OF PHILOMENA – HER PARENTS – HER BROTHERS AND SISTERS –

MATERNAL OFFERING – NO TEARS – THE “LITTLE ENCHANTRESS” – IMAGES
OF THE BLESSED VIRGIN – THE SWALLOWED IMAGE – FIRST UTTERINGS –
THE LITTLE CRIB – DIVINE PREDILECTIONS – FIRST DISABILITIES – THE
LANCET – ADMIRATION OF RELATIVES – EVIL ATTACKS – THE NAME OF
JESUS – PREDILECTION FOR CONTEMPLATION – INABILITY TO MEDITATE –
TOTAL OBEDIENCE – JOSEFA’S SKILLS – BLESSING OF A CHRISTIAN FAMILY –
PREDICTION ON FUTURE SANCTITY

In the Mora de Ebro3 parish church, the fourth day of April in the year eight
hundred and forty-one: I, undersigned, Prior of the said church, solemnly
baptized Philomena Ferrer, legitimate daughter of husband Felix and wife Josefa
Galceran, residents of this city. Paternal forebears: Michel and Inès Guasch;
maternal: Joseph and Françoise Bru. Cities of origin: for the father, Benicarlo; for
the mother, Mora la Nueva. Godparents: François Laurent and Candide Barcelo,
both informed of their spiritual kinship and obligations. The child was born the
previous day at 6 p.m.

3 Tortosa Diocese, province of Tarragon.

 Jean-Baptiste Descarrega, Pastor-Prior.4

Felix Ferrer, sculptor of merit, moved from Benicarlo to Mora de

Ebro with his courageous wife Josefa. Both lived in the holy fear of God,
faithful to pious and dignified traditions that still prevail, thank God, in
patriarchal families of Catalonia. With their excellent education, their
friendly and caring manners, their care not to interfere in other people’s
business, the Ferrer couple were well regarded; they were accepted and
their company sought by the most honourable families of the city.
Of their very Christian union, six children were born, the eldest
being the one who would later be called Philomena de Sainte-Colombe.
She was baptized the day after her birth, on April 4, 1841, as shown in
her baptismal papers quoted above.
Amongst her brothers and sisters, two already belong to the choir
of angels, God having called them to paradise when they were still
completely innocent. The others, who await still in this land of exile, are
named Felix,5 Michel, Joaquina and Emanuela. The latter received the
habit as a Discalced Religious Sister, Order of Minims, on March 29,
1876, anniversary of the profession of the Venerable Philomena, her
sister and godmother. Emanuela had the further happiness of occupying,
in the same monastery, the cell that Sister Philomena had left for heaven,
eight years prior.
Dona Josefa, her mother, received the rewards of her virtues on
May 13, 1868, three months to the day before her daughter Philomena,
whose name would soon be written in the glorious annals of the Christian
hagiography. Her father, Felix Ferrer, waited another sixteen years for his
reward. When, given the growing reputation of sainthood and the

4 Baptism record of the servant of God, Sister Philomena de Sainte-Colombe, Discalced

Religious Sister, Order of Minims, preserved in the Archives of the Valls Convent. This
record, reproduced in the introduction case for the beatification cause, indicates 7 p.m.
instead of 6; in the printed case, there are several typographical errors.
5 The sculptor mentioned previously, in the Preface.
wonders attributed to Sister Philomena, the ecclesiastical tribunal was
created to be apprised of these wonders, one of the witnesses was
precisely Felix Ferrer. During the first enquiry, the elderly white-haired
man answered with these words filled with moving simplicity and
Christian pride:
“Yes, thanks be to God, I was the father of His servant, Sister
Philomena de Sainte-Colombe; I love her without doubt as her father, but
I also have veneration toward her, because of the virtues and other graces
the Lord bestowed upon her. Yes, I lived with her until she entered the
convent that you named.”
Coming back to our Philomena, it can be stated without temerity
that, long before her birth, the divine favour was upon her and that she
was marked with the seal of the saints. Her mother used to relate that as
soon as she was conceived, she felt compelled, by an interior voice, to
consecrate to the heavenly Queen the child of her first joys as a mother.
Josefa kneeled immediately in front of an image of the Blessed Virgin and
gave her, with transports of grateful love, with tender happiness, the
child she was carrying: “May my child be yours, O Mary, always yours!”
The mother’s love thus nobly ratified the faith of the Christian woman!
The remainder of this story will show to what degree the august Heavenly
Mother accepted this offering.
We cannot say whether this favoured child cried when she entered
what Solomon called “the valley of tears”, as most newborns do, but after
her birth and during her first years, no one, not even her mother,
witnessed her crying.
Human science can try to offer a physiological explanation; this
phenomenon is nonetheless surprising, and we will continue to recognize
the special blessings that can also be observed in the peaceful nature of
this blessed child, always smiling, always gentle, in her baptismal
freshness, in this charming grace that prompted people to call her the
little enchantress.
In privileged souls, we can make such extraordinary observations
that, without tangible evidence of facts and sometimes without the
authority of the Church, we would hesitate to believe them. They are so
beyond the ordinary realm that their unusual occurrence, not to say their
strangeness, surprises and disconcerts the most prudent person.
Philomena, barely 16 months old, manifested by a thousand signs
her instinctive love for the Virgin Mary. “When she saw any image of the
Blessed Virgin,” her mother said, “she became agitated, fussed, stretched
out her little arms, to the point where I nearly dropped her; the only way
to avoid this was to bring her close to the blessed image, of which she
kissed the feet lovingly while waving and smiling at it.”
It was around this time that the following event occurred, the same
as what we are told about the angelic doctor, St. Thomas. The maid who
held her in her arms showed her, to amuse her, a very small image of
Mary; Philomena seized it with her little hands, kissed it and quickly
swallowed it.
This precocious evidence of piety was peculiar in that the child
reserved it exclusively for the images of Mary. Those of saints attracted
her in a very casual way: she looked at them and moved on.
The child’s greatest joy, even as a baby, was to visit her father’s
workshop. When the sculptor, making an exception to the rule, allowed
the maid to cross the threshold with the child into the mysterious
workshop, Philomena examined all the artwork. The finest and detailed
marble produced only a little disdainful pout when they did not represent
a religious subject; but when she saw a pious image, more so of the
Blessed Virgin, even as a rough sketch, there were shouts of joy, romps
of pleasure, as if she found in this image someone that her heart had
always known.
 Her childish sign language, which was not without expression or
grace, was at that time the only means Philomena had to express her
unconscious but real love for her Heavenly Mother. As soon as she was
able to pronounce words, she expressed the feeling that filled her heart:
Mary, my Mother! These were her first words and she repeated them with
inexpressible tenderness.
Her love for the Infant Jesus was not less.
When she was hardly three, her mother had to prepare a crib, for
the second time. Seeing the swaddling clothes, the small garments,
Philomena imagined, in her naiveté, that they would be used for the
Infant Jesus. She searched throughout the house and, having finally found
them, was extremely happy to hold them in her hands, to squeeze them,
to kiss them as if they really had been used for the Infant Jesus. She
spoke to them softly, telling them how great was her love, in a moving
and naive way.
Josefa was rightly proud of her little Philomena, who drew the
admiration of all those she met. The outgoing and gentle character of the
child, her mind that was prematurely open to godly things, her increasing
thirst to learn prayers that she would then recite, during long hours, in
some solitary place in the house, everything confirmed to this Christian
mother that Philomena deserved her surname, the little saint.
Calling her to a high degree of perfection, God started in her early
years to submit her to the beautiful labour of pain.
She was not yet four years old when she suffered from a disability
that was serious enough to destroy her physical strength and long
enough to conquer the patience of souls less favoured by grace.
Philomena describes this disability herself:6 “God wanted, when I
was very young, to try my patience through accidents and disabilities that

6 November 10, 1866, manuscript.

caused an extreme weakness in me, to the point where my life was
thought to be in danger. I already suffered from many ailments when
malignant ulcers formed on my arms, on one foot and one side of my
chest and were very painful. I put up with them with patience [some text
missing here]. I think I recall watching with some pleasure the lancet that
pierced my abscesses and that, so many times, drew blood from my
veins. These pains lasted with intermittent violence until I was eight and,
always, with the grace of God, I endured them without ever complaining,
nor giving any sign of impatience.”
Filled with admiration for this extraordinary patience, which never
failed during the four years of her illness, Philomena’s parents never
ceased to praise the Lord for the wonders happening to their daughter.
This heroic perseverance was, in their opinion, as a seal of the graces and
celestial favours that they observed in her since her birth.
The merits of a soul of such calibre, as well as the spiritual fruits of
its examples, could not pass undetected by the enemy of the human race.
Thus, Philomena was not five years old when she had to fight the evil
spirit that, sometimes by his furious assaults, sometimes by horrible
images, tried to scare the poor child and turn her away from the path she
had started upon with such courage and steadiness.
Her father witnessed one day the violence of these assaults. He was
close to Philomena when she suddenly had a vision of the devil who, in
hideous form and with horrible gestures, seemed to attack her. The child
screamed in terror, threw herself in her father’s arms, calling Jesus for
help. As soon as she pronounced this word, her fear disappeared and she
withstood, with peaceful courage, that attacks of the enemy of her soul.
When she turned six, at the time when reason starts barely to
emerge in children and when they are more interested in toys and
amusements, Philomena was happy to converse inwardly with the Master
of her soul.
 The Holy Mother Teresa of Jesus teaches us7 that those whose
imagination is lazy and whose mind is not very deductive, can achieve
contemplation if they persevere, much faster than those whose faculties
are more penetrating and swifter. This is what happened to our little
Philomena.
Seeing how her daughter had excellent dispositions for virtue, her
mother would sometimes tell her: “Take this book, my child, and go to
your room to meditate a little on this or that topic.” The child, humble
and obedient, would go to her room alone and kneel before a pious
image, trying to collect her thoughts as best she could to study the
chosen topic. In vain! She was never able, as she declared in her writings,
to concentrate on a determined subject that was previously chosen. God
wanted to raise her to a different kind of prayer, much more sublime. It
was the voice of the celestial Spouse that, in her solitude, called her with
love and, to listen to Him, the privileged child combined all her faculties,
all the feelings of her soul and could only say: “Speak to me again, O
Jesus, speak: your servant is listening!”
In fact, the divine Heart of Jesus manifested itself to her, filling her
soul with celestial joy, communicating to it the sublime gift of an
unconscious contemplation and leading it himself on the path of
perfection.
However, Philomena’s most evident virtue, during her first years,
was without a doubt that of obedience. As a pious mother, Josefa, struck
by the extraordinariness of her child, tested her virtue in a thousand
ways. For example, she tried to contradict her, to correct her speech and
actions, but the child always remained gentle and completely obedient, to
the point where it seemed she did not possess her own will.

7 Vie de la sainte Mère Thérèse de Jésus, Autobiography, Chap. IV.

 Her pleasant disposition was nurtured not only by prayer, but also
by good books on which Philomena concentrated as soon as she learned
to read, and also by the fervent and persevering zeal of her parents to
cultivate the holy inclinations of their daughter, which proves that
virtuous parents are a precious blessing for their children.
If, in the midst of distractions and domestic occupations, our dear
child’s interior contemplation was so faithful at home, what was it not in
the house of God and the dwelling of prayer! There more than anywhere
else, Philomena, set ablaze with divine love, poured out her soul in the
presence of the Lord. Kneeling down, her hands together, her eyes
modestly lowered, she stayed without moving like a statue of prayer.
Favoured by her heavenly Spouse, she edified all the parishioners who
saw her.
A holy priest, who found her one day in this kind of rapture that
was normal for her when she prayed in church, was so moved by this
somewhat radiating devotion that he exclaimed: “The deportment of this
child is so extraordinary that it is, in my opinion, a definite sign that she
will one day reach a high degree of sainthood.”
The development of sainthood that we will admire proved this
prediction to be right.
______________________________________________________________________________
______________________________________________________________________________

CHAPTER II

FIRST COMMUNION

THE CHARACTERISTICS OF SAINTLINESS – PHILOMENA AND GOD’S

INTERESTS – ABOUT A BOAT RIDE ON THE EBRE RIVER – THE OLD BEGGAR –
THE YOUNG BEGGAR – THE MYRRH BOUQUET – THE EUCHARIST, SOURCE
OF LIFE AND STRENGTH – DRY WOOD AND GREEN WOOD – THE GREAT
DAY, OCTOBER 15, 1853 – ELOQUENT COINCIDENCE – LAPSE – SECRETS
FROM HEAVEN – FIRST VOWS

The great English ascetic, Fr. W. Faber, in his wonderful book, All
for Jesus,8 makes the following remark, in reference to the characteristics
of saintliness, that all the saints, notwithstanding the admirable variety of
their personal character, have three points in common: zeal for the glory
of God, concern for the interests of Jesus Christ and the burning desire to
save souls.
These three tendencies of the soul that the pious author called the
three instincts of saints are, in fact, the touchstone of saintliness, the
natural expansion of God’s love that, overflowing from their hearts,
blossoms in these exterior manifestations.
And as the flower bud foretells of the flower that will bloom under
the dew and the shining sun of God, so did Philomena’s soul seem
marked by these three characteristics, from a very young age.

