Monday, August 23, 1999
Monday August 23: Twenty-first Monday in Ordinary Time Feast of Saint Rose of Lima, Virgin Green or white vestments
First Reading: 1 Thessalonians 1: 1-5, 8-10
Psalms: Psalm Psalm 149: 1-6, 9
Gospel Reading: Matthew 23: 13-22
FEAST OF SAINT ROSE OF LIMA, VIRGIN
Regarded as the first canonized saint of the New World, Saint Rose of Lima was born of humble Spanish
parents in 1586 and baptized Isabel Flores y de Oliva. However her parents were so taken by her beauty and innocent that they gave her the "nickname" Rose from early infancy. At the turn of the 17th Century she was
confirmed by Saint Turibus, the archbishop of Lima. So influenced was she by St. Turibus and three other contemporary saints - Saint Martin de Porres, Saint John Macias (both Dominicans) and Saint Francis Solano, a Franciscan, that Rose rejected a grandiose and secure marriage proposal opting to enter the Dominicans and become a Tertiary nun, politely telling her suitor who fawned over her beauty, "Only beauty of the soul is important." Marriage to this rich nobleman would have secured her and her family for life in worldly
wealth, but she disdained it all for eternal wealth. Jesus had asked her to be a life-long virgin through private revelation and visions in which He requested, "Rose of My Heart, be My spouse." She dedicated her life to penance, visiting the poor with food and faith and offering her life as a victim soul while founding the first
monastery of cloistered nuns in Peru, dedicated to Saint Catherine of Siena. Because of her total dedication to God's Will she became a serious threat to satan and was put through fierce trials by the evil one but in every instance came out smelling like God's Rose. In the mid 17th Century a fleet of Dutch ships sailed into the Peruvian harbor and all of Lima was terrified except Rose who ran to the altar before the Tabernacle in petition for her townspeople and willing to die to protect the Blessed Sacrament. Through her prayers, the Dutch
mysteriously left and Rose's wish to die a martyr was denied so that God could take her home peacefully on
August 24, 1617. Upon her death all of Lima immediately venerated her as a saint. It wasn't until 55 years later
that she was canonized by Pope Clement X in 1671 and also declared "patroness of the Americas."
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