Saint Rose of Lima
Feast Day: August 30
Saint Rose of
Lima
by Claudio Coello (1642-1693)
Profile
At her
confirmation in 1597, she took the name of Rose, because, when an infant, her
face had been seen transformed by a mystical rose. As a child she was remarkable
for a great reverence, and pronounced love, for all things relating to God. This
so took possession of her that thenceforth her life was given up to prayer and
mortification. She had an intense devotion to the Infant Jesus and His Blessed
Mother, before whose altar she spent hours. She was scrupulously obedient and of
untiring industry, making rapid progress by earnest attention to her parents'
instruction, to her studies, and to her domestic work, especially with her
needle. After reading of St. Catherine she determined to take that saint as her
model. She began by fasting three times a week, adding secret severe penances,
and when her vanity was assailed, cutting off her beautiful hair, wearing coarse
clothing, and roughening her hands with toil. All this time she had to struggle
against the objections of her friends, the ridicule of her family, and the
censure of her parents. Many hours were spent before the Blessed Sacrament,
which she received daily. Finally she determined to take a vow of virginity, and
inspired by supernatural love, adopted extraordinary means to fulfill it. At the
outset she had to combat the opposition of her parents, who wished her to marry.
For ten years the struggle continued before she won, by patience and prayer,
their consent to continue her mission. At the same time great temptations
assailed her purity, faith, and constance, causing her excruciating agony of
mind and desolation of spirit, urging her to more frequent mortifications; but
daily, also, Our Lord manifested Himself, fortifying her with the knowledge of
His presence and consoling her mind with evidence of His Divine love. Fasting
daily was soon followed by perpetual abstinence from meat, and that, in turn, by
use of only the coarsest food and just sufficient to support life. Her days were
filled with acts of charity and industry, her exquisite lace and embroidery
helping to support her home, while her nights were devoted to prayer and
penance. When her work permitted, she retired to a little grotto which she had
built, with her brother's aid, in their small garden, and there passed her
nights in solitude and prayer. Overcoming the opposition of her parents, and
with the consent of her confessor, she was allowed later to become practically a
recluse in this cell, save for her visits to the Blessed Sacrament. In her
twentieth year she received the habit of St. Dominic. Thereafter she redoubled
the severity and variety of her penances to a heroic degree, wearing constantly
a metal spiked crown, concealed by roses, and an iron chain about her waist.
Days passed without food, save a draught of gall mixed with bitter herbs. When
she could no longer stand, she sought repose on a bed constructed by herself, of
broken glass, stone, potsherds, and thorns. She admitted that the thought of
lying down on it made her tremble with dread. Fourteen years this martyrdom of
her body continued without relaxation, but not without consolation. Our Lord
revealed Himself to her frequently, flooding her soul with such inexpressible
peace and joy as to leave her in ecstasy four hours. At these times she offered
to Him all her mortifications and penances in expiation for offences against His
Divine Majesty, for the idolatry of her country, for the conversion of sinners,
and for the souls in Purgatory.
Many miracles
followed her death. She was beatified by Clement IX, in 1667, and canonized in
1671 by Clement X, the first American to be so honoured. Her feast is celebrated
30 August. She is represented wearing a crown of roses.
Hansen, Vita
Mirabilis (1664), Spanish tr. by PARRA
The
Catholic Encyclopedia, Volume XIII
Nihil Obstat, February 1, 1912, Remy Lafort, D.D., Censor
Imprimatur. +John Cardinal Farley, Archbishop of New York
Text
Courtesy of TraditionalCatholic.net
St. Rose of Lima, Virgin
by Father Francis Xavier Weninger, 1876
God gave
to the Christians of America, and all over the world, a beautiful example of
holiness, at the end of the sixteenth and the beginning of the seventeenth
century, in the Saint whose festival is this day commemorated by the Catholic
Church. Her native place was Lima, the capital of Peru. She was named Isabel,
but while yet in the cradle, she was called Rose, as her face, in its
loveliness, resembled a rose. She took the surname of St. Mary, by order of
the Blessed Virgin. Already in her childhood, her conduct was holy. Her
intention was to follow the example of St. Catherine of Sienna, whose life she
had read, and therefore she entered the third order of St. Dominic. When five
years old, she consecrated her virginity to God, and was such a perfect
hand-maiden of the Lord, that during her whole life, she never offended Him by
a mortal sin, nor even intentionally by one that was venial. Her time was
divided between prayer and work. Twelve hours she gave to devout exercises,
two or three to sleep, the rest to work.
