 | Rose of Lima ( St.)
(1586-1617)
She was the first canonized saint of the New World. Her father was a Spanish soldier; her mother had some Incan blood in her veins. Rose was born just fifty three years after the Spanish had conquered Peru and the first missionaries had begun their evangelization. At the time there were three saints living in Lima: St Rose, St Martin de Porres and Blessed John Massias. Christianity was beginning to take roots into American soil.
St Rose’s life style, especially her excessive penances must have looked strange to many. Her parents and many friends thought so; even today many people think so. But at times saints are quite unusual people, who follow unusual ways.
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Rose’s life
She was born on 20 April 1586 in the city of Lima, the capital of Peru. She was born into a large family of tne children. She received the baptismal name of Isabel Flores de Oliva, after an aunt, Isabel de Herrara, who acted as godmother. Her father, Gaspar Flores, was a soldier and her mother, Maria de Oliva, had Incan blood.
At three months old Isabel was in her cradle as her mother and several other women sat around. It is said that a beautiful rose petal entered the window and gently touched the face of the baby and then vanished. From that day on, her mother Maria, called her Rose.
The parents noticed that since early childhood, Rose was possessed with a deep veneration for every aspect of religion and spent hours with her attention fixed upon the image of the Madonna and Child.
Rose grew very beautiful. She had a fresh, lovely complexion, and she was worried by the thought that the name of Rose had been given to her as a tribute to her external beauty.
She was worried that she would be carried away by the praises that friends and relatives lavished on her beauty. One day she cut off her hair against the objections of her friends and her family.
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Rose was attracted to her inner spiritual life and deep personal communion with God.
The two most evident characteristics of her spiritual life were: constant prayer and severe penance.
She took as her model St Catherine of Siena.
In emulation of St. Catherine, she fasted three times a week with secret severe penances; she spent many hours contemplating the Blessed Sacrament which she received daily.
Daily fasting turned to perpetual abstinence from meat.
Finally, when Rose began to tell of visions, revelations, visitations, and voices her parents deplored her penitential practices more than ever. She endured their disapproval and grew in spiritual fortitude.
In her twentieth year Rose had so attracted the attention of the Dominican Order that she was permitted to enter the Dominican convent in 1602 without payment of the usual dowry. She chose to be a Dominican Tertiary: she donned the habit, took a vow of perpetual virginity, and continued living at home for the rest of her life.
She and her brother Ferdinand built a tiny hermitage in her father’s garden. She planned to live there. It was so small that her mother protested. “It is big enough for Jesus and myself,” said Rose. Here, for the remainder of her life, she was to spend all of her days and part of her nights in contemplation, performing the penances which she devised to atone for the sins of the world.
However in spite of the rigors of her ascetic life, Rose was not wholly detached from happenings around her, and her awareness of the suffering of others often led her to protest against some of the practices of the Spanish overlords. In the new world, the discovery of unbelievable mineral resources was doing little to enrich or ennoble the lives of the Peruvian natives. The gold and silver from this land of “El Dorado” was being shipped back to strengthen the empire and embellish the palaces and cathedrals of Old Spain, but at its source there was vice, exploitation, and corruption. The natives were oppressed and impoverished, in spite of the missionaries’ efforts to alleviate their miseries and to exercise a restraining hand on the governing class. Rose was cognizant of the evils, and spoke out against them fearlessly.
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Her days were filled with acts of charity and industry.
Rose helped the sick and hungry around her community. She would bring them to her home and take care of them.
Let us remember that Rose was a working girl; she could not afford simply to go off and pray to her heart's content. She had to help support the family; ten hours of every day went into this necessary work. She was an expert needlewoman, and she made many fine embroideries which were purchased by people who probably never suspected that the one who made them was a saint. She also raised flowers to sell at the market.
Missionaries were always in her prayers. Her life style, her penances and prayers made her a contemplative missionary.
This remarkable woman died on August 25, 1617, at the age of thirty-one.
Not until after her death was it known how widely her beneficent influence had extended, and how deeply venerated she was by the common people of Lima. When her body was borne down the street to the cathedral, a great cry of mourning arose from the crowd. For several days it was impossible to perform the ritual of burial on account of the great press of sorrowing citizens around her bier. She was finally laid to rest in the Dominican convent at Lima. Later, when miracles and cures were being attributed to her intervention, the body was transferred to the church of San Domingo.
St. Rose was beatified by Pope Clement IX in 1667, and canonized in 1671 by Pope Clement X as the first Catholic in the western hemisphere to be canonized by the Catholic Church. Her shrine, alongside those of her friend St. Martin de Porres (1579-1639) and John Massias (1585-1645), is located inside the convent of Santo Domingo in Lima, Peru.
Rose is often depicted wearing a metal-spiked crown, concealed by roses, and an iron chain around her waist to symbolize the harsh penance she imposed on her body.
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