8 Chap. II, Section 1, Vol. 1.

 Her concern for the honour of Jesus was such that sins committed
against him were like sharp thorns in her young heart. Oh! How sins of
scandal made her suffer! How her soul was torn by the blasphemies she
heard! With what holy boldness she defended Jesus when He was gravely
offended!
One day, in her presence, people were discussing the pleasures of a
boat ride on the Ebre river. The waters of this river bring freshness and
richness to the land that it flows through. The luxuriant vegetation of its
shores is interspersed by shady groves under the fluttering leaves of
poplars growing above them. “Ah,” said Philomena, “a boat ride on the
Ebre would be very pleasant were it not for the coarse language of the
boatmen and their blasphemies against the Holy Name of the Lord that
can be heard constantly!”
Everyone present was surprised at this emotional remark coming
from a seven-year-old child, but more so by the exquisite sensitiveness
of her love for Jesus.
Philomena’s fervour was just as strong for the spiritual and material
good of others. She was never too tired to help relieve one’s physical or
moral misery.
But her zeal was particularly tender and kind toward the paupers of
Jesus Christ. Under the rags of misery, Philomena’s faith made her
perceive royal souls, redeemed by the Precious Blood of the Saviour. She
herself confides how her heart was partial to the needy: “Often,” she said,
“I gave everything I could dispose of to my dear paupers whom I loved so
tenderly.”9
In the city of Mora, there lived at the time a paralyzed woman to
whom Josefa sent some food from time to time, through Philomena. One
could not have given a more pleasant chore to the child. She carefully

9 November 10, 1866, manuscript.

brought the food sent by her mother to the handicapped woman and, not
being able to bring her more as she would have wished, she found a way
to supplement the material alms with a spiritual one of no less merit. Her
edifying reflections, her gentle words of encouragement brought
consolation and Christian resignation as a healthy balm to the heart of
the patient in the midst of her pain. Philomena was indeed a comforting
angel that God sent to the poor handicapped woman to sustain her and
ease her pain.
Another example of the kindness of the young servant of God must
not go unmentioned. A child of her age, but very poor, used to pass each
day in front of her house to get water from the well. When Philomena
would see her coming, she tried to accompany her to do the same chore;
at the fountain, she asked the young girl to fill her jug and, pretending to
thank her for her effort, would give her a small donation to ease her
misery.
Philomena had reached her 13th year without yet having received
the august Sacrament of the Eucharist. It was time for her to come to the
Holy Table both to obey the Church’s precept and to progress more
quickly in virtue. The Eucharist is truly the Bread of the strong: it works
wonders for saints, it is the very source of spiritual consolations, it gives
martyrs courage and indomitable patience in the midst of torments.
Our pious child prepared herself with fervour for this special day
when she was to receive, for the first time, the One for whom the whole
world is too small a dwelling.
There is a principle according to which both natural and
supernatural causes have a more or less strong action depending on the
dispositions of the subject on which they operate; thus, fire promptly
lights up dry wood, while it is slow to burn green wood.
Philomena understood from the Holy Spirit that she would receive
abundant celestial gifts proportionately to the interior dispositions of her
soul. It is therefore easy to understand how carefully she prepared her
heart. The state of justice and purity, strictly compulsory for all those
who participate in the sacred banquet, were not sufficient for the pious
child. She wanted more and better: to purify her heart of all worldly
affection; to have no other desire or thought than to please God; to open
her heart widely for it to be filled with grace and for His total possession.
To activate the divine love to the point of being consumed, such was the
saintly ambition of the blessed child.
These noble efforts prompted in her soul, for God’s first visit, the
double feeling of respectful love and loving respect that both reconciled
the dignity of the Sacrament and the saintly fervour of the soul for Jesus.
Finally, the moment Philomena so longed for arrived where she
received in her heart Jesus-Love. It was October 15, 1853, feast of the
seraphic virgin of Avila. The coincidence is remarkable. People of little
faith will conclude that it was a fortuitous coincidence; but we, the
children of light, recognize one of the divine Providence’s delicacy who,
to enlighten the souls and attract them, prepares the smallest details and
uses them to service his noble labour of sanctification. To celebrate her
first communion on the feast of St. Teresa of Jesus, this was for
Philomena a sovereignly eloquent connection! And can we not understand
this ourselves as a symbolic foretelling of God’s projects for this favourite
child who would, similarly to Teresa of Jesus, learn from the divine love
both celestial sweetness and ineffable martyrdom?
What took place on this first visit between Philomena’s soul and the
God she loved; with which treasures the divine Host rewarded the
hospitality of this well-prepared heart; what was the intimacy of this
union that the Lord himself compares to the union with his Father? We
cannot tell and, in any case, to express it, would a heavenly language not
be required?
 The servant of God herself, notwithstanding the insight from above,
notwithstanding her experience of these divine wonders, admitted she
was unable to express it. She simply declared that after receiving in her
heart Jesus in the Eucharist, she felt flooded by a torrent of ineffable
delight to the point of losing the use of her senses for more than
18 hours.
Her confessor, who knew the humility of the servant of God and her
invincible reluctance to express the special favours from her divine
Spouse, did not hesitate to call this lapse by its real name: a celestial
rapture; the servant of God later, forced through saintly obedience,
admitted that she indeed had been raptured in spirit and favoured,
during this rapture, with the grace of light, pressing and gentle, that
determined, then and there, the complete offering of herself to Jesus
through the Immaculate Mary.
She writes:
I felt a more than usual intimate sense of contemplation and I had a clear vision
of the Immaculate Conception of the Most Holy Virgin Mary. At that moment, I
got up from my bed10 and kneeled in front of an image of the Queen of heaven.
Without words, I told her about the fire in my soul in this divine work that I
cannot explain. Jesus then gave me a very clear and very noble manifestation of
the Immaculate Conception of Mary and, at the same time, I understood the
beauty of virginity and how the Holy Virgin is partial to it. Attracted, led by an
irresistible power toward this radiant beauty, I promised Mary to follow in her
footsteps, that is, I dedicated with total joy my virginity and all of my heart’s
affection to her, choosing her as my very tender Mother and offering myself to
her forever as her humble child. During this offering, my heart was melting with
love.11

Through these simple and precise words, one can see the
tenderness of God’s love for this soul, as He showered her with his
favours; Philomena answered this love with all the power of her soul and
all the fervour of her heart. Can we also not conclude that God, to attract
this ardent soul so intimately, to bring her to follow such extraordinary

10 Her parents had forced her, after church, to rest in bed as she seemed very weak.
11 November 10, 1866, manuscript.
paths, had to shower her with his delights? Because those who love much
give much.
This long ecstasy, or rather, as Philomena called it, this strange
lapse, could not go unnoticed by the population of Mora. Thirty years
later, Françoise Vendrell, first cousin of Philomena, interpreted for the
apostolic judges the admiration that was generated at that time.
“My mother – God bless her soul – went to visit Philomena during
the afternoon of her First Communion, during the 18   hours that her
ecstasy or lapse lasted and reported in minute detail this great
strangeness. I visited her also the next day, but found her back to normal
and full of joy as usual.”
Before her First Communion, Philomena was already saintly, taken
with the angelic beauty of the virtue of virgins; since her early childhood,
she had practised, in a baptismal instinct, if I may say, through a pressing
attraction, the virtues of the saints, virtues that she knew then only by
name. Then, as she matured, she also grew in wisdom and fervour; and
God, who loves to anticipate the pious desires of the soul that aspires to
perfection, filled it every day with greater understanding to increase its
merits.
Through this vision, the Queen of Virgins wanted to indicate that
she had chosen Philomena for her service. Already, as mentioned
previously, she had inspired her mother to dedicate her child to Her,
when she carried her in her womb. To complete this maternal dedication,
to support the desires of her Son, she inspired the child to ratify, by the
spontaneous gift of herself, in perpetual virginity, the donation that had
preceded her birth.
______________________________________________________________________________
______________________________________________________________________________

CHAPTER III

THE CONSECRATED CHILD

PHILOMENA NO LONGER BELONGS TO HER PARENTS, BUT TO GOD –

CHOLERA – PHILOMENA IS DYING – PRAYER TO ST. PHILOMENA –
IMMEDIATE CURE – RENEWED LIFE: LIFE OF LOVE AND SUFFERING – MORE
INTIMATE UNION WITH JESUS – CONSOLATIONS BEFORE TRIBULATIONS –
PASSIVE PURIFICATION – NIGHTS ON THE FLOOR – STRICT ORDERS FROM
JOSEFA – INVOLUNTARY DISOBEDIENCE ON THE PART OF PHILOMENA –
STRANGE STOMACH ILLNESS – DOCTORS’ MEDICINES AND EMPIRICAL
RECIPES FROM WOMEN OF MORA – JOSEFA’S HARSHNESS TOWARD HER
DAUGHTER – THE SLAP – PHILOMENA’S STRANGE DISEASE – HER
TEMPTATIONS

A year had barely gone by since Philomena’s First Communion

when God, to attract her more and more to him and to attach her more
closely to his love, wanted to test her in the crucible of tribulation. Her
parents had to learn that they had practically lost all rights on their
daughter, since they had dedicated her before her birth; that her life no
longer belonged to them since, hereafter, their child would only live
through a prolonged miracle; in a nutshell, these very Christian parents
had to accept, in humble and grateful submission, the divine dispositions
for their beloved child. In this case, for the child and her parents, the
agent of God was cholera that was then wreaking havoc in all of Spain,
but more so in the small town of Mora. Philomena was attacked by this
scourge: the violence and the force of the sickness were so severe that,
very quickly, after incredible pain and horrible convulsions, the child was
near death. Josefa, sustaining her with the solicitude and tenderness only
the heart of a mother can hold, seeing her disfigured face, her sunken
and lifeless eyes, her deadly pale cheeks, her dry and pallid lips, her stiff
and motionless limbs, thought that she had died and covered her with a
shroud, hoping to see her again only in the eternal life.
Kneeling, or rather, collapsing beside the virginal body of her
daughter, the poor mother was reviewing in a kind of painful semi-
unconscious dream the details of a young life cut short. She remembered
vividly the mysterious impulse that had driven her to dedicate to God,
even before birth, this blessed child. Then, she had the same impulse, the
same compelling force urging her to resort to the intercession of
St. Philomena: “She was named after you, O great Saint,” cried the mother
in a thrust of sublime faith, “she belonged totally to God: bring her back
to life, give me back my child!” O miracle of love and faith! With this cry,
the young Philomena opened her eyes as if waking from a deep sleep and
embraced her happy mother. That same evening, the young convalescent
was able, unassisted, to walk to the window to venerate the statue of St.
Roch which was being carried in procession through the streets of the
city.
When her mother told her shortly after how she was cured so
instantaneously, almost as a resurrection, Philomena received a revelation
that established more clearly the ultimate goal of her life, this life that
had been miraculously given back to her: for God, entirely for him and for
him alone! The virgin of Avila used to say: “I am dying of not being able
to die.” The virgin of Mora also said, deep in her heart: “I will live without
dying and I will die by living a life of love, atonement and suffering.” From
that moment, her union with God became more alive and pressing, her
fervour more active, and more intense her wish to do good, to glorify the
divine Master. She would have liked to hold in her hands all the hearts of
mankind to carry them immediately to the Heart of Jesus who wants them
to be ignited by his celestial flames; and the divine Heart, in turn, would
reward her seraphic desires by ever more gentle comfort and radiant
light.
The time was close though when the Master would offer, to her
desire for love, no longer the sweetness of the ineffable union, but the
chalice of sorrow. For privileged souls, tender joys are usually, in the
inner life, but a quick break, a simple pause to prepare them for new and
harsher sufferings. This type of divine work in these souls, as
Philomena’s confessor explained to her, instead of being a sign of
displeasure or abandonment is instead an admirable testimony of its
persistent and fruitful favour.
The feeling of affection tries to create a balance or establishes this
equilibrium between those that it unites. God himself, in his infinite
kindness, wanted to subject himself to this law: he made himself our
equal, he lowered himself down to us to raise us up to him; hence, in
privileged souls, this desire to elevate oneself to the divine Model by
imitating his sufferings. He suffered for me, so I must suffer for him. This
is the logic of the heart of humans and the heart of God, a logic that ends
in eternal joy in and for God.
This wish to suffer, however deliberate and deep in the heart of
Philomena, initially expressed itself more passively than otherwise. These
outward signs leave us at first glance somewhat perplexed. Often,
Philomena stayed in bed in winter without any protection against the
cold; many times, she was found in a simple nightgown, sleeping on the
floor of her room. Seeing this, Josefa severely scolded her daughter who
was putting her already delicate health at risk and she forbade these
austerities that she called whims and disobedience.
To put an end to all these excuses, the mother ordered her to go to
bed as soon as she came to her room, without meditation, without extra
prayers, since the family said their evening prayers together. Philomena
did not hesitate one second to obey her mother’s orders; however, she
was still found quite often shivering in a half-sleep on the floor near her
bed.
Faced with her mother’s legitimate12 anger and criticisms, the poor
child insisted that she went to bed at the set time and conditions, but
could not explain how she found herself on the floor; this excuse did
nothing to reassure Josefa or reduce her vigilance. She understood less
and less how her child, so obedient and truthful, was resisting the most
just and explicit orders. Philomena meanwhile suffered a thousand
deaths in seeing the pain she caused her mother. In addition, she was
blaming herself for these austerities that, performed in disobedience, as
her mother assured her, were not for God but for the devil.
This ordeal ended only to be replaced by another type of suffering.
The divine Worker wanted to embellish his work by an activity that was
proportionate to his predilections, to Philomena’s generosity and to the
favours he had showered over her.
A complete gastric atony, of unknown origin or character, caused
her, in a very short period, not to be able to ingest any food at all. If,
pressured by her mother, she tried to eat more substantial food, her
stomach would contract immediately and she felt violently nauseated;
then her whole body would start shaking nervously until, several hours
later, she would be left aching and exhausted.
Trying to be obedient, she followed exactly the prescribed
treatment that seemed best adapted to her condition; but all this
medicine, all this care would prompt more acute pain and made her feel

12The first biographer of the servant of God seems to reproach Josefa for her strictness
toward Philomena. And yet one has to recognize that Josefa, despite her piety, had to
watch over the health of her child and not to verify that God’s secret intentions were
imposing this or that type of mortification on Philomena. The truth is that God, while
wanting these austerities, was blessing both the vigilance of the mother and the
obedience, however inefficient, of the child.
worse. Such was the visible result. As regards the invisible and
supernatural result, God only knows the heroic acts of gentle and
resigned patience of his generous servant. Not a single complaint; not an
aggravated or discouraged word; though contracted with pain, her face
kept a smiling expression that showed the peace of her soul.
To the physical pain soon were to be added moral afflictions of
such severity that they should have broken the dear patient, because they
affected her in her filial love.
With the worried concern and exhaustion that too often
accompanies maternal dedication, Josefa was constantly on alert to force
Philomena to follow her treatment meticulously: potions ordered by the
doctors; empirical recipes indicated by the women of Mora, each of
whom, for this illness, had half a dozen infallible cures; the poor patient
had to put up with everything. With each new trial, Philomena’s stomach
pains became more violent and her disgust sometimes insurmountable.
Her mother, discouraged by this failure, started to listen to the
insinuations of the neighbours who could not accept the ineffectiveness
of their marvellous remedies: the child was not sick or, rather, her illness
was imaginary; her repugnance, a lack of obedience; her nausea, an act
or a whim. From then on, her mother insisted more vigorously; then came
harsh reprimands and, finally, unceasing remonstrations that broke the
poor child’s heart. Philomena wrote: “My mother told me that my
disobedience was shortening her days, that I was the cause of constant
affliction and that everything came from my foolish imagination; as soon
as I had taken one medicine, she would come and give me another.”13
One day, Philomena was putting on her mantilla to go to church.
Her mother, probably seeing this as being very imprudent, came to her
and slapped her in the face. The saintly child, confronted by this