When grown to womanhood, her hand was sought by several,
but she always unhesitatingly gave the answer, that she was already promised
to a heavenly spouse. That, however, her parents might no further urge her,
she herself cut off her hair, as a sign of her consecration to God. She
treated her innocent body with extreme severity. From her childhood she
abstained from fruit, which, in Peru, is so delicious. Her fasts and
abstinences were more than human; for, when scarcely six years old, her
nourishment consisted almost entirely of water and bread. At the age of
fifteen, she made a vow never to eat meat, except when obliged by obedience.
Not even when sick did she partake of better food. Sometimes for five or eight
days, she ate nothing at all, living only on the bread of angels. During the
whole of Lent, she took only five citron seeds, daily. Incredible as this may
appear to the reader, it is told by unquestionable authority. Her bed was a
rough board, or some knotted logs of wood. Her pillow was a bag filled with
rushes or stones.
Every night she scourged her body with two small iron
chains, in remembrance of the painful scourging of our Saviour, and for the
conversion of sinners. When, however, her Confessor forbade her this, she,
after the example of St. Catherine of Sienna, bound, three times around her
body, a thin chain, which in a few weeks, had cut so deeply into the flesh
that it was scarcely to be seen. Fearing that she would be compelled to reveal
it, she prayed to God for help, and the chain became loose of itself. Hardly
were the wounds healed, when she again wore the chain, until her Confessor,
being informed of it, forbade her to do so, She then had a penitential robe
made of horse-hair, which reached below her knees, and occasioned her intense
suffering. She wore under her veil, in remembrance of our Saviour's crown of
thorns, a crown which was studded inside with pins, and which wounded her head
most painfully. To attend the better to her prayers, she loved solitude above
everything.
To this end, she asked the permission of her parents to
build a small cell for herself in the corner of the garden. This cell was only
five feet long and four feet wide; but she lived more happily in it than many
others do in royal palaces. O, how many graces she obtained from heaven in
this place! How many visions she had there of St. Catherine of Sienna, her
Guardian Angel, the Blessed Virgin, and even of Christ Himself! She was also
frequently favored with visions in other places. The most remarkable of these
was one which she had on Palm Sunday, in the chapel of the Holy Rosary, before
an image of the Blessed Virgin. Rose, gazing at the picture, perceived that
the Virgin Mother, as well as the divine Child, regarded her most graciously,
and at last she heard distinctly from the lips of the divine Child, the words:
"Rose, you shall be my spouse." Although filled with holy awe, she replied, in
the words which the Blessed Virgin had spoken to the Angel: " Behold, I am a
handmaid of the Lord, be it done to me according to thy word." After this, the
Virgin Mother said: "May you well appreciate the favor which my Son has
accorded to you, dear Rose!"
I leave it to the pious reader to picture to himself the
inexpressible joy which this vision gave to Rose. It served her as a most
powerful incentive to the practice of all virtues. Among these virtues, surely
not the least was the heroic patience which this holy virgin showed, as well
in bodily suffering, as in interior, spiritual anguish. The Almighty permitted
her, for fifteen years, to be daily tormented, at least, for an hour, by the
most hideous imaginations, which were of such a nature, that she sometimes
thought that she was in the midst of hell. She could think neither of God nor
of the graces He had bestowed upon her; neither did prayer or devout reading
give her any comfort. It sometimes seemed as if she had been forsaken by God.
