St Rose of Lima was the first canonised saint from the New World. She is the patron saint of Peru, of the indigenous peoples of Latin America, and is also a patron of the Philippines.
She was a reclusive mystic who practised severe asceticism, including bouts of self-harming, but is also remembered for her radiant love of God.
The saint was born Isabel de Flores y del Olivia in Lima, Peru, on Pentecost Sunday in 1586 to parents of Spanish extraction.
She became known as “Rosa” when an Indian maid declared her to be “como una rosa” – as beautiful as a rose.
Indeed, she was very attractive as a young woman but would react to compliments by making herself ugly by, for instance, rubbing her face with pepper so that her complexion was spoiled by blotches and blisters, and by chopping of her hair.
On another occasion, a woman remarked on the fineness of the skin of Rose’s hands and the shapeliness of her fingers, prompting her to rub lime on to them and injuring herself so badly that her hands were rendered useless for about a month.
Since she reached the age of 14, Rose’s parents had wanted her to be married but she wished to become a nun. She would spend hours each day in the contemplation of Our Lord in the Blessed Sacrament, against the wishes of her parents, and would receive Holy Communion very regularly.
Inspired by the life of St Catherine of Sienna, St Rose eventually took a vow of virginity and joined the Dominican Third Order.
The saint moved into a hut in her parents’ garden where she slept on a bed of broken tiles, allowing herself only two hours of sleep a night so she could dedicate more time to prayer. She also wore on her head a thin silver circlet which was studded on the inside with sharp prickles, like a crown of thorns. She fasted three times a week and eventually abstained from meat totally.
She suffered ridicule and was assaulted by the Devil with “violent temptations”, according to Butler’s Lives of the Saints, but amid periods of mystical exaltation and bouts of interior desolation and dryness, she is said to have heard the voice of Christ telling her that his Cross was more painful than anything she had endured.
A commission of priests and physicians which examined her concluded that her experiences were largely supernatural.
St Rose actively practised charity; she made and sold lace embroidery to care for the poor and she turned a room in her parents’ house into an infirmary to care especially for sick destitute children and the elderly, a venture which proved extremely popular with the citizens of Lima.
The last three years of her life, however, were spent in the home of Don Gonzalo de Massa, a government official, and his wife, who was fond of her.
St Rose died aged just 31 after a long and painful illness on 24 August 1617 and during her funeral, the chapter, senate, and other honourable corporations of Lima took turns in carrying her coffin.
She was beatified in 1668 and was canonised, together with St John of the Cross, by Pope Clement X in 1671.