13 November 10, 1866, manuscript.

unexpected violence, barely showed her surprise, if not for a long look of
astonishment; calm and resigned, she changed her mind immediately
about going to church without any objection, without asking any
explanation. In her room, she felt in her soul a commanding movement of
gratefulness toward Our Lord who thought she was dignified enough to
suffer in some way for his love.
The ordeal did not stop here. The illness was affecting Philomena’s
health, while her mother’s attitude broke her heart: the devil was going to
attack her piety in a terrible assault. First came the temptations of
discouragement where she doubted God’s love for her, where she
doubted her heavenly Mother was protecting her; then she had a very
clear intuition of the smallest harshness coming from her mother. She
constantly became obsessed by this double thought: that God did not
listen to her and that her mother was determined to treat her with
severity. The pious child was fighting mightily with her faith against
despair, and with all the tenderness of her filial love against the
instinctive repulsion she felt at the very sight of her mother.
When temptation was stronger, Philomena prayed longer and her
desperate calls for God’s mercy did not bring her calmness, but the
strength to remain faithful and nonetheless to bless the divine goodness,
though in her eyes it had become an implacable justice. However, the
Lord, who measures wind from the bird’s feather and the degrees of
suffering for his privileged ones, ended the filial aspect of the ordeal.
Josefa, remaining anxious in her worries and her motherly caring, did not
change her attitude in any way toward her daughter, but Philomena
understood that God was precisely using the concern of her mother to
test her trust and increase her merits.
This intuition consoled the saintly child and added to her filial
tenderness a feeling of religious veneration toward her mother, who
cooperated with God in these sanctifying ordeals. Josefa’s obsessive
proceedings, her transitory harshness, as well as her bitter opposition to
Philomena’s projects for cloistered life became for her a source of merit.
She suffered from it, but was never troubled by it again.
The methods used by Josefa for her daughter should not lower, in
the eyes of the reader, the merit of this Christian woman, so valiant and
devoted. Too pious not to submit wholeheartedly to God’s plans for
Philomena, she nonetheless did not have to probe and much less to
guess how the providential work would unfold in this favoured soul.
In any case, everything contributed to persuading Josefa that in this
illness there were inconsistencies and oddities that were humanly
inexplicable. Philomena barely ate enough to stay alive and yet she was
growing and developing. Her stomach could not sustain food and yet her
complexion was fresh and pink, her eyes bright and relaxed. Her bouts of
mortal languidness left her exhausted, depressed and aching in all her
fibres. Then, without transition, she took up with energy the most tiring
tasks for a young girl raised with refinement.
How to believe in a real illness when confronted with the
appearance of the best of health? This healthy look enhanced the proud
beauty of the pious child.
This exceptional beauty became for Philomena the source of
struggles and victories. She had given herself to God, her eternal
engagement was set, and no secular affection could find its place in the
heart that was like Agnes’, the gentle Roman Virgin filled by the Unique
One, the Spouse whose tenderness nourished her virginity.14 So the devil,
not hoping to trick the servant of God with these very natural attractions
which, while not tarnishing the souls still aggravate and dull them,
wanted after several painful struggles to attempt a decisive assault.

14 St. Agnes Service, V. and M.

 One day, on her way home, Philomena came upon two young men,
good-looking and elegant. As they came closer, she felt an evil wind
filling her soul. “Oh! Isn’t she beautiful!” one young man said. Then,
joining hands, they blocked her way and pushed themselves upon her.
“You rascals!” screamed the pious fiancée of Jesus, while she implored
the heavens and her hand traced the sign of the cross. Instantly, the two
young men disappeared in black smoke, while proffering horrible curses
against Jesus and his servant.
What could the devil do against the one that God himself, the
jealous, powerful and good God, had reserved for his predilections?
These assaults, and many others of a less brutal nature but not less
dangerous, rekindled in the heart of Philomena the absolute trust in her
divine Spouse, to the point where she no longer paid attention to the
most wicked and troubling suggestions. How many discouraged souls
would have found victory and peace if they had so trusted God, and had
only contempt for the Evil one!
______________________________________________________________________________
______________________________________________________________________________

CHAPTER IV

THE VOCATION

FIRST TALKS ABOUT HER VOCATION – JOSEFA’S OPPOSITION – PHILOMENA

FORCED TO PERFORM DOMESTIC CHORES – THE DEVIL’S SUGGESTIONS –
ALTERED HEALTH – THREE FASTS PER WEEK – JOSEFA CHANGES HER
BEHAVIOUR TOWARD PHILOMENA – THE VALLS MONASTERY – THE PASTOR
OF PLA – “YOU WILL BE OUR SISTER” – JOSEFA TAKES HER DAUGHTER TO
THE MONASTERY – “OH! MY WALLS, MY DEAR WALLS!”

Less evident but not less efficient relief was going to be necessary
for Philomena to sustain her in her new struggles and to prepare the
earthly consummation of her eternal gift by taking holy orders.
Philomena was 16. For a long time, she had conveyed, in a timid
and hesitating way, the desire of her heart for cloistered life. Invariably,
Josefa answered that her health was too frail to even attempt religious
life. “Communities don’t need a group of disabled people and even less,”
she sometimes would add in a sudden change of mood, “stubborn and
hotheaded young girls.” One day, after Philomena was more insistent, her
mother answered abruptly, either because of her own conviction or as a
test, that she did not believe in her vocation. “All your penance, your
austerities, your whimsical illnesses, I see them not as the adorable will
of God, to whom I want to abide by entirely, but as signs of your hot
head, and my duty is to calm all this turmoil.” Josefa, as we have already
noted, was a wilful woman and a wholehearted Christian, mulier fortis, in
both meanings of the word. So, without hesitation, she started to fight,
probably with well-intentioned energy, which was quite painful for her
daughter, against any idea of religious life. She immediately drew a line
of conduct to which the pious child submitted without asking questions,
without the least complaint: she was to stop any contact with a pious
lady, D. Maria Calanda y Serres, with whom, from time to time, she had
discussions on spiritual subjects; she could go to church only on Sundays
and Holy Days, as any good Christian; she was to stop thinking about
these visits and stop her long prayers on ordinary days. “And since you
are so strong,” added Josefa, “you must be strong enough to take care of
the house.” The maid was let go and Philomena had to undertake the
most tiring chores of domestic life.
The following deposition by D. Maria Esplugar y Payal, childhood
friend and classmate of Philomena, clearly refers to Josefa’s behaviour:
“Philomena’s admirable obedience to her mother is absolutely
unquestionable; to her mother who treated her harshly, she never
disobeyed. What’s more, on a simple gesture of her mother, she would
quickly leave her friends and go home.
In school, she was very obedient to her teacher who happened to
be my aunt, Thérèse Serra-Rosello, now deceased. And I remember very
well that my aunt always used Philomena as a model. She used to say:
‘You should all be like Philomena.’ As far as Josefa is concerned, I am
certain that she subjected her daughter to many trials and it’s to this end
that she fired the maid and replaced her with Philomena.” Still, the
witness implies that her friend’s mother acted this way not because of
pettiness or wickedness, but uniquely to be sure of her daughter’s
vocation. Among the pious friends or acquaintances that Philomena, on
her mother’s order, had to forego completely, we cannot ignore the
Pastor of Pla’s servant, Françoise Miralles. This good person surely had all
the qualities but also some of the faults of her kind; for example, she was
very curious and inquisitive. She knew that Philomena wanted with all her
heart to be a nun; but she also knew that her mother opposed this wish,
because of the whimsical mortifications, she used to say, of her child. We
presume that Françoise encouraged the saintly child, but she would have
liked for Philomena to confide more completely in her, especially in
relation to the austerities that her mother forbade. However, Philomena,
despite her smiling and jovial attitude, seemed not to want to submit her
pious practices to the control of her old friend. This discretion caused her
friend to be even more curious. By some indications, she thought that
Philomena wore a hair shirt. She wanted to ascertain this hunch through a
thousand little tricks, but could never prove it. One day, no longer able to
contain herself, she asked her young friend directly: “But, Philomena, you
are wearing a hair shirt!” – “A hair shirt, me!” answered right away the
valiant young girl, “a hair shirt, me, but don’t you know that I can’t even
stand the sting of a bug?” Poor Françoise was completely taken aback by
this answer of which she was unable to grasp the humble cleverness.
With Josefa, however, elusive answers would not succeed. The
orders were categorical; her daughter had no choice but to obey.
From then on, no more spiritual books, no prayers in her room, no
or almost no visits to the Holy Sacrament; Philomena hardly had enough
time to complete her chores in the house and to receive communion from
time to time. Hence, her soul became slowly impoverished. Without being
less united to God, she no longer felt this union and did not have the
spiritual means to nourish it.
The devil, vanquished in other circumstances, decided to use this
painful situation to lead the valiant child away from religious life. His
suggestions directly attacked her vocation which he represented as a
dreamy imagination, a simple young girl’s pretence, wanting to stray
from the ordinary path, instead of aspiring to be a good mother, like so
many others who were as worthy as she was. Why, in any case, would God
call her to religious life? Such a perfect life requires souls who have more
moral fibre than hers; furthermore, her physical weakness did not allow
her to dream of such a mortified life. After the first moment of fervour,
she became disgusted and anxious. There was no doubt that the eternal
salvation of her soul was in great danger if she continued to be obstinate
about adopting a lifestyle that was not meant for her.
To these treacheries of the devil, the good Master opposed, in the
soul of his servant, only a persistent attraction, but less and less
perceptible. Philomena was going to have to buy, somewhat, the grace of
this religious life before obtaining it. This intimate battle was exhausting
for her; these renewed sufferings of which God and her mother were the
agents broke her heart and her strength; she succumbed. Her will
remained on the right path and without failing, but she lost her physical
strength. She had to force herself to work, and had to continuously renew
this effort. Her face lost its fresh colours and it soon became clear that
her health was much affected.
Usually, mothers guess the sufferings of their children through a
mysterious instinct of the heart. Josefa, however, did not notice that her
child’s health was declining. At the very least, she did not seem to
understand and imputed this weakness to new whims. She used to say
that Philomena deliberately got tired because she incessantly thought of
religious life in order to be delivered from her mother and her domestic
chores.
If the poor child could at least have been consoled by her spiritual
Father! But he, a man of science and zeal, knowing that Philomena was
called to greater perfection, was not in the least preoccupied with
consoling her, being more interested in keeping her humble. In this
situation, his timid and discreet spiritual daughter hardly dared to let him
see the agony that was consuming her.
The situation was thus inextricable; God had to intervene. As usual,
his intervention defied all previsions. Philomena, wanting to invoke God’s
mercy, asked her mother one day if she could fast three times a week. To
the great surprise of her daughter, Josefa agreed without hesitation. The
submission of the child and the acquiescence of the mother were
immediately rewarded. During the first week of fasting, Philomena’s
health improved a lot; her sad face became alive and her strength
returned. Josefa relieved her in part of her domestic chores, thus giving
her more freedom to do her prayers that she no longer criticized and that
she often shared. More than once, one would catch her looking tenderly
at her blessed child that she had tortured unwittingly or at least without
ceasing to love her. Philomena sensed, through the peace in her soul,
that her three-year ordeal was ending; when she was absorbed in prayer,
she would sometimes have a glimpse of the monastery, not yet chosen,
that would be her place of rest, and she waited for God’s hour. The time
and place would be marked by a circumstance that then appeared
insignificant.
D. Dominique Folch, Pastor of Pla de Cabra, a parish in the vicinity
of Valls, visited one day the Superior of the Discalced Religious Sisters of
the Order of Minims. The community had just lost a chorister, and the
Prior, while informing the Pastor of Pla of this loss, asked him if he
wouldn’t happen to know of a young woman called to religious life, gifted
somewhat musically and having learned the basics of singing. It so
happened that at that time (1859) and for many years, Philomena had
lived in the little town of Pla where her father had been transferred to
pursue his artwork. And it so happened that her spiritual director was
precisely this Pastor of Pla who knew that Philomena’s father, who was as
good a musician as an excellent sculptor, had given his daughter lessons
in music and singing.
Through his faith, he saw this coincidence as a providential
indication. He went immediately to speak to the Ferrer couple about the
vocation of their daughter and offered to present Philomena himself as a
sister chorister at the Valls monastery.
Felix Ferrer, all absorbed in his sculpture work and aware of the
precious qualities of his wife, used to rely on her entirely for family
affairs. However, faced with this proposal, the heart of the father – and
this father loved his eldest daughter very much! – blocked for a moment
his Christian feelings. Josefa, on her part, meditative and moved, was
silent. The pastor was speaking with conviction because he was sure of
Philomena’s vocation. His plea finally obtained a half-consent: her father
agreed to one visit to the Valls monastery, thinking that when the nuns
would learn of the frail health of the postulant, they would refuse to
accept her.
Quite the contrary happened. The Superior, during this first
interview, felt very drawn to the young girl, less because of her musical
knowledge, but more because of the mysterious imprint that God’s work
leaves in a soul, an imprint that is easier to be felt than expressed. “You
will be our sister,” she said simply to Philomena. The saintly child
answered only with a look that was as deep as the heavens and as tender
as a morning ray.
The preparations for her definitive entry into the monastery were
quickly despatched, mainly by Josefa who, broken-hearted but happy of
this sacrifice said no with her motherly tears and yes with her Christian
faith. She decided to accompany Philomena herself to Valls. Mother and
daughter spoke little: intense emotions are silent. At the threshold of the
monastery, Josefa took the hands of her child, and looking at her with
infinite tenderness, as if to transfer her soul into her daughter, reminded
her of her anticipated consecration to the Virgin Mary: “My daughter,
enter into this cloister to consecrate yourself to God and to fulfill the
promise I made to the Virgin Mary before your birth.” To the nuns who
came to greet their new sister, Josefa, tearless but with poignant
emotion, announced with saintly pride: “I’m giving you my daughter; she
is as pure as on the day of her baptism. My daughter! Oh, my daughter!”
And after this abrupt farewell, the monastery’s doors closed on
Philomena who would never come out again.
Philomena was received with great rejoicing. All the nuns had a
feeling that this postulant would be a blessing for the monastery. But the
most vivid joy was Philomena’s: joy of the soul who finally could breathe;
joy of the heart that blossoms, of a life that can establish itself in peace;
joy of the exile who, not yet in his homeland, can already see it from afar
and hear its echoes. St. Madeleine of Pazzi, in her happiness of belonging
to God, of living in his house, walked through her Florence cloister as if
beside herself, exclaiming: “Oh! My walls, my beloved walls!” and kissing
them!
Learned people who do not hold a real doctrine, heartless
sentimentalists, laugh at this stupid enthusiasm of the Florentine
patrician. Well, yes: we, sons and daughters of the cloister, we love our
walls, our long corridors in half-shade, our whitewashed cells; we love
our old-fashioned traditions and old words, those dear words that
preserve them and keep them alive. How do these words and objects, and
the feeling of affection we have for them, how does all this disturb your
own customs, those customs that we only criticize if they are
reprehensible? How does all this hamper the happiness that you search
for and that you choose according to your taste and style?
______________________________________________________________________________
______________________________________________________________________________