In this manner, God wished to prove and purify her virtue, as He had done in
regard to many other Saints. Her patience was also most severely tried by
painful diseases, as she sometimes had a combination of two or three maladies
at the same time, and suffered most intensely.
During the last three years of her life, she was
disabled in almost all her limbs; but her resignation to the will of God was
too perfect to allow her to utter a word of complaint. All she desired and
prayed for was to suffer still more for Christ's sake. She, at the same time,
encouraged other sick persons, whom she served with indescribable kindness, as
long as she was well. She endeavored to comfort them when it was necessary to
prepare them for a happy death; for, her greatest joy was to speak of God and
to lead others to Him. One day when she was greatly troubled about her
salvation, Christ appeared to her and said: " My daughter, I condemn those
only who will not be saved." He assured her at the same time, first, that she
would go to heaven; secondly, that she never would lose His grace through
mortal sin; thirdly, that divine assistance would never fail her in any
emergency. God also revealed to her the day and hour of her death, which took
place in her thirty-first year. After the holy sacraments had been
administered to her, she begged all present to forgive her faults, and
exhorted them to love God. The nearer the hour of her death approached, the
greater became her joy.
Shortly before her end, she went into an ecstasy, and
after it, she said to her Confessor: " Oh! how much I could tell you of the
sweetness of God, and of the blissful heavenly dwelling of the Almighty!" She
requested her brother to take away the pillow that had been placed under her
head, that she might die on the boards, as Christ had died on the cross. When
this was done, she exclaimed three times: "Jesus, Jesus, be with me!" and
expired. After death, her face was so beautiful, that all who looked at her
were lost in astonishment. Her funeral was most imposing. The Canons first
carried the body a part of the way to the church; after them the senate, and
finally, the superiors of the different orders, so great was the esteem they
all entertained for her holiness. God honored her after her death, by many
miracles; and Clement X. canonized her in 1671 and placed her among the number
of the holy virgins.
PRACTICAL
CONSIDERATIONS.
I. Have
you been able to read without astonishment the different means that St. Rose
employed to give pain to her body, and constantly to mortify herself? What do
you think of it? I will tell you what I think. We find in the lives of almost
all the Saints, that they abstained from all worldly pleasure, and exercised
themselves in voluntary penances. As, however, the people of our day will hear
nothing of all this, and will live in comfort, and still think that, by
avoiding all mortifications of the flesh, and by enjoying all the pleasures of
the world, they will go to the same heaven into which the Saints endeavored to
enter by so many voluntary austerities, I must come to the conclusion that
either the Saints acted very foolishly in being so severe to themselves, or
that the world of our day errs in imagining that it has found an easier way to
eternal life. What do you think? Whom will you follow? The world or the
Saints? Can you name to me a single one who has followed the world and yet
entered the Kingdom of God? Perhaps you hope to be the first. Take care; your
hope will deceive you.
II. St. Rose was assured by God that she would be saved,
that she would never lose His grace, and that heavenly assistance would never
fail her. Ah ! what great and priceless favors ! The chaste virgin had made
herself worthy by her holy life, of these graces, as much as was in her power.
Your tepid piety cannot promise you such graces; but it is your duty to pray
frequently and earnestly that God may grant them to you. Pray therefore
fervently and often to God that He may not condemn you, but grant you life
everlasting. Pray to Him humbly, that you may never lose His grace by a mortal
sin, and that He may grant you assistance in all your needs. To obtain these
graces endeavor to lead a Christian life. Although this does not give you an
infallible assurance of your salvation, it gives you reason to hope that you
will not go to perdition. Think on Christ's words: "I condemn no one who
wishes to be saved." But who is he, you perhaps ask, who will not be saved.
According to the words, no one; but according to the works, many, and they are
all those who become guilty of mortal sin, who continue in their iniquity, who
defer their penance too long. If we voluntarily do what we know will lead us
to destruction, it may in truth be said of us, that we wish to be condemned.
