Saint Rose of Lima.
Artist: Claudio Coello (1642–1693).
Date: 1683.
Collection:
(Wikimedia Commons)
Text from “The Liturgical Year”.
By: Abbot Guéranter, O.S.B.
Volume 14.
Time After Pentecost.
Book 5.
Neither heroes nor Apostles were wanting in the Catholic Kingdom for the great work; but there was also, unhappily, no lack of adventurers, who, in their thirst for gold, became the scourge of the poor Indians, instead of leading them to the True God.
The speedy decadence of the illustrious Nation that had triumphed over the Moors, was soon to prove how far a people, prevented with the greatest Blessings, may yet be answerable for crimes committed by its individual representatives.
It is well known how the Empire of the Incas in Peru came to an end. In spite of the indiginant protestations of the Missionaries; in spite of orders received from the Mother Country; in a few years, Pizarro and his companions had exterminated one third of the inhabitants of these flourishing regions; another third perished miserably under a slavery worse than death; the rest fled to the mountains, carrying with them a hatred of the invaders, and too often of the Gospel as well, which, in their eyes, was responsible for atrocities committed by Christians.
Saint Rose of Lima.
Available on YouTube
Avarice opened the door to all vices in the Souls of the conquerors, without, however, destroying their lively Faith. Lima, Founded at the foot of the Cordilleras, as metropolis of the subjugated provinces, seemed as if built upon the triple concupiscence.
Before the close of the Century, a new Jonas, Saint Francis Solano, came to threaten this new Ninive with the anger of God.
But mercy had already been beforehand with wrath; “Justice and Peace had met” [Editor: Psalm lxxxiv. 11], in the Soul of a child, who was ready, in her insatiable love, to suffer every expiation.
Here we should like to pause and contemplate the Virgin of Peru, in her self-forgetful heroism, in her pure and candid gracefulness: Rose, who was all sweetness to those who approached her, and who kept to herself the secret of the thorns without which no Rose can grow on Earth.
English: Stained-Glass Window of Saint Rose of Lima.
Church of Saint Pierre de Chanzeaux, France.
Français: L’église Saint-Pierre à Chanzeaux.
Sainte Rose de Lima.
Photo: 2 March 2025.
Source: Own work.
This File is licensed under the
4.0 International licence.
Author: GO69
(Wikimedia Commons)
This Child of Predilection was prevented from her infancy with miraculous gifts and favours. The flowers recognised her as their Queen; and at her desire they would blossom out of season.
At her invitation, the plants joyfully waved their leaves; the trees bent down their branches; all nature exulted; even the insects formed themselves into Choirs; the birds vied with her in celebrating the praises of their common Maker.
She, herself, playing upon the names of her parents, Gaspard Flores and Maria Oliva, would sing: “O my Jesus, how beautiful Thou art among the olives and the flowers, and Thou dost not disdain Thy Rose !”
She took the Habit of The Third Order of Saint Dominic and after that redoubled her austerities.
English: Church of Saint Rose, Alsace, France.
Français: Alsace, Bas-Rhin, Église
Sainte-Rose-de-Lima de Rosenwiller (Dettwiller).
Photo: 9 April 2014.
Source: Own work.
This file is licensed under the
Share Alike 4.0 International licence.
Author:
(Wikimedia Commons)
Eternal Wisdom has, from the beginning, delighted to play in the World. Pope Clement X relates, in the Bull of Canonisation, how one day, when Rose was very ill, The Infant Jesus appeared and deigned to play with her; teaching her in a manner suitable to her tender age, the value and the advantages of suffering. He then left her full of joy, and endowed with a life-long love of The Cross.
Holy Church will tell us in the legend how far the Saint carried out, in her rigorous Penance, the lesson thus divinely taught. In the super-human agonies of her last illness, when someone exhorted her to courage, she replied: “All I ask of my Spouse is that He will not cease to burn me with the most scorching heat, till I become a ripe fruit that He will deign to cull from this Earth for His Heavenly Table”.
She was but thirty-one years of age, when, at midnight on the Feast of Saint Bartholomew in 1617, she heard the cry: “Behold, the Bridegroom cometh !” In Lima, in all Peru, and indeed throughout America, prodigies of conversion and Miracles signalised the death of the humble Virgin, hitherto so little known.
“It has been juridically proved”, said the Sovereign Pontiff, “that, since the discovery of Peru, no Missionary has been known to obtain so universal a movement of repentance”.
Five years later, for the further sanctification of Lima, there was established in its midst the Monastery of Saint Catharine of Siena, also called “Rose’s Monastery”, because she was in the eyes of God its true Foundress and Mother.
Her Prayers had obtained its building, which she had predicted; she had designed the Plan, pointed out the future Religious, and named the first Superior, whom she one day prophetically endowed with her own spirit in a mysterious embrace.
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