CHAPTER IX

EXTRAORDINARY GRACES

AND

DIABOLICAL ASSAULTS

POWERLESSNESS AND ARDOUR OF LOVE – THE PENITENT AND HIS BAD

CONFESSION – MIRACULOUS INTERVENTION OF THE VENERABLE –
APPARITION AND FOOD FROM HEAVEN – IMPOSSIBILITY OF HOLDING BACK
HER PRAYER’S FERVOUR – 1863 DROUGHT – PHILOMENA’S PLEADING –
DISAPPOINTMENT AND NEW DIABOLICAL ASSAULTS – SISTER ENGRACIA’S
MEDICINE – PAINFUL TEMPTATIONS – SHE IS IN HEAVEN AND YOU IN HELL –
REVELATIONS ON THE FUTURE TRIUMPH OF THE CHURCH AND ON THE
ENEMIES OF PIUS IX – SOURCES OF SALVATION FORESEEN BY PHILOMENA
AND INDICATED BY LEO XIII

Love calls love. Of the valiant heart that gives itself inordinately, the
divine Master still asks more. It seems like He develops progressively the
strength to love in these generous souls so that they exhaust themselves
in loving and, in this very exhaustion, find a more complete and deeper
capacity to love more and better. It is thus the sweet torment which
brought St. Teresa to exclaim, in sublime powerlessness: “I am dying of
not being able to die.” Indeed, for souls that are wounded by love, the
divine tenderness or the ineffable comforts that give them a taste of
heaven probably are, through this mystical martyrdom, an intermittence
and a reward, but they are more so an enticement to make new sacrifices.
 The Venerable Philomena experienced this tenderness and this
torture. Following each act of heroic love and each tenderness from the
divine Master, she suffered more harshly from this thirst for love, always
quenched and always unfulfilled.
During Lent in 1863, on a day when Fr. Dalmau’s confessional was
besieged by penitents, Philomena, who was praying in the community
chancel, saw in her mind a man who, through a bad confession, was
clinching even more the bonds of his soul. She says:
I cannot describe all the pain that I felt. It seemed like I was shouting at the
throne of divine Mercy, beseeching God to give me the grace to set this man free
from the yoke of the devil, by confessing the sin that enslaved his soul. I
obtained this grace; the penitent finally admitted the sin that he wanted to hide
and I saw the devil forced to leave this soul that he no longer owned. However,
he turned his infernal rage toward me. He came to me, turning around me to
scare me with his threats and his foul presence; however, I did not fear his
powerless anger.

This work of mercy was very pleasant to the Heart of Jesus and his
Most Holy Mother as the favour that was bestowed upon her immediately
after proved it. I wanted to relate it here, added her confessor, to
encourage those who will read it to work with fervour for the conversion
of sinners and for the consolation of those who, because of their priestly
character, fulfill this sacred and difficult ministry:
At the same time as the devil prowled around me, I felt very softly touched on
the right shoulder and there was, when I turned around, a very beautiful angel
who invited me to follow him into a small chancel close to that of the community.
It seemed to me that I obeyed him, of my own volition or not, not being the
master of my interior faculties. Upon entering this small room, I saw Jesus and
Mary; they spoke tender words to me and invited me to rest in their gentle
presence, to make up for the very small fatigue I had felt when I prayed for the
soul mentioned above, and for the assault and threats of the devil. I was
completely shocked and unsure of what I should do, when it seemed that the
Mother and her Son made me taste some exquisite food and drink, a celestial
and divine liqueur. The taste of this food gave me henceforth an aversion to
earthly foods, while giving my soul an indelible sweetness.

This sublime condescension by the Son and his Mother made

Philomena understand how great was the indelible consolation brought
about by the conversion of a sinner, for the loving hearts of Jesus and
Mary. She then felt her already fervent love increase for all the
unfortunate sinners who were in this sorry state; she decided to stop at
nothing, however wearisome and great it would be, to obtain the
salvation of only one soul, even if this meant giving up her own life a
thousand times.
Seeing her in such saintly dispositions, the Lord often informed her
of the diverse needs of some souls, ordering her to undergo salutary
penances to help them. Philomena accomplished these tasks as quickly
and as best she could, often obtaining the desired grace and continually
acquiring new souls for the kind Heart of Jesus.
One day, the Lord raptured Philomena in spirit, showering her with
sweet delights and lighting in her heart a living flame of love for God and
of charity toward others. The enthusiasm that enveloped her was so
powerful that she exclaimed: “O my God, eternal charity! Why don’t you
communicate this fire that consumes me needlessly to some of your
priests who would try harder to win souls for heaven? Oh! How much
more would they try to tear them away from the enslavement of the
devil!”
On other occasions, these strokes of fire would wound her heart
with such force that she felt an impetuous outburst of love of God and of
the desire to love even more, to love to excess. She says that these
desires, trying to escape from her chest, oppressed her breathing and
caused her mortal pain. Just as physical fire destroys the colour and
hardness of iron and transfers to it its personal characteristics in such a
surprising manner that it does not look like iron but like fire, in this way
the fire that God had lit in the heart of his servant had assimilated her to
him to the point that, between her and God, between God and her, it
seemed like there was only one heart, only one will. This supernatural
transformation that occurred in her after these raptures is described in a
few words by Philomena: “So that there is between the Lord and his
unworthy slave only one will, only one non-will.”
 These supernatural raptures were often accompanied by external
visions. One day, she saw the raised arm of God, ready to punish this
ungrateful and guilty generation. She then burst into tears and cried: “Ah!
my Reverend Mothers, my good Sisters, please hold the arm of our Lord.
O good Virgin Mary, appease your Son!” Another time, she saw the devils
in a fierce battle against the Church; proud of their advantage, they were
already dividing the spoils of victory. Philomena exclaimed: “You will not
win, you vile beasts.” These words were overheard by other nuns who
were praying at that moment; as Philomena was a cause of distraction,
the Superior ordered her to be silent. Toward the end of her life, knowing
from experience that Philomena in these external manifestations had no
control over herself, the Superior would guide her out of the chancel as
soon as the first signs appeared.
The divine Master revealed not only spiritual necessities to his
faithful servant, for which He urged her to pray for his mercy; He also
showed her temporal graces that she must obtain, through prayer and
penance, from his goodness to benefit other people.
In April 1863, a persistent drought was compromising the cereal
harvest in the whole country. Philomena saw in spirit the famine that
would follow and its disastrous implications. She consulted her confessor
and asked him to pray and ask others to pray for the Divine Mercy to
divert this calamity. She added: “As for me, I am asking permission to
refrain from drinking water until all danger has passed.”
Her confessor did not think that it was prudent for him to agree to
this, and asked her to simply confer this matter to God. As soon as she
was in her room, Philomena, with all the zeal of her soul, prayed to the
Lord to have pity on his afflicted people. Then she covered her head with
ashes, kissed the bare ground and did not move for three hours. She
repeated this prayer and her penance for three consecutive days and, at
the end of the third day, the sky became covered with clouds and an
abundant rain resurrected the countryside and gave hope to the
labourers.
For his own purposes, the devil was probably counting on the
suffering resulting from the famine and the evil inspirations brought
about by misery. This was another loss for which the despicable Sister
Philomena must pay! Thus, there was a surge of temptations, of horrible
apparitions and, more than once, of physical violence. A heavy cabinet,
which required two men to move slightly, lifted itself and fell completely
on Philomena who should have been crushed, but she was not hurt.
Another time, to reach the chancel, Philomena barely put her foot
on the first step of the stairs when she was suddenly thrown violently by
an invisible force right down to the next level, her head hitting each step.
A few nuns hurried to help her and the Mother Corrector asked the nurse
to get some bandages and ointments for the bleeding bruises, but
Philomena reassured her that the bruises would heal quickly, adding that
they should be ignored, otherwise one would always have to use
medication and remedies.
However, the servant of God, not wanting to reveal her struggles
with the devil, accepted in her different illnesses regular medicines that,
according to God’s wish, served mostly to increase her suffering. Sister
Engracia nevertheless, because of certain strange symptoms, thought
that the cause of most of these ailments was not natural; one day, when
Philomena had a choking episode that was more violent than usual, she
gave her only as medication a little bit of blessed water. The oppression
stopped immediately, but Philomena asked her companion not to tell
others by which means she had been relieved. Sister Engracia kept the
secret more or less closely, but she used her recipe on several occasions.
In her passive purification, the servant of God suffered much less
from the physical assaults than from spiritual temptations and anxieties.
Our Lord allowed such a valiant and pure soul to be exposed, to the
extreme, to the malice that Satan uses to trouble, when he cannot
tarnish, the consecrated hearts and the bodies destined to virginal
chastity.
These humiliations of nature were the crucible through which the
servant of God’s purity came out more radiant and beautiful. Such was
not the situation regarding the temptations of hopelessness and
merciless damnation. The valiant spouse of the Lord resisted, with all the
energy of her faith and trust, the dangerous subtleties as well as the
peremptory assertions of the devil; but these more intimate struggles
exhausted her and we understand that the divine predilections had to, in
more than one instance, miraculously revive and comfort this poor
terrified soul.
One day, during the feast of the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin
Mary, after a long prayer in the chancel, Sister Philomena received the
ineffable privilege of assisting in spirit at Mary’s triumphant entry in
heaven. The vision was hardly disappearing, leaving a trail of light that
filled Philomena’s soul, when a sneer was heard in the silence of heaven.
“Yes, look at her carefully, that woman,” screamed the devil to Philomena,
“look at her carefully, you will not see her anymore. She will be in
paradise and you in hell with me, because you belong to me, you and all
your penances, all your eccentricities; all this is nothing but pride and
hypocrisy; all this serves only to add to the stock of wood for the fire that
will burn you eternally.”
Despite the inevitable trouble she felt from these direct
suggestions from the devil, Sister Philomena continued her prayers until
the regular time. However, the sudden contrast between the celestial
vision and the diabolical threats had troubled her so much that she had
to go to her Mother Superior early in the morning, to be consoled and
helped, revealing what she would have preferred to conceal: the divine
favours and the devil’s efforts.
 This recourse to external consolation was, for Philomena, an
exception to the rule that she had set for herself: to suffer in silence and
to receive relief for her soul only from God. During her spiritual trials as
well as her physical illnesses, she not only respected the observances of
the community and her assigned work, but when the crush was too
visible and her Sisters tried to console or help her, the gentle victim of
the divine Master, despite her gratitude for their kind intentions, rejected
any consolation and any help that did not come from God. She had
accepted wholeheartedly the proposal made one day by the divine Master
to be a victim of atonement and love as much and as long as possible,
and in the manner that he thought best; she wanted to fulfill this sublime
agreement by respecting its conditions as best she could. One day, when
her Sisters were trying to relieve her in her trials, she said: “If I knew, if I
knew where to find consolation outside of Jesus, I would flee from it as
from evil!”
This saintly victim with her special vocation, in divine enthusiasm,
asked Our Lord to strike her or to forgive the guilty ones! It happened
during a vision related to the Church and its trials. Fr. Dalmau, in April
1863, shared with her his sad fears about the future of the Church and
the woes that it would face. In a very firm voice, Philomena answered:
“The Church will surely triumph, yes, surely. I can see this triumph
already, but I also see that it will be preceded by long days of mourning
and terrible trials.”
Moved by this firm affirmation, the confessor insisted on knowing
the reasons supporting it. Philomena then admitted that, shortly before
this, she had had a vision on the subject or, as was her ordinary
expression, a knowledge of these future events.
The divine Master had revealed to her that the sins of the world
were great, that the cup of his indignation was full and that he would
pour it abundantly on many countries in retribution for the offences made
to his Sovereign Majesty and for the affronts to his Heart so full of love
for mankind.
At the same time, God showed his servant the whole of humanity in
such a sad and deplorable state that just the sight of it would have killed
her with pain, if He had not supported her himself. It was then that,
remembering her sacrifice as a victim, she answered the divine Saviour:
“My God, erase me from the book of life, if you want to withhold your
mercy!”15 She then saw three quarters of the world marked by grief and
upheaval. The fourth part, in which the Valls convent was located,
seemed less chastised, but not exempt from the general plight. The Lord
finally revealed to her that, of all the enemies who then persecuted so
maliciously his vicar on earth, the saintly Pontiff Pius   IX, some would
come to a very sad end while others would convert; that Pius IX would not
leave Rome and that, finally, a great nation would enter into the fold of
the Catholic Church.
All the religious, political and social events that have been taking
place in the world since then clearly confirm the prediction of the servant
of God.
Are the long trials foreseen by Philomena ending? Will the children
of light, oppressed everywhere by the sons of darkness, see the heavens
open to their pleading calls? God only knows, but we cannot but be
astounded by this coincidence where, thirty years later, faithful souls rush
toward the sources predicted by Philomena. She had foretold – as her
writings will show a bit further – that help would come forward to the
faithful through the Sacred Heart of Jesus, the Immaculate Virgin Mary,
St. Joseph and St. Michael.
Indeed, the devotion to the divine Heart is spreading more and
more and will remove sentimentality and imagination from human scoria;

