Devotion to the Saint of today: Santa Rosa da Lima

23 August

HOLY ROSE FROM LIMA

Lima, Peru, 1586 - 24 August 1617

He was born in Lima on April 20, 1586, the tenth of thirteen children. Her first name was Isabella. She was the daughter of a noble family of Spanish origin. When his family suffered a financial meltdown. Rosa rolled up her sleeves and helped with material work at home. From an early age she aspired to consecrate herself to God in cloistered life, but remained "virgin in the world". His life model was Saint Catherine of Siena. Like her, she dressed in the Dominican Third Order dress at the age of twenty. In the maternal home he set up a sort of shelter for the needy, where he assisted abandoned children and elderly people, especially those of Indian origin. From 1609 he closed himself in a cell of just two square meters, built in the garden of the maternal house, from which he came out only for the religious function, where he spent most of his days praying and in close union with the Lord. He had mystical visions. In 1614 she was forced to move to the home of the noble Maria de Ezategui, where she died, torn by privations, three years later. It was August 24, 1617, the feast of St. Bartholomew. (Avvenire)

PRAYER TO S.ROSA DA LIMA

O admirable Santa Rosa, elected by God to illustrate with the most exalted holiness of life the new Christianity of America and especially the capital of immense Peru, you who, as soon as you read the life of Saint Catherine of Siena, set out to walk on the in his footsteps and in the tender age of five years you obliged yourself with an irrevocable vow to perpetual virginity, and spontaneously shaving all your hair, you refused with language the most eloquent the most advantageous parties that were offered to you as soon as you reached your youth, impetrate to us all grace to have such a conduct to always build our neighbors, especially with a jealous custody of the virtue of purity, which is the dearest to the Lord and the most advantageous for us.

3 Glory be to the Father
S. Rosa da Lima, pray for us