On 11^th December 2018, FSL-India’s Mysore coordinator organised a Cultural Event (CE) for our regular LTV volunteers. Every month, we take them to any cultural and historical places which are located in and around Mysore. This month, the Cultural Event was focused on the theme of Religion and we took our 5 volunteers to St Philomena’s Church.

St Philomena is a Latin Catholic saint and martyr of the Roman Catholic Church. She was a young Greek princess martyred in the 4th century. The remains of a teenage girl no older than 14 were discovered on 24 May 1802 in the catacombs of Saint Priscilla at the Via Salaria in Rome. Accompanying these remains were a set of tiles bearing a fragmented inscription containing the words LUMENA PAXTE CUM FI, words of no known meaning in that order. The letters were rearranged to read PAX TECUM FILUMENA, which in Latin translates to Peace with you, Filumena. Some symbols of her martyrdom and a vessel containing dried blood were also found in the tomb. From these discoveries, it was concluded that a Christian named Filumena (Philomena) was buried in the tomb and the vessel containing blood was thought to be her relic, an evidence of a martyr’s death.

In the morning, FSL-India’s coordinator and the volunteers started their travel from the meeting point to the place of the cultural event. First, the coordinator explained about the activities. Then, he took the 5 volunteers to St Philomena’s Church, where he told them the story of St Philomena and also, the history of the church.

After the visit, our coordinator and volunteers had lunch at a local restaurant and discussed about their experiences in their host families and projects.