15This plea is reminiscent of the sublime word of St. Paul who wished to be anathema
for his brothers.
the devotion to Mary, from the Pyrenees to the Apennines, from the Baltic
Sea to the Australian Ocean, finds praise and expresses itself in devotions
that were unknown to our fathers. Finally, our august Pontiff, the
magnanimous and pious Leo XIII, vicar of Jesus Christ, the one whose lips
conserve and spread precious words to the souls, does not cease to
proclaim the grandeur of the Immaculate Virgin of the Rosary, of
St. Joseph, her chaste spouse, and of St. Michael the Archangel.
Custos, quid de nocte? Where are we at? What do you see, Guard,
during the night?
I see the more intensive reach of the Heart that so loved mankind.
I see the white halo of the One who is pleading for mercy.
I see the gentle smile of the Protector of the Universal Church.
I see the blazing sword that the Archangel Michael, on a signal of
God, takes in his hand.
O Venerable Philomena, what you had foreseen in the silence and
the obscurity of your cloister, will we be given the chance to see it?
[Various excerpts from Chapter XII, Writings of the Venerable
Philomena, Section V, from page 182 onwards in the book]

V
The Sacred Heart of Jesus – The starred triangle –
The Holy Church

Written on June 5, 1866. – THE VENERABLE RECOMMENDS TO HER

CONFESSOR THAT HE CONSECRATE HIMSELF TO THE DIVINE HEART ON HIS
FEAST DAY AND TO PROPAGATE HIS DEVOTION – HAPPINESS OF LIVING IN
THE DIVINE HEART – THIS CONSECRATION WILL MUCH PLEASE THE HOLY
VIRGIN

J.M.J.

My Reverend Father, in the very loving Heart of Jesus, my only

love,
The God of my heart asks me to be faithful to my promises to his
Supreme Majesty, and this is what forces me to inform you, however
imperfect the language may be, of my feelings toward the very gentle
Heart of Jesus as well as what this divine Heart expects from your
Paternity. Knowing with certainty that you would also want to know what
this so loving Heart is asking of you, I will tell you that he requires from
you the complete sacrifice or consecration of your whole being, so that
you would live only enclosed in the sacred Heart, becoming a faithful
disciple of Jesus, helping him in the conquest of souls, to attract them to
this same Heart that burns with fervent kindness for us all. Oh! my
Father! If you made this sacrifice on the upcoming day of his most holy
solemnity, what abundant graces this Heart so full of love would bestow
upon you! Ah! my Father, what happiness is ours: to live and die enclosed
in such a pleasant dwelling! It seems to me, Father, that from the wide-
open loving Heart immense flames of love are escaping and that our
ungratefulness increases this furnace of fire in our favour. If I am so
ungrateful to this blazing Heart, at least you, my Father, please be
faithful and compensate it as much as possible for the numerous affronts
that he receives in the Sacrament of his love through so many horrible
blasphemies and sacrileges.
What indescribable joy your generous offer will bring to the Most
Holy Virgin Mary, our Mother, who accepted with such pleasure your
consecration in Montserrat.16 Let no fear hold you down, my Father; be
assured that you will never lack the opportune and necessary help you
need to faithfully fulfill your commitments to the divine Heart. My Father,
tell all creatures, tell everyone, if possible, to love this Heart so worthy of
being loved. This Heart is total kindness, total love. It is total patience,
total humility; it is, in a word, my Father, the living temple and throne of
the blessed Trinity where, in an ineffable manner, this Heart resides. I
would like to make known to the whole world the treasures that are
enclosed in the Heart of Jesus; please make up, my Father, for my
inability; your efforts will not go unrewarded. May your Paternity excuse
my boldness; I wish so strongly what is good for my brothers (the
Christians) that I unwillingly feel forced to speak.
The fasting that you requested me to do yesterday has been, I
believe, very pleasant to our Lord. May he reward you himself for your
kindness.

16In May 1864, Sister Philomena had learned by revelation the still secret goal and
hesitations of her confessor who wished to go for a retreat at the Montserrat Sanctuary.
She encouraged him in this project and predicted – rightly so - that the Holy Virgin
would protect him from a double mortal danger during this trip.
Written on November 29, 1866. – REVELATION ON THE TROUBLES OF
PIUS IX AND ON THE PERILS TO THE CHURCH – OUR LORD ASKS PHILOMENA
TO MAKE NEW SACRIFICES FOR THE CHURCH – SHE MUST TASTE “THE CUP”
OF PASSION

J.M.J.

My Reverend Father in the very loving Heart of Jesus,

The divine Master, instead of chastising me as he should for my
depraved and rebellious will that, so often, offended him by refusing,
even very recently, the three weekly fasts he was requesting of me,
because it was too much effort for my lack of enthusiasm, called me last
Sunday, when I was least expecting it, and said: “I want you to offer
yourself as a victim and for you to forego eating bread. You should eat
only from time to time the coarsest vegetables from the garden. I ask this
sacrifice until the Nativity so that I feel obliged to give more peace and
victory to my Church, so demoralized right now. In addition, so that your
offering is more complete and pleasant to my eyes, I will let you endure
diverse moral tribulations and anxieties during this month.” This request
from the Lord confused me enormously and I told him of my numerous
imperfections that ruin all my work, as well as the continuous resistance
of my will to his. But seeing that he insisted in his request, I promised
him that I would talk to my superiors about it and to subject myself to it
if they agreed.
The next day, at communion, an interior force drove me to offer
everything in me for the Supreme Pontiff and the triumph of the Holy
Church, an offer that I can write down if my superiors wish to learn of it.
The same day, while reciting Matins in the chancel with my Sisters, the
Lord said to me: “My daughter, I want you to taste the chalice of my
passion: if it was necessary for me to drink it to the dregs to save the
world, I want you today to drink your share and force me to save it again.
Your Mother, the Holy Church, is suffering now from mortal anguish; like
her, you must reach the doors of death; however, neither one will perish.
You will triumph, on the contrary, for my greatest glory.” He also told me
not to worry about the reactions of my Sisters, seeing me so depressed,
almost in agony, as a result of the great pain and distress that I must
endure and that will certainly be much less than the ones he wanted to
suffer out of love for me and humanity.
This is what I wanted to communicate to you, my Father, asking
you to tell me what you decide on this subject.
I kiss your feet.
Written on January 30, 1867.1 – SHE ASKS GOD, UNCREATED WISDOM, TO
GUIDE HER IN EXPRESSING HERSELF WELL – ST. MICHAEL THE ARCHANGEL
APPEARS TO HER AND ASKS HER TO MAKE HIS SPIRITUAL GREATNESS
KNOWN – PHILOMENA PROMISES, PROVIDED THAT THE ARCHANGEL WILL
HELP PIUS   IX AND WILL ENSURE THAT HE IS NOT CHASED FROM ROME –
OUR LORD WANTS TO GIVE TWO PRECIOUS JEWELS – THE DIVINE HEART,
EXHAUSTED FROM LOVE AND SADNESS, SEARCHES IN VAIN FOR A PLACE OF
REST – TWO STARS COME INTO THIS HEART, TAKING THE PLACE OF LOVE
AND PAIN – STARRY TRIANGLE – WHAT ARE THESE THREE STARS? – FOR
MARY, THE IMPULSE OF PAIN IN THE HEART OF JESUS – FOR ST. MICHAEL,
THE IMPULSE OF LOVE – ST. FRANCIS OF PAOLA AND HIS DEVOTION TO
ST. MICHAEL – ADVICE TO GIVE THE CARMELITES OF VALLS

J.M.J.

My Reverend Father,
May the most loving Heart of Jesus never cease to pour out his
divine favours with boundless abundance, and, to you, my Father, may he
give you the health necessary for the prosperity and growth of our holy
religion: graces that you will obtain, without any doubt, from this Heart
so full of goodness and mercy.
So, my Father, I wanted to give you the account that you had
asked of me, and after having implored from God the graces and insights
necessary for this purpose, I will first explain what happened to me about
a month and a half ago. I beg your forgiveness right from the start for the

1 On this date, Sister Philomena was in extreme desolation of spirit and felt an
insurmountable reluctance to write. The confessor had to resort to a formal precept to
have this account in writing, one of the most important among the writings of the
Venerable.
unnecessary words that I will probably use to explain, as well as my
clumsiness. And you, my God, Supreme Being and uncreated Wisdom,
please pour out your divine light on the vilest of all your creatures, so
that I do not stray one iota from the pure truth, in all that I intend to write
here, for the greatest glory of your Most Holy Name. I humbly ask you not
to look at the insufficient explanation that I am undertaking, but rather at
the purity of my intentions. I will begin with the invocation of the names
of Jesus, Mary and St. Michael.
It was thus, as I have just said, my Father, that about a month and
a half ago, without any precedent in matters of this nature, I suddenly
felt, and in a manner that only God knows, somehow called by the very
glorious St. Michael the Archangel. He said the following to me: “Make
known to mankind the great power that I have with the Almighty; tell
them to ask me anything they want; tell them that my power in favour of
those who have devotion to me is unlimited.” And, at the same time, he
added this formal order: “Make known my spiritual greatness”; and I
understood well, my Father, that he was not asking me this for his own
glory, but only for the glory of God for whom he is so zealous.
And I, in my astonishment, replied: “Yes, Archangel and Prince of
the Most High, I shall manifest your greatness, and, if you obtain for me
the grace that I am going to ask of you, I will, with the blessing of my
superiors, spread your devotion everywhere, and I will write a novena in
your honour.” I was thinking then about the horrible calamities which
threatened at this moment the capital of Christendom, and even the
whole of Christendom if, unfortunately, its supreme Leader, the Sovereign
Pontiff Pius   IX, was forced to leave the Papal See. My request was as
follows: “I beg you, very noble Archangel, since you can do so much and
desire so much to work for the glory of the Lord and for the exaltation of
his Holy Church, do not allow in any way our supreme Pastor, the
Supreme Pontiff, to have to leave Rome. Go yourself, accompanied by the
Immaculate Virgin Mary, go and defend him from the infernal fire which
threatens him; confuse Satan and his ungodly followers, who would like
to see the Holy Church cut down and buried with all its ministers. Great
Archangel, please see that our Holy Mother soon triumphs, and confound
her rebellious sons together with the demons who inspire them.”
Having finished my request, I was amazed at two things: the first
was to see such a powerful prince humiliate himself and thus lower
himself to come to me, and the other was my presumption for having
promised him to make known his greatness. It seemed to me beyond all
possibility: what knowledge would I use to accomplish this? Until then, I
had neither learned nor studied anything on such a sublime subject; I
could not rely on any book either, since the Lord absolutely forbids me to
spend my time doing any reading, however good it may be. Nonetheless,
my Father, despite my temerity on this occasion, God forgave my
presumption, and I did obtain from his grace the means to accomplish
what I had promised.
From that moment until recently, I have heard many times the
following words: “I shall put two of the most precious jewels as
ornaments for my Heart for its perpetual glory; I shall crown my Heart’s
two impulses with them, as an eternal memorial of the goodness of this
Heart that has loved mankind so much. I want, through this new act of
tenderness, to show all the love I have for humans. I no longer know what
to do for mankind. What shall I do for people?” To which I replied: “Save
them, my God, since you shed your very precious blood for this purpose.”
I understood that these two jewels were Mary Immaculate and St. Michael
the Archangel, and I saw at the same time the happy fate of those who
would honour and glorify them. I also heard these words: “This New
Trinity must be blessed and glorified on earth as is the unity of the Three
Divine Persons in Heaven: blessed is the nation, blessed the country or
the monastery that will be inflamed with this devotion. Write all you know
about it.”
These last words left me filled with confusion, for I am the most
miserable and the most criminal of all creatures to whom God has given
life since the beginning of the world, and yet this is how God wants to
confuse me in this infinite mercy! As I wanted to account for all this with
clarity, he himself deigned to show me the means to do it, and to give me
the explanation of what this vision meant.
I will not speak in detail, my Father, of the struggles that the Most
Holy Heart of Jesus has sustained almost continuously since He came
forth from the sweet bosom of his Eternal Father, I mean pain and love;
but, by all that was revealed to me, I saw that love always triumphed over
pain. I would almost consider it a sin of pride to want to give long
explanations on this subject. What could you ignore about this, my
Father, you who for so many years have applied yourself to the study of
holy prayer and of sacred books, books which contain so many treasures
on the admirable works of our God? However, I must say this: that love
has triumphed, triumphs and will always triumph over pain because, from
now on, the very sweet Heart of Jesus will no longer receive any pain for
the reasons that I will relate below. I will now try to explain the manner in
which I learned what the very sweet Heart of the Eternal Word will do to
save mankind. It was more or less as follows: I seemed to see the Heart of
Jesus, exhausted with fatigue and sadness. He wandered about, as
though his Heart could not bear the weight of its graces and
superabundant favours. He was going everywhere, as if He wanted to find
a refuge somewhere; and, instead of resting, he found only bushes, the
sharp thorns of which wounded Him and caused His blood to flow. I will
point out here that I did not see any of this with my bodily eyes; on the
contrary, during all this time, I was very careful to keep them closed.
 This Most Holy Heart went about so filled with affliction, and
close to dying of pain, when suddenly two stars of unspeakable beauty
and brilliance appeared. They approached the divine Heart at two
different places, which seemed to be the same as the ones wounded by
love and pain; and as soon as the two stars touched the Heart, it was
instantly relieved of the anguish that oppressed it: its sorrows were
changed into joy, its wounds into the most pleasant and sweet transport
of love. The two stars thus came to rest one on the right and the other on
the left of this Sacred Heart. In turn, this heart changed into a third star,
but without losing its natural form: all three remained thus triangulated,
forming the triangle which one gives as a sign of unity or equality of the
three divine Persons. I understood, however, that this supreme unity was
not represented by these three stars united together: the middle one
being the Heart of Jesus, the one to the right, Mary Immaculate, and the
one to the left, St. Michael the Archangel. The triangle that they formed
meant the unity of will which puts all three in perfect harmony, for the
good of mankind. Mary wills to ask, Jesus or His Most Holy Heart wills to
grant, and St.   Michael wills to distribute generously what Mary has
obtained. As for the words, here are those which I noted: Mary on the
right and Saint Michael on the left, the star of the Heart of Jesus used
their rays like so many languages. On the right side near Mary, I saw,
several times repeated, these words: Fiat, Fiat; then from Mary to St.
Michael, these words: Go, go, go; and from St. Michael to the heart of
Jesus: Who is like God?2 But if I wanted to make known the immense
goodness which God uses toward us by bringing together in our favour
three such noble wills, I could only stammer, my tongue not being able to

