|
|
|
|
|
|
St. Rose of Lima
|
|
"Apart from the cross there is no other ladder by which
we may get to heaven." ~ St. Rose of Lima
|
|
|
|
|
|
A sweet crown of roses for this loving saint! The Aves are 8mm vintage
pressed glass --- tender rosebuds in a swirl of rose, mauve, and dusty blue. The sterling-capped
Pater bead is 12mm firepolish with blue luster. The sterling medal, cast from an antique,
celebrates the third centennial of St. Rose's death (1617-1917).
|
|
|
|
|
See our
catalog
for available rosaries and chaplets.
Below are examples of previous designs.
Write
us to inquire about a custom design!
|
|
|
|
|
|
Prayers
|
|
Beginning on the medal of St. Rose, pray:
Glorious St. Rose of Lima, you who knew what it was to love Jesus with such a fine a generous heart.
You, whom since infancy, despised the world’s vanities in order to embrace His Cross. You who
loved with unfailing devotion our Heavenly Mother and professed a great tender dedication to the
destitute, serving then the same way Jesus did.
Teach us to imitate your greatest virtues, so that we, following your example, could enjoy your glorious
protection in Heaven.
For Our Lord, Jesus Christ, who lives and reigns forever…
Amen.
On the large bead, pray
Our Father...
On the ten small beads, pray
Hail Mary...
In conclusion, pray
Glory be...
|
|
|
|
|
|
From the Writings of Saint Rose of Lima:
"If only mortals would learn how great it is to possess divine grace, how
beautiful, how noble, how precious. How many riches it hides within itself, how many joys and delights!
No one would complain about his cross or about troubles that may happen to him, if he would come to know
the scales on which they are weighed when they are distributed to men."
"Lord, increase my sufferings, and with them increase Your love in my
heart."
"Apart from the cross there is no other ladder by which we may get to
heaven."
"
Our Lord and Savior lifted up his voice and said with incomparable majesty:
'Let all men know that grace comes after tribulation. Let them know that without the burden of
afflictions it is impossible to reach the height of grace. Let them know that the gifts of grace
increase as the struggles increase. Let men take care not to stray and be deceived. This is the only
true stairway to paradise, and without the cross they can find no road to climb to heaven.' "
"
When I heard these words, a strong force came upon me and seemed to place me in the middle of a
street, so that I might say in a loud voice to people of every age, sex and status: 'Hear, O people;
hear, O nations. I am warning you about the commandment of Christ by using words that came from his
own lips: We cannot obtain grace unless we suffer afflictions. We must heap trouble upon trouble to
attain a deep anticipation in the divine nature, the glory of the sons of God and perfect happiness of
soul.' "
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
St. Rose, like many saints, had a special relationship with nature. She had a natural
talent for singing and she composed a song in praise of God. The family she stayed with would listen at
her door each evening for a unique duet sung by St. Rose - yes a duet! At sunset a small bird came and
sang (chirped?) with her the song she composed. They sang alternately for an hour. Then at her signal
the bird would leave. Here are some of the verses of her song-prayer:
Tiny singer, flit your wings;
Bow before the King of kings.
Let your lovely concert rise
To Him Who gave you songs and skies.
Let your throat, full of carols sweet,
Pour them before the Eternal's feet
That we His praise may magnify
Whom birds and angels glorify.
I shall sing to Him who saved me:
You will sing to Him who made ye.
Both together, we shall bless
The God of love and happiness.
Sing, sing with bursting throat and heart!
In turn our voices will take part
To sing together, you and I,
A canticle of holy joy.
{As the bird flew away:}
The little bird abandons me:
My playmate's wings ascend.
Blessed be my God,
Who faithfully Stays with me to the end.
from the
Monks of Adoration
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
It is ironic, and perhaps cautionary, that the first canonized saint of the Western Hemisphere should
have been not a man of organized philanthropy but a frail young woman of staggering asceticism and
profound mystical gifts. The future patron of Peru was the daughter of a Spanish conquistador
named Gaspar de Flores and his wife Maria de Oliva. She was baptized Isabel, but called Rose.
("She looks like a rose," exclaimed the Indian servant of the Flores family when she first
beheld the beautiful child.) The mother was pleased by this compliment, and thereafter ignored the
baptismal name.
Rose found her own beauty perilous. Intensively spiritual in bent, she even
tried to scar her features when people praised her good looks. To please her mother, she wore a
wreath of roses, but beneath it she placed something like a crown of thorns. We are not called on
to imitate the saints in their particular methods of mortification, but their penances should always
remind us that in our necessary efforts to follow God's will, we must not allow our own wills to become
stumbling blocks.
St. Catherine of Siena, it seems, became the model whom Rosa de Flores selected.
When those around her ridiculed this ambition, she stood her ground. It was her desire to
enter a religious order. Her parents forbade it, however, and she accepted their veto. But
to counter their nagging insistence that she marry, she took a private vow of chastity. Then, when
she was twenty, she enrolled in the Dominican Third Order. Thereafter she wore a habit of a
Dominican tertiary. Unable to become a nun, she finally discovered an equivalent on her own
property: a little hut at the end of the garden where she could live and work and pray much like a
hermitess.
In her prayer life, Rose suffered far more from interior pains than from the scorn of
her associates. For fifteen years she endured agonizing spiritual desolation. But she was
also rewarded by visions of her guardian angel, of St. Catherine, and of the Blessed Virgin. Her
greatest consolation was to hear from the lips of Christ himself, "Rose of my heart, be my
spouse."
The penitent of Lima was not so involved in prayer, however, as to neglect others.
