St. Rose of Lima, Virgin
Obligatory Memorial
Isabel Flores, whose beauty commonly earned her the name “Rose,” was born in Lima, Peru, in 1586. She was the first flower of holiness in America, shining with the fragrance of penance and prayer.
Endowed with many gifts of intelligence, she wished to be enrolled among the sisters of the Order so that she might adhere more fully to evangelical perfection. Devoted to divine contemplation, she also desired to introduce others into the mysteries of “secret prayer,” spreading spiritual books for this purpose and even encouraging priests themselves to draw everyone to the love of prayer.
Almost enclosed in the garden of her parents’ home, she nevertheless opened her heart to the missionary task of the Church. Burning with zeal for the salvation of sinners and of the Indigenous peoples, for whom she desired to give her life, she subjected herself to voluntary afflictions in order to win them for Christ, “grieving that, because she was a woman, she could not apply herself to the apostolic ministry.”
Considering seriously the harm caused by sin, “she wished to make of herself stone and lime, so as to close the gate of hell to all.”
Burning with love for Jesus in the Sacrament of the Eucharist and with devotion to the Virgin Mother of God, she strove with indescribable zeal to spread her Rosary, believing that every Christian ought to “preach it with the voice and keep it fixed in the heart.”
She died in Lima on Aug. 24, 1617, at the age of 31. She was beatified by Clement IX in 1668 and declared a saint by Clement X on April 12, 1671. Since 1671, she has been venerated as patroness of South America.
Proprium Officiorum Ordinis Praedicatorum ad Normam Decretorum Sacrosancti Oecumenici Concilii Vaticani II Instauratum Vincentii Couesnongle iussu editum, Editio typica, Sanctae Sabinae, Romae 1982.