2 This exclamation, repeated three times, may mean: see or go, go. If one had the
temerity of adding a personal interpretation to these sublime intuitions, we would
readily say that the meaning of the vision requires go and not see. The Immaculate
Virgin repeats the prayer of her maternal adoration, fiat, fiat, encouraging the Heart of
her Son to fulfill its desires for mercy; then, she tells St. Michael to go spread the
treasures of mercy and grace that she just obtained.
find words to express such a wonder. I will only say that the Most Holy
Heart of Jesus ardently wishes to fulfill the promise which it made
previously by these words: “I hold in reserve, in my Heart, immense
treasures for the end times, in order to restore the half-dead faith, for
the Christians of that period.”
We have almost already arrived, my Father, at this lamentable
state and, in order to prove to us the love with which it burns for us, this
Sacred Heart first wanted to be wounded on all sides: like so many sharp
thorns, like so many penetrating traits, the most enormous sins have
wounded this Heart to an inexpressible depth. No longer able to bear the
love that fills him, wanting at all costs our eternal happiness for which he
was already made man, and burning to spread with more abundance the
rivers of grace that he keeps locked up in his Heart, already the
numerous openings of all his wounds are no longer enough for him
anymore. So, not knowing what else to do, his infinite love arranged for
these two diamonds, of the most attractive beauty, to pour out
abundantly for us the treasures contained in this ocean of love. O! My
God! You were right to cry out that you did not know what else to do!
What then, Lord my God, is this Trinity, deified by yourself, to whom you
now ask us to render homage and worship? Ah! Yes, you wanted to let me
know yourself the dignity and the greatness of these three brilliant stars
that form the marvellous triangle. The middle one is the Sacred Heart of
the Eternal Word, the Heart which, from all eternity, has been enclosed in
your very pure bosom. But what is the star on the right side? Ah! my God!
What shall I say of what I feel at the sight of this second star, named Mary
Immaculate! I will only say this: As the Eternal Word has been from all
eternity enclosed in your bosom, so was Mary, your immaculate Daughter
enclosed from all eternity in your thought. And as the bosom and the
spirit are so close together, of these two noble parts of yourself you
detached the two most precious pearls to give them to mankind, and
humans responded by rebelling against their Creator! If now, Reverend
Father, you ask me what is the dignity of the one represented by the third
star, since, if Jesus and Mary are the most loved by God, St. Michael, who
is given to them as a companion, must he not have a great resemblance
to the first two? I will respond as follows: The beauty of St. Michael has, in
fact, such a resemblance to that of God that, after the Eternal Word, there
is no other spirit in heaven that can be compared to him. And, as
between the bosom and the mind there is the face, this place belongs to
St. Michael, who is the very clear and very faithful image of the Eternal
being. As for his greatness, I will talk about it a little later.
In order to be able to better explain myself, my Father, on the
meaning of the impulses of the Heart of Jesus, I will assume that V. P. will
ask me questions and I will answer them to the best of my ability.

Question. – Jesus therefore now wants to crown the two courageous

captains who fought so valiantly, winning an infinite number of victories
in favour of the fallen man; I mean the two impulses of the very sweet
Heart of Jesus, pain and love. But then, Mary and the Archangel Michael
being the two precious diadems with which he will crown them, which of
the two impulses has fallen as a lot to Mary Immaculate?
Answer. – That of concentration, that is to say, pain; and to St. Michael,
that of dilation, which in Jesus expressed the most intense love. 3

Question. – And why did Mary not have the side of the dilation, since she
is called in all truth the Source of our joy?
Answer. – Because, just as a heart oppressed with anguish needs some
object worthy of its love, where it can pour itself out, and once in

3 For the pernickety readers who would take offence that Sister Philomena did not use,
to describe the heart’s two impulses, the technical words of systole and diastole, we
would say that one is the language of mystical theology and the other that of
physiology.
possession of this object, the heart expands comfortably, so it was with
Jesus. From the moment of the union of the divinity with his Most Holy
Humanity, his Sacred Heart was oppressed with intense pain, as no one
ever suffered. This pain continued to increase because of our ever more
numerous and enormous sins, until finally, unable to endure so many
wounds and so much suffering, he called to his side the object most
worthy of his love, the Virgin Mary, making her absolute mistress of this
impulse of his Heart. This is how, henceforth, my Father, the Most Holy
Heart of Jesus will no longer suffer any pain. Mary Immaculate is
occupying this privileged place for ever.

Question. – What will now be the role of St. Michael in the dilation or
love?
Answer. – This very noble Archangel will be like a messenger to distribute
the innumerable graces that Mary will obtain from the Heart of Jesus. He
will take such a great pleasure in being able to thus obey his Queen, and
at the same time to console all of us who groan under such hard slavery
in this land of exile, that without exaggeration, we can, in all truth, call it
an unparalleled joy. Ah! My Jesus! what ineffable union I noticed between
these three objects worthy of all our attention, of all our love! We can
truly say that between Jesus, Mary and the Archangel Michael, there is
really only one same will, one same desire. Oh! a thousand times happy
are those devoted to them, devoted to the Most Holy Heart of Jesus, or to
his Immaculate Mother, or even to the seraphic Archangel St. Michael
because, according to what I was able to notice, the glory that one of
them will receive will be shared equally with the other two. I do not want,
Reverend Father, to expand further to explain in detail all the graces that,
in the short span of two years, the Heart of Jesus poured out on our Spain
and on many other places of Christendom. I will only say that the mercy
which awaits us today is incomparably more admirable, if we are zealous
in devotion to the Sacred Heart of Jesus, to Mary Immaculate, and to St.
Michael the Archangel. Oh! what immense happiness for our Holy Order
of Minims, to have as a protector the very one who stands without fear
near the throne of the Almighty God! Our Father St. Francis knew all his
powers, he who loved him so tenderly: let us imitate his devotion to
St. Michael, and we will certainly obtain his protection. It seems to me,
Reverend Father, that these few notes should suffice for the moment,
because I can no longer form a single letter, my hand is trembling so
much. The Lord is pleased to push me every day into the increasing
darkness, to the point where I even lose my breath. Blessed be the Lord
God of Israel who deigns to visit me.
I kiss your feet.
P.S. – In my opinion, Reverend Father, you would cause unspeakable joy
to the Sacred Heart of Jesus by seeking to establish a great and fraternal
union of prayers and exercises of piety, between the Carmelite nuns of
Valls and our holy community. Encourage them all to show themselves
full of zeal, and to lavish their love and homage to the very sweet Heart
of Jesus, to his Most Holy Mother, the Immaculate Virgin Mary, and to
St. Michael the Archangel. Assure them that this is the way to obtain in
abundance the blessings of heaven on us, on this country and on the
whole world.
______________________________________________________________________________
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 CHAPTER XIII

WOUNDS FROM DIVINE LOVE

THE PERFECTED DIVINE WORK – I’M BURNING! I’M BURNING! – FIRST

WOUND OF LOVE – THE VIATICUM – THE REMEDY – I CANNOT LIVE
ANYMORE – SECOND WOUND, SECOND VIATICUM – PHILOMENA OFFERS
HER LIFE – THE DOCTOR’S STATEMENT – THE ST. JOHN’S PROCESSION –
DIET FOR THE SICK – “OH! POOR CLOISTERS!” – FR. NARCISSE’S ANXIETIES

Philomena would soon be united for eternity with her divine

Spouse. As early as April 1868, she wrote to her confessor that her poor
body, exhausted with pain, could be considered now only “as a living
corpse”. However, the divine Master, probably to crown his noble labour
of improvement and bring it to perfection, was intensifying the blows of
his love, by multiplying against his beloved his absences and apparent
repulsion. In turn, his predilections would stoke more and more the fire
of love that devoured her. His work was indeed completed, the
immolation had reached the most intimate fibres of her being: a lifeless
body, without any strength other than to suffer; a soul on fire, which was
burning with love but could find no rest in love. Philomena wrote: “My
soul is tormented by an all-consuming thirst, and to quench it, it only
receives gall.”
This gall of the crucified spouse was nothing other than the
abandonment of her Spouse. On the Cross, He too had addressed the
heavens with this painful cry: “My God, My God, why have you forsaken
me?”
One night when the flame of love was more intense, she exclaimed:
“I’m burning, I’m burning!” Sister Engracia and the assistant nurse, while
aware that this fire was not physical, hurriedly brought Philomena a basin
with cold water to soak her hands. Sister Engracia, surreptitiously and out
of devotion, drank some of the water: it was boiling hot!
Philomena continued: “Oh, my God, a few minutes ago it was fire
and now it’s a conflagration!” The divine Master had not even wanted to
provide minimal relief to his spouse.
More than her fellow sisters, Sister Engracia was able to
understand, at a later point, the reason behind this apparent harshness of
our Lord. Mother Corrector, probably to reward her for her fraternal
dedication to the Venerable, gave her the breviary that the latter had
used. Sister Engracia found in this book a note written by Philomena: “I
do not want to live without crosses, and I know why. During my life, short
or long, to always suffer and not to die!”
On April 10 of the same year, sister Philomena received a wound of
love, “una herida de amor” in her whole being. To understand the pain
and the sweetness, the languidness and the ravishment of this wound,
one would have to have glimpsed the divine methods of the One who
knows how to make the dying live and the living die. From this moment,
life was no longer life for Philomena: she did not eat, she did not seem to
breathe the air of this world; her face often looked blazing, as if an
interior fire burned in her. This state lasted 20 days. The Superior, who
had been accustomed to these mysterious sufferings for a long time,
concluded that this was a new form of divine work. After 20 days, she
called for the doctor, who thought that her death was imminent and
ordered the Last Rites to be performed. This prescription was the cure.
Philomena was dying of the absence of her Beloved. When she was told
He was coming, the dying woman was revived: “Oh, my Mother,” she
begged, “let me rise to receive Him on my knees.”
This permission was prudently refused. The patient accepted and
prepared her soul for the visit of the One she loved. The confessor who
brought her the Holy Eucharist gave the following account of the
communion that was thought to be her last:
After finishing her profession of faith, she turned toward Mother Superior,
humbly asking her forgiveness for all her disobedience, all the sorrow she had
caused her; turning to her Sisters, who were kneeling around her bed, she also
begged their forgiveness for all her bad examples and scandals during her time
with them; then, turning to me, she prayed, her eyes full of tears, that I absolve
her of her infidelities and negligence in applying the advice I had given her. In
these acts of humility spoken with conviction, there was such a moving and true
simplicity that all we could hear were tears and sobs. All the Sisters were crying
and I cried just as much as they. I had to wait a while before gaining my
composure and it required a great effort for me to finally begin the Domine, non
sum dignus.

Regarding the external effects of this communion, we all noticed that her face
soon returned to its natural colour. After the ritual prayers, I asked her: ‘My
Sister, you are aware that because of the vow of poverty that you made on the
day of your religious profession, you personally own absolutely nothing, not even
your clothes. If you die, how then do you wish your body to be buried?’
Philomena then turned to her Superior and said: ‘Reverend Mother Superior, I,
Jesus Christ’s little pauper, I beg your kindness and as last alms to give me a
habit to bury my body.’ Mother Superior smiled through her tears and the
community withdrew.

Then, as if all her life were concentrated in her union with the Holy
Eucharist, Philomena became absorbed in such complete contemplation
that she seemed unconscious. The Sister Nurse, after two hours,
concerned at not having seen any movement, not the smallest sigh, came
close to her to verify if she was still breathing. No breath. The soul was
surely still in this virginal body, but the life of the soul was no longer in
it: Vivo autem iam non ego, vivit vero in me Christus.
Warned by the nurse, the Superior ran to Philomena and, to ensure
that she was indeed dead, took her hand and said: “My Sister, how are
you?”
With this question from the legitimate authority, the contemplation
ceased immediately. Philomena answered with a clear and distinct voice:
“I can no longer live without the company of my very sweet Mother. I
would like to die, to be united in heaven with the uncreated Wisdom that
my soul searches for, that my soul desires with such fervour! Oh! How I
suffer and how I like to suffer!” The Superior answered that she would
pray to our Lord to reduce this pain. Philomena answered quickly: “Oh!
No, not that, my Mother; not that, only his saintly and adorable will.”
The Eucharistic bread had given her some strength, in addition to
her voice. The next day, the one who was at death’s door the previous
day felt strong enough to receive Holy Communion with the community
in the chancel. She returned every day until May 5. On that day, a new
wound of love, as sudden and profound as the first, quickly brought back
to Philomena’s cell her confessor, the Superior and the doctor. A believer,
this doctor thought that according to science, this was the end. He
ordered the Last Rites to be administered again immediately.
The confessor, who believed otherwise, relied less on his priestly
intuitions than on the medical opinion, and gave his penitent the
Viaticum and Extreme Unction, applying in addition the indulgences of
the Order of Minims. When the dying woman was revived again, she said
to her confessor, who was praying beside her bed: “My Father, if I receive
a third wound, I will not be able to resist any longer. God wounds my
soul, at its deepest level, with his darts of love: my heart is burning, it
explodes. – “But, my child, could you not resist these blows or at least
reduce their intensity?” – “I absolutely cannot. I tried many times to resist
and, with each effort not to abandon my heart, the pain was more
intense, deeper.”
The third blow would come, but the gentle victim had to wait
longer or, to be clearer, had to buy it through new preparatory sufferings.
The month of May went by with no particular incidents. At the
beginning of June, the month that is dedicated to the Sacred Heart,
Philomena asked her divine Spouse for the conversion and final salvation
of a few determined sinners, offering to the divine justice her sufferings
and her own life in exchange. The divine Master did not accept this
request. Philomena insisted and her desire for immolation met another
refusal. Finally, after the third time and with persevering calls to his
merciful Heart, the divine Master accepted the exchange that his faithful
spouse was offering him; she would suffer all the tortures that He wanted
for a few more weeks and the sinners would be saved. While
understanding that these final blows would be terrible, Philomena
accepted them with great joy. She said to her Mother Superior: “My
Mother, I know now that I will die soon: He accepted the sacrifice of my
life.”
Could she really call life this inexplicable human existence where
the physical and moral agony would cease only to be replaced with new
sufferings?
In his deposition, Dr. François de Sojo said:
I had to visit her often and I was disconcerted by the strangeness of her illnesses,
as well as by the anomaly of her state. One day, she was exhausted, finished,
dying, and the next day, she went to the chancery and participated in the most
tiring duties. As a doctor, I was supposed to consider only her physical
symptoms, but I must say this: I am convinced that these symptoms that I
qualified as organic lesions of the heart were the consequence of the state of her
soul.