When her parents came upon hard times, she labored day and night to support them, raising
beautiful flowers for sale, and doing fine needlework on order. She also set up a little infirmary
in one room in which she took care of impoverished children and ailing seniors. This marked the
beginning of social service in her native city.
Despite the criticism that many had visited on Rose, she won a great crowd of
admirers among the local citizenry. When she died on August 16, 1617 -- a date that she had
exactly foretold --t he throngs who came to her wake were so great that the funeral had to be postponed
several days.
Beatified in 1668, in 1671 she was canonized as "St. Rose of St. Mary," and
proclaimed patron, not only of Peru, but of all America, the West Indies, and the Philippine Islands.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
A Rose Among Thorns
The life of this saint is like that of a rose among thorns. She was born into a poor but upper-class
family in Peru, soon after the conquest.
Coming from a bewildering and abusive childhood, she identified deeply with the suffering Christ. She
longed to become a nun, but was prevented by her family from doing so. She practiced austere penances at
home and eventually became a Dominican tertiary. She was a close friend of another Dominican saint with
an unhappy childhood, Martin de Porres. While the pain inflicted on her as a child helped to foster a
piety we find puzzling today, she also developed a compassion for the Indian peoples of her day who
suffered abuse not unlike her own.
To help support her family, she did fine embroidery and raised flowers for sale. Along with flowers, she
raised medical herbs which she used to cure the sick poor of Lima who began flocking to her small
infirmary in her family's home. She had a special love and concern for the Indians who had been savagely
conquered by men like Pizarro. She herself had Inca blood.
Her love for God was passionate and deep, She wrote mystical poetry, which she occasionally sang with a
guitar. Like many a Spanish mystic, she had to defend herself before the dreaded Inquisition. Near the
end of her short life, a small bird came each day at sunset and sang a love song with her that she had
composed. She died after a painful illness, just as a clock was striking midnight - reminiscent of the
Gospel parable of the Bridegroom and the ten virgins bearing lamps.
~ Robert Lentz
|
|
|
|
|
St. Rose of Lima:
Follower of Dominic and Spouse of the Heart of Christ
Saint Rose of Lima is proof of the truth that the saints are God’s most joyous
and winsome friends. The love that they have for God fills their souls and brims over in love, so
that they find joy even in their suffering. Such was Saint Rose, who might be described as a “Little
Flower” of the New World.
Rose was the seventh of eleven children born to Oliva and Gaspar Flores, a member
of the viceroy’s guard in Lima. Her parents had social prestige but little money, a lack often felt
in their household.
Oliva loved to adorn her daughter with wreaths of her most beautiful roses. The
little girl was so pretty and precocious that the mother had high hopes for her, but like Saint
Catherine of Siena in a previous century, Rose was already showing signs that the hand of God was on
her as His choice. At age five, when she made her first confession, she obtained permission from
her confessor to make a vow of virginity. About this time she cut her hair off, trying to
disguise the lack under her veil. When her mother discovered the catastrophe, she expressed her
displeasure with great vehemence. At first Rose tried to resist wearing party clothes. Then she
discovered that she could conceal thorns on the underside of the rose wreath around her head, making
the wreath into her own “crown of thorns.”
Saint Rose is most famous for her penances, done not for their own sake, but as
pure expressions of her love for Jesus and vicarious satisfaction for souls dear to Him. Her love
found other means of expression, as well. Rose prayed long hours for her beloved Archbishop
Turibius, himself a saint, in his trials, and beseeched God for the conversion of the Peruvian
Indians, who were still practicing pagan religions. She was taught to make herbal medicines and took
great delight in distributing these remedies to long lines of the sick poor of Lima.
It is natural that one with Rose’s pure love of God seek a religious vocation,
but for a time even this good desire seemed to be frustrated. She discerned that it was not God’s
will that she enter a cloister. A short time later she received a sign in answer to prayer that she
was to be a Dominican tertiary and live at home, like Saint Catherine of Siena. At age 20 she made her
profession in the Third Order of Saint Dominic.
It was at this time that perhaps the most spectacular of Rose’s miracles occurred when Dutch pirates
invaded Lima’s harbor and defeated the Peruvian fleet. Due to the Reformation, they intended not
only to loot the city but also to desecrate churches. The women, children and religious of Lima took
refuge in the churches. In the church of Santo Domingo, Rose stirred them all to prayer. It is
said that as pirates burst into the church, they were confronted with the terrifying spectacle of a
young girl ablaze with light, holding a monstrance with the Blessed Sacrament. They turned away and
fled to their ships which sailed away.
As she continued her prayer, penance and good words, Rose underwent a new season of
suffering. In spite of her prayers, ruthless Spanish landlords oppressed and exploited her beloved
Indians. Rose came down simultaneously with asthma and arthritis. On top of this, she began to
have dreams which caused her soul great disturbance. Her only support came from the Dominican saint,
Brother Martin de Porres, who assured her that her visions and spiritual aridity were signs of the
highest friendship with God. Other religious, through jealousy, had Rose examined by the Inquisition.
The inquisitors found her to be enjoying God’s highest favor in the midst of her suffering and
desolation. During this time, Rose received the grace of mystical marriage with Christ and had a ring
engraved with the works He spoke to her: “Rose of My Heart, be My spouse.” Not long after,
she died of a terrible fever and paralysis at age 31.
Rose stands out among Dominican saints in her understanding of the immeasurable
value of redemptive suffering. Speaking of the power that directed her life, she wrote, “That
same force strongly urged me to proclaim the beauty of Divine Grace.”
|
|
|
|
|
|
