2023-08-23 02:00:00
mystical betrothal
In 1617, on Palm Sunday, their “mystical betrothal” took place. While he was praying in front of the Virgin of the Rosary, the Child Jesus told him: “Rose of my Heart, I want you as my wife.” She replied: “Lord, here is your useless slave; I am yours and yours I will be forever.”
Today, in the Church of Santo Domingo, in the center of Lima, the tile on which the saint was standing when her betrothal took place is preserved.
Holy, Holy!
Santa Rosa de Lima died on August 24, 1617 at the age of 31. The funerals mobilized the entire city. Among the attendees were high ecclesiastical and political authorities and the Viceroy of Spain. But not only them, there was the town that struggled to enter the house of the de la Maza’s shouting “holy, holy”. Many people came to the coffin in which her body lay to tear off a piece of her habit and preserve it as a relic. Others had to be dispersed by the Viceroy’s guard because they went so far as to rip off a toe.
Santa Rosa was initially buried in the cloister of the Dominican Convent, but her body was later transferred to the chapel of Santa Catalina de Siena in the Rosario church. Her skull is today in the church of Santo Domingo -located a few steps from the Plaza de Armas in Lima- next to the skulls of San Martín de Porres and San Juan Macías.
The prominent place of women in the Church
Rosa de Lima was canonized by Pope Clement X in 1671, becoming the first saint of America. The same Pontiff declared her the main patron of the New World (America), the Philippines and the West Indies. “Probably there has not been a missionary in America who with her preaching has achieved more conversions than Rosa de Lima obtained with her prayer and her mortifications,” said Pope Innocent IX referring to her.
In 1992, Pope Saint John Paul II, visiting Peru, said that the simple and austere life of Santa Rosa de Lima was “eloquent testimony of the decisive role that women have played and continue to play in the proclamation of the Gospel.”
To learn more about this saint:
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