If we do no penance, after having committed sin, it may again be said, with
truth, that we wish to be condemned; because we do not make use of those means
by which we may escape hell. Examine yourself and see if you do not perhaps
belong to those unfortunate beings who will be condemned. If you do not desire
to be one of their number, avoid sin; and if you have committed it, do penance
immediately. "As often as a man becomes guilty of a mortal sin, so often does
he sentence himself to eternal misery, says St. Chrysostom.
Prayers
in honor of St Rose of Lima
God our Father,
for love of you
St. Rose gave up everything
to devote herself to a life of penance. By the help of her prayers
may we imitate her selfless way of life on earth and enjoy the fullness of your
blessings in heaven. Grant this through our Lord Jesus Christ, Thy Son, who
lives and reigns with Thee and the Holy Ghost, one God, for ever and ever. Amen.
The Litany of St. Rose of
Lima
For Private Use Only.
Lord, have mercy on us. Christ, have mercy on us.
Lord, have mercy on us. Christ, hear us. Christ, graciously hear us.
God the Father of heaven, have mercy on us.
God the Son, Redeemer of the world, have mercy on us.
God the Holy Ghost, have mercy on us.
Holy Trinity, one God, have mercy on us.
Holy Mary, Queen of Virgins, pray for us.
St. Dominic, glorious Patriarch,
etc.
St. Rose, prepared by the dew of
heavenly grace,
St. Rose, in whom the grace of God
was not fruitless,
St. Rose, from infancy illustrious
for holiness,
St. Rose, foolish to the world but
chosen by God, to confound the wise,
St. Rose, dear to the Virgin Mary,
while yet a child,
St. Rose, consecrated to Christ by a
vow of virginity,
St. Rose, who didst abhor worldly
vanities,
St. Rose, who didst despise beauty,
St. Rose, who didst disdain all
things to gain Christ,
St. Rose, shining example of
an angelic life,
St. Rose, lily among the thorns,
St. Rose, nailed to the Cross of
Christ,
St. Rose, model of patience and
mortification,
St. Rose, who didst fast almost
beyond human strength,
St. Rose, crowned with sharp nails,
St. Rose, who didst gain unnumbered
victories over demons,
St. Rose, victim of many calumnious
tongues,
St. Rose, refreshed by heavenly
consolations,
St. Rose, favored by appearances of
the Mother of God,
St. Rose, devoted to heavenly
contemplation,
St. Rose, inflamed with seraphic
love of God,
St. Rose, ardently zealous for the
salvation of souls,
St. Rose, whose charity was not
extinguished by persecutions,
St. Rose, whose didst exhale the
sweet fragrance of Christ,
St. Rose, dying in the love of Jesus
and Mary,
St. Rose, who wast brought to Him
whom thou didst love,
St. Rose, first Flower of sanctity
in America,
St. Rose, ornament of Christian
virgins,
Lamb of God, Who takest away the
sins of the world,
spare us O Lord.
Lamb of God, Who takest away the
sins of the world,
graciously hear us O Lord.
Lamb of God, Who takest away the
sins of the world,
have mercy on us.
Christ hear us. Christ, graciously hear us.
That we may be made worthy of the
promise of Christ.
O dear St. Rose, by the excessive love that
inundated your soul when you heard from the lips of Christ the loving words:
"Rose of My heart, you shall be My spouse!"--obtain for us and for our children
a true love for Jesus Christ and an ardent desire to be united with Him. May our
hearts, enclosed in His Heart, seek nothing but the perfection of His virtues,
the fullness of His grace, and the imitation of His example! Obtain for us
patience in suffering; gentleness under offenses; humility in calumny and abuse;
and in all the affairs of life a pure heart and a contented mind. Obtain for us
constant and generous renunciation of our willful desires, perfect victory over
evil inclination, perseverance in prayer and good works, that we may ever please
our God and, in the end, attain to a share in His glory. Amen.