The doctor could find even fewer remedies in the codex for these
celestial sufferings wanted by God himself who caused them in the
physical and moral being of his sacrificed Servant. Faced with the
mirabiliter me cruciaris of divine predilections, science must step back or
at least not go beyond the simple observation of physical effects whose
cause is God’s secret.
On June 24, Philomena asked, with a certain degree of insistence,
that she be brought to the monastery’s terrace. She wanted to see,
through the slatted blinds, the solemn procession leaving St. John parish
to pass through the city of Valls. Her wish was granted. She joyfully
followed the pious meandering crowd acclaiming Jesus’ precursor. She
even accepted, on the terrace, a few little sweets that Sister Nurse had
zealously prepared. Immediately, she started feeling violent stomach
pain, reminding her that she had to remain, in this as with everything
else, the crucified spouse. She was brought back to her bed and she
asked for her confessor. After speaking with the Venerable, he called for
Mother Superior. Philomena asked her permission not to eat the better-
prepared foods that she was served, but to return to her regular
abstinence. That evening and in the following days, she would eat only
raw onions and pieces of bread. When she was able to leave her cell in
the infirmary, Philomena, according to her old habits, would replace this
light regimen for peelings from the vegetables prepared for the
community.
It was toward this same month of June that Sister Philomena had a
prophetic vision of the trials that would hit Spanish monasteries the
following year.
The two nurses who were on duty near Sister Philomena used to
join in with her in their regular prayers or respected the silence of her
meditation that would often lead to ecstasy, with its obvious signs.
During one of these long ecstasies, the face of the Venerable took a
sudden expression of horror. From some half-pronounced anguished
words, the nurses understood that she was pleading with the divine
Master, that she was conversing with him. Then, she let out a loud
scream of pain and collapsed while repeating these words: “Ah! Poor
cloisters! Poor cloisters!” Informed, the Superior rushed in and asked her
what was the meaning of this lament; but Philomena, still absorbed in her
prophetic vision, was repeating: “Ah! Poor convents, poor nuns!”
The Superior asked again, with a tone that was less commanding
and more emotional: “And what will happen to us, Sister Philomena?” – “If
my Sisters are chased out of this house, it won’t be for long.”
The following year, the revolutionaries, acting always in the name
of freedom, broke the cloister walls of the monasteries and violently
removed the consecrated virgins from their cells. The whirlwind reached
Valls. On October 1, 1869, the Minims sisters were chased out of their
convent; however, two days later, in circumstances that are unclear, they
were all allowed to return and to go back to their saintly observances.
At the beginning of July, the divine work was less painful.
Philomena no longer suffered from inexplicable anxieties about divine
abandonment and from diabolical assaults. She returned to the religious
exercises and even to the dietary regimen of the community. The
Superior, who had imposed this more substantial regimen, was hoping, if
not for a cure for her privileged daughter, at least for some improvement.
The result was completely the opposite. On July 15, Sister Philomena was
exhausted and, to prevent her dying from lack of nourishment, she was
authorized to return to vegetable peelings, raw onion or even complete
fasting.
At this point, her confessor, the saintly Fr. Narcisse, was assailed
with painful scruples:
Seeing her so exhausted, I thought that perhaps the permission I had given for
so many fasts, so many nights of prayer and so many austerities were the main
cause of her weakness and therefore of her premature death that would take her
from us. I blamed myself for my excessive acquiescence. Now Philomena, with
whom I had not shared my anxiety in the least, said one day, as if she could read
my soul like an open book: ‘Do not fear at all, my Father, you did what you had
to do. I, and I alone, am responsible not for the penances that I did, but for those
that I omitted or did not do well’.
______________________________________________________________________________
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 CHAPTER XIV

THE SAINTLY DEATH

AN ADORATION NOVENA – A CURE, REQUESTED BUT NOT OBTAINED – AN

ACT OF HUMILIATION – THIRD VIATICUM – THIRD AND LAST WOUND –
GOODBYES – LETTER FROM PHILOMENA ON HER DEATHBED – DAWN OF
AUGUST 13, 1868 – LAST BREATH

The related revelation probably encouraged Philomena’s confessor

to agree to new sacrifices. Sister Philomena obtained on July 15, despite
her extreme weakness, permission to do an adoration novena: each
night, she would go to the chancel and stay three hours adoring the
Blessed Sacrament. Sister Rose of St. Narcissus, whose admirable
devotion was always present, accompanied the dear patient. She asked
Philomena: “How can you spend three hours in adoration considering
your health condition and while enduring such acute pain?” – “I don’t
suffer during those three hours. Believe me, this is the only moment
when I get a bit of rest.”
Because of the very strangeness and episodes of the illness, her
Superiors began to perceive, not the divine origin of these sufferings of
which they were already persuaded, but that perhaps the grace of a cure
could be obtained, if Philomena asked for it. In obedience, the Venerable
presented to Our Lord the wish of her Superiors. The divine Master who
had accepted the sacrifice of her life, as indicated earlier, agreed but
respecting the following conditions: a novena would be started honouring
the Immaculate Heart of Mary, after calling on Pius IX who had
proclaimed this dogma, asking him in writing to pray for her recovery.
The Superiors accepted to pray the novena but did not see fit to write to
Pius IX. The novena had no other results than those inscribed in the book
of life. The illness followed, not its course, but its anomalies until July 28.
On that day, after seeing very clearly what she called her sins of pride,
Philomena asked and was granted permission to make an act of humility.
With the help of nurses, she kneeled beside her bed and then lay on the
ground, arms extended, lips on the floor, and she stayed in this deadly
position from morning until 3 p.m. The Superior, who had been asked
and had granted this mortification, resisted her maternal instincts but, at
3 p.m., her heart could not resist any longer and she ordered Philomena
to return to her bed. The servant of God obeyed immediately, but as soon
as she had returned to bed, she collapsed completely. Her face became
pallid; the cold sweats of agony and mostly the violent beating of her
heart that seemed to shatter her chest alarmed the Superior who called
the confessor and the doctor immediately. In this pure body everything
seemed dead, except the heart whose beating speeded up more and
more. The community assembled in the infirmary for the third time. As
her confessor was approaching with Holy Communion, the dying woman
was revived, but as had been the case at her first Communion, this last
viaticum caused a lapse of love which stopped when the confessor gave
her Extreme Unction. Prayers were begun to recommend her soul to God.
Sister Philomena, until then without any movement, sat up on her bed
and fell into the arms of her Superior, with the same expression of
unspeakable pain and ineffable joy that had been present in her first two
love wounds. Wanting to verify if she had indeed died, her confessor
asked her to sit up and she did. Unable to speak, she made a sign to her
Superior to come close. She obliged right away and Philomena took hold
of her hands and kissed them with affectionate reverence, looking toward
heaven. The Sisters came one by one to say their goodbyes. To each one,
she smiled gently and shook her hand.
One of the lay Sisters, probably the very pious and simple Sister
Rose of St. Narcissus, asked Philomena: “What about Father Confessor,
don’t you wish to say goodbye and shake his hand?” Instead of putting
her hand out and, after having looked at Fr. Narcissus with a celestial
expression, Sister Philomena placed her hands on her heart, and inclined
her head twice as if she were asking the priest’s Godly blessing.
Then, after looking tenderly at all those who were present, she
pointed toward heaven and whispered: “To Heaven, to Heaven!”
A nun presented her with an image of St. Francis Paola and an
engraving of the Addolorata [Our Lady of Sorrows] that she kissed with a
smile. The time for Compline rang at this point and the community
having gone to the chancel, Philomena was following, her lips barely
moving, the alternating chant.
She had said that she would not be able to survive a third wound
from God’s love. This one was in fact her last, but death, instead of being
instantaneous, came only after a long period of two weeks.
On August 3, Philomena felt strong enough to write a rather long
letter “with a trembling and dying hand,” addressed to the Pastor of her
native city, D.   Mathieu Auxachs, who had corresponded with the
Venerable for the projected establishment of a convent for the Minims
Sisters in Mora de Ebro.
Here is the letter:1

J.M.J.

May Jesus our Love and Mary our hope be glorified.

“Reverend Prior,
Almost one year ago, I was placed, as a victim, on the altar of
sacrifice. The Lord did not want me to be sacrificed all at once, but rather

1 We are translating it from the Castilian text that was provided to us, as an authentic
copy, by the kindness of the Reverend Mother Emanuela, sister of the Venerable. – The
Italian translation, inserted in the Summary of the Proceedings (p. 271), despite the
word for word exactness, contains variables that we present in the following footnotes.
through slow ardour and other painful events that accompanied my
illness. The victim was consumed between wounds of love and pain. I see
myself, my Father, in such a state that the walls of this corporal prison
are, it seems to me, as rather weakened or crumbled, while my soul, poor
little one, is jubilant because, trusting in God’s mercy, it sees itself so
close to the end of its pilgrimage. This is what it aspires to, night and
day: to be able to enjoy God, my share and my eternal inheritance. Oh!
How sweet will that moment be, when my soul, finally freed from the
bonds of the body, will unite intimately with its Creator: union that I am
expecting and hoping to obtain, Reverend Prior, not because of any merit
of mine, since I am so full of faults and sins,2 but because I am also filled
with hope in the infinite mercy of God. Don’t forget me in your prayers
and ask the Immaculate Virgin, my very sweet Mother, to be my refuge at
the hour of my death.
Regarding the establishment [of a convent], one may ask what it
will become, if I die;3 I will answer that, on this subject, I am entirely at
peace, knowing that the Almighty will remain; my death may slow down
or stop the project, but it will not prevent that which is the will of God;4
for me, only death will make me forget it; but whether I feel any sadness
in not being able to see to its completion myself, I can tell you truthfully
that I feel none, my heart having never been open to desire such a thing
(i.e. no desire to participate herself in this project). I was asking God
rather to dispense me from it, although I did say that this was precisely
what I had promised God with such sadness and pangs of anguish. I
would like to make myself clearer, Reverend Prior, but it’s not possible, I

2 The Italian text adds “specialmente se affettuosi”: especially if they were sins of
affection, i.e. in this case, of will.
3 The Italian text seems to indicate here: “since it will happen after my death".
4The Italian translator writes: “O paralizzarla, ma non distrarla, essendo questa la
volonta di Dio”.
feel excessively oppressed and somewhat agonized; my trembling and
dying hands are making a great effort to trace these irregular lines. I
would wish, Reverend Prior, that you would be kind enough to inform Mr.
Josefa de Vallobar of my health, in case I cannot, to ask him to pray to
St. Joseph on my behalf, so that he assists me at the hour of my death.
Without anything further, please accept, Reverend Prior, all the
affection of this saintly community, in particular Reverend Mother
Corrector and your humble
Sr PHILOMENA DE SAINTE-COLOMBE,
Discalced Minims, with God’s mercy.”

The next days, until dawn on the 13th, the slow agony followed its
course, without bringing, at least visibly, more evident suffering.
Sometimes the dying woman seemed to rest peacefully and answered, or
rather whispered, a few words with a smile in answer to her nurses. Sister
Rose said, half light-heartedly, half compassionately, that she suffered in
her entire body, in each member, except her nose. “Well, good Rose of
the Lord, even the nose hurts, and considerably!”
On the morning of the 13th, after Holy Mass, her confessor returned
to her bedside around 6 a.m. and repeated the prayers to recommend her
soul to God. How beautiful and moving these prayers of the Holy Liturgy
must have been, said for a soul of which he knew the high virtues and
incomparable merits! How this good priest’s heart must have beaten as
he parted the heavens, as he called the angelic choirs, the august senate
of apostles, the triumphant army of radiant martyrs, the brilliant phalanx
of confessors adorned with lilies, the joyful choir of virgins to meet this
soul, and especially in telling her of the tender and festive welcome of
Jesus Christ: Milis atque festivus Christi Jesu tibi aspectus appareat!
At 7   a.m., without movement, without the least effort, an
imperceptible sigh told the confessor and the community that the
crucified Spouse had become the glorified Spouse. Sister Philomena had
lived on this earth for 27 years, 4 months and 10 days, and had been a
nun for 8 years.
______________________________________________________________________________
______________________________________________________________________________

CHAPTER XV

AFTER PHILOMENA’S DEATH

SISTER ROSE IN CHARGE OF THE BURIAL – THE FUNERAL – THE COMMON

VAULT – FIRST TRANSLOCATION – SECOND TRANSLOCATION – THIRD
TRANSLOCATION – SISTER EMANUELA – JURIDICAL RECOGNITION OF
PHILOMENA’S BODY – MEDICAL REPORT – EXAMINATION OF PENANCE
INSTRUMENTS

In the last period of her life, the venerable Philomena had asked
Sister Rose to handle her burial herself. It was, in fact, this holy lay sister
who paid the last duties to the virginal remains of her friend.
The day after her death, a funeral was held in the church of the
Minims Sisters, with the help of all the clergy from the parishes and a
large number of priests, regular or secular, who wanted to say mass in
the convent’s church, probably less to manifest their approval of this
blessed soul, but more to pray for her protection.
Among the faithful, the father and the elder brother of Philomena
heard the praises and witnessed the testimony of veneration by all the
people from Valls and the environs of the Saint.
After the absolution, the nuns, following the tradition of the times,
placed the body in the community vault as is, without a coffin, and sealed
the vault, as was the custom after each burial.
Fourteen months later, in view of the incredible events,
exaggerated or exact, that attracted to this church a large number of
pious pilgrims, the community decided it was necessary to remove Sister
Philomena’s body from the common vault and place her in a white
wooden casket in a new vault or rather in a loculus, prepared for this
purpose in one of the lateral walls of a small room adjoining the lower
chancel.
The surprise of the nuns equalled their joy when, the bricks having
been removed, they saw again the body of their dear deceased Sister: her
features were the same, as was her complexion, the freshness of
Philomena when she was healthy; only one foot seemed dislocated. Her
habit, in contact with the humidity of the vault, was mouldy and falling
apart, which gave the nuns the idea of keeping the fragments as relics
and to quickly improvise a kind of rough habit before laying the body in
the new coffin.
During the events of February 1873, the Sisters, fearing that their
precious Philomena, because of the location of her body, would be
desecrated by the revolutionaries, decided to bring it back to the
common vault, but still in its casket. Six months later, with the veneration
spreading, and perhaps also out of the too human fear of the humidity in
the vault, there was another translocation.
The casket had been placed on two heavy pieces of wood. At the
first jolt, they fell apart, putrefied, but the casket, made of simple white
wooden boards, remained intact. When it was opened in the presence of
the whole community, the confessor and several other witnesses, the
body appeared intact, white, like that of a sleeping person. A young nun
rushed forward: it was Sister Emanuela of the Sacred Heart, sister of
Philomena. Out of sisterly affection and probably excited with witnessing
this miracle, she wanted to kiss the forehead that seemed to radiate, but
the Superior allowed her only, as the other nuns, to kiss with veneration
the white and flexible hand that was resting on her chest and to touch
the body with a few images and objects of devotion.
 A new lead coffin had been prepared. The Sisters first wanted to
transfer the venerated body themselves from the wooden casket to the
leaden one, but the Superior and the witnesses, fearing their inexperience
and even more so their emotion, entrusted this translocation to the
convent’s carpenter and his helpers who had opened the coffin.
To avoid any jolt, these brave workers thought of placing the two
coffins beside each other and removing the side boards so that they
could slide the body smoothly. As they were bending to move the body,
one at the head, one in the middle and the third at the feet, at that very
moment, the body was in place in the leaden casket! No effort by the
workers, no visible movement by the body itself: a hand that was more
skilful than that of human beings had operated this translocation
instantly! After the cries of joy and veneration caused by this new miracle,
the coffin was sealed, enclosed in another new walnut casket fitted with
two locks, and placed for the second time in the loculus of the lower
chancel.5 It was going to be removed from there a short while later.
In September 1880, at the request of the Reverend Father Augustin
Donadio, Minims Friar, Postulator of the beatification cause, the
Archbishop of Tarragon, Mgr.   Benoît Villamijana y Vila, judge of the
Proceedings, created a commission to continue officially with the legal
recognition of the body of the Servant of God. On November 30th, this
tribunal composed of doctors, notaries, appointed witnesses and ladies,
fulfilled its mandate, under the chairmanship of the Archbishop himself
and in the presence of the whole community. After verifying the identity
of the body, 6 the Tribunal dismissed all the non-juridical witnesses and

5According to the deposition of the worker who sealed the casket to the judges of the
Apostolic Proceedings, this miraculous repositioning of the saintly body took place on
March 5, 1878; however, the Postulator of the cause, in his translation of Fr. Dalmau’s
work, wrote that it took place on March 5, 1879.
6For this finding, the Tribunal had, in addition to numerous proofs in law and in fact, a
peremptory demonstration: Sister Emanuela who, beside the open coffin, was the living
image of her deceased sister.
proceeded to verify its state of conservation. The doctors’ report states
the following:
Generally, at first glance, this body was one of a Minims Sister, dead not for
years, but for a few months. The face had a white complexion, a bit ashen, and
resistant to the touch; the skin stayed attached to the bones; the forehead was
smooth, with a few little wounds that seemed to be of recent date on the frontal
bone. Her eyes were closed and a bit sunken; the eyelashes were in a natural
state; the nose was well preserved, except the left nostril that was slightly
depressed; through her parted lips, her teeth were visible, the lips perfectly
natural, as was the remainder of the face.

The doctors concluded their long report by noting particularly their

admiration for the “state of conservation of the face and cranium that
should have first begun to putrefy, on account of the wounds caused by
the crown of thorns that Philomena wore under her veil, and whose
bloody and fresh tears were very visible.”

The Tribunal and witnesses then examined the various penance

instruments of the Venerable: the crown of thorns to which needles had
been added; the iron chain with the heavy tree trunk that she carried on
her shoulders while praying the Way of the Cross, hair shirts, disciplines,
and particularly a kind of jerkin made of sharpened cane slats that she
hid under her interior tunic and that must have been horribly painful.
When the examination was completed, Mgr. Villamijana asked for
the coffin to be closed again and he placed his archiepiscopal seal on
each lock.

Thank you for reading the abridged version of the Life and
Writings of Venerable Philomena. As additional chapters
are translated and inserted, you will receive notification
from the Marian Devotional Movement. Please share this
free eBook using this link:
https://visitationproject.org/products/life-and-writings-
of-venerable-philomena-abridged
A Vision for Unity and Community

through the New World Sword of St.

Michael

Encountering God Through Pilgrimage and Prayer

"For the Church, pilgrimages, in all their multiple aspects, have

always been a gift of grace." St. John Paul II

The Sacred Heart of Jesus to Venerable Philomena de Santa Columba

in 1867:

“This New Trinity (Sacred Heart of Jesus, the Immaculate Heart of Mary
and St. Michael the Archangel) must be blessed and glorified on earth as
is the unity of the three divine Persons in Heaven; blessed is the nation,
blessed the country... that will be inflamed with this devotion!”

Background – La Vénérable Philomène de Sainte-Colombe (Maison de la

Bonne Presse, Paris, 1893) was translated from Spanish by the Capuchin,
Fr.   Pie de Langogne. “He became, in 1911, Archbishop of Corinth,
consultor of the Congregation of the Index and several Roman
congregations. He was part of the entourage of Pope Pius X, of whom he
was the confessor. He died before he could become a cardinal, on May 4,
1914.” (Wikiwand.com)

The Lord revealed to Venerable Philomena that through the agency of the
Sacred Heart of Jesus, the Immaculate Heart of Mary, St.   Joseph, and
St. Michael, salvation would come to the “faithful.”

One day in 1867, she felt called by the very glorious

St. Michael the Archangel, who told her the following:
“Make known to mankind the great power I have with
the Almighty; tell them to ask me anything they want;
tell them that my power in favour of those who have
devotion to me is unlimited.” He also added this
formal order: “Make known my spiritual greatness.”

Another time, she heard these words from the Sacred

Heart of Jesus: “I shall put two of the most precious
jewels as ornaments for My Heart for Its perpetual
glory; I shall crown my Heart’s two impulses with
them, as an eternal memorial of the goodness of this
Heart that has loved mankind so much.” I understood
that these two jewels were Mary Immaculate and St.
Michael the Archangel, and I saw at the same time the
happy fate of those who would honour and glorify
them. I also heard these words:

“This new Trinity must be blessed and glorified on

earth as is the unity of the Three Divine Persons in
Heaven: blessed the nation, blessed the country or the
monastery that will be inflamed with this devotion!
Write all you know about it.”
 Venerable Philomena explained her insights in this
way:

“I will now try to explain the manner in which I learned

what the very sweet Heart of the Eternal Word will do
to save mankind. It was more or less as follows: I
seemed to see the Heart of Jesus, exhausted with
fatigue and sadness. He wandered about, as if He
wanted to find a refuge somewhere; and, instead of
rest, He only found bushes, the sharp thorns of which
wounded Him and made His blood to flow.

This most Sacred Heart went about so filled with

affliction, when suddenly two stars appeared. They
were of ineffable beauty and brilliance. They
approached the divine Heart in two different places,
and as soon as the stars had touched the Heart, It was
instantly relieved of the anguish that oppressed It. In
turn, It changed into a third star; all three remained in
the form of a triangle, the middle one being the Heart
of Jesus; the one to the right, Mary Immaculate; and
the one to the left, St. Michael the Archangel.

Mary wills to ask, Jesus or His Most Sacred Heart wills

to grant, and St. Michael wills to distribute generously
what Mary has obtained.”

The Sword of St. Michael in the Old World

7 Sanctuaries linked by a straight line.

1. Skellig Michael, an island off the coast of Ireland, settled by Celtic

monks.
2. Saint Michael’s Mount, an island off the coast of Cornwall, England.
3. Mont Saint-Michel, an island off the coast of Normandy, France.
4. Sacra di San Michele, an abbey built on top of Mount Pirchiriano,
Italy.
5. Sanctuary of Monte Sant’Angelo sul Gargano, on top of another
mountain in Italy.
6. Monastery of the Taxiarchis, Symi Island, Greece.
7. Stella Maris Monastery, Mount Carmel, Israel.
Montsaintmichel.openmondo.com

A Pilgrimage and Prayer Initiative of the MDM & the

Intercessor Family:

• Establishing the presence of St. Michael by way of a St. Michael

statue at each New World Sword location unless a statue of St.
Michael is already present on site.
• Processions of a sword of St. Michael, the Blessed Sacrament and
Our Lady of the Cape, Queen of Intercessors, at each New World
Sword location particularly on September 29th, the Feast of the
Archangels.
• Encouraging enrollment in the Confraternity of the Most Holy
Rosary and the Confraternity of the Scapular of St. Michael.
• Establishing the New World Sword of St. Michael Pilgrimage
Experience.

Prepared by Dennis Girard, Director of the Marian Devotional

Movement
Join the Intercessor Family - Support the Marian
Devotional Movement

The Marian Devotional Movement trusts you have been blessed by

the life and writings of Venerable Philomena. Would you prayerfully
consider supporting the MDM by becoming a Monthly Pilgrim
Partner? Our Lady is working powerfully through this movement and
the Intercessor Family reaching souls throughout the world drawing
her children to her Son. Every Monthly Pilgrim Partner receives a,
"Cape Prayer Shawl."

WAYS TO PARTICIPATE WITH THE QUEEN OF INTERCESSORS AS PART

OF THE MDM INTERCESSOR FAMILY

1. By becoming an MDM Monthly Pilgrim Partner - receive a "Cape

Prayer Shawl" that has been touched to the miraculous statue
of Our Lady of the Cape at Canada's National Marian Shrine,
touched to the tombs of Fr. Luc Désilets and Fr. Paul Vachon,
and blessed by Bishop Pierre-Olivier Tremblay. Become a
 Monthly Pilgrim Partner "HERE" Watch original Cape Prayer
Shawl Pilgrim Partner announcement "HERE"

2. Interceding with Mary to unleash a torrent of grace upon the

earth to bring about conversions in family members, policy
makers and souls disposed to respond to the Divine Mercy of
God. See CCC 1432 and 1431 

3. Establishing devotion to the Immaculate Heart of Mary by

growing the Queen of Intercessor Family 

4. Increasing devotion to St. Michael and the Two Hearts as revealed

to Venerable Philomena by the Sacred Heart of Jesus

5. Building the Bridge of Rosaries to intercede with Our Lady of the

Cape, Queen of Intercessors, for the World

The MDM is a Registered Charity with the Canadian Revenue Agency.

Many have, along with their prayerful support, financially supported
the efforts of the Marian Devotional Movement. What began as a
mustard seed is now flourishing all over the world as more and more
pilgrims enroll in the Rosary Confraternity.
Popular Marian Devotional Movement Resources

Our Lady of the Cape - Her Story Your Story Audio Book

James Gerard Shaw first visited Our Lady of the Cape as Feature Editor for
the British United Press on August 15th, 1948 — the day Isabelle Naud
went home from the Blessing of the Sick and rose from the wheel-chair
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–Scott Russell, Former Director of Saint Joseph Communications
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The Perfect Consecration Companion & Conversation Starter!

Meditate on the words in Heart to Heart - ask the Lord to speak to your
heart as He would a friend. 
Heart to Heart — A Divine Invitation invites a pilgrim to participate in the
life of the Holy Trinity through the GPS for the soul — God's Perfect
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Drawing richly from St. Louis de Montfort's Total Consecration to Jesus
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View the Divine Invitation introduction video for a complete walk through
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Carry copies of Heart to Heart for the pilgrims God leads you to and, as a
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Mary's Feasts Every Day Everywhere

A Timeless Marian Treasure Compiled by Sr. Manetta Lamberty, S.C.C.

Deepen your devotion for the Empress of the Universe!

This universal Mother has long been in orbit, circling the globe,
answering urgent calls with radar swiftness and enriching every hamlet,
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recorded in this tribute to the Mother of God, has left us a Mary-message
for each of the three hundred and sixty-five days of the year. Devotees of
Mary will find in this unpretentious volume a wealth of inspiration to
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Enrol in the Confraternity of the Most Holy Rosary at

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“This simple union (Confraternity of the Most Holy Rosary entrusted to

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popes and saints with the common people of the world in one great
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book, "Our Lady of the Cape."
St. John Vianney once said, “If anyone has the happiness of being in
the Confraternity of the Rosary, he has in all corners of the world
brothers and sisters who pray for him.”

HELP BUILD THE BRIDGE OF ROSARIES