Homily for Memorial of St. Rose of Lima

Homily for the Memorial of
St. Rose of Lima

Aug. 23, 2022
Collect
Christian Brothers, St. Joseph Residence, New Rochelle

(by Claudio Coello)

The collect of St. Rose (1586-1617), 1st canonized saint from the New World, and one of 4 more or less contemporary saints from Lima, highlights her seclusion from the world and her life of penance.

You’re wondering who the other 3 saints of early 17th-century Lima were.  The best known is St. Martin de Porres (1579-1639).  Almost unknown is Martin’s friend and fellow Dominican lay brother St. John Macias (1585-1645).  The 4th was Abp. Turibius of Mogrovejo (1538-1606), abp. of Lima, who confirmed Rose.

No one would want to imitate Rose’s extreme forms of penance; they were extreme even in her own time.  What we might imitate is her willingness to suffer with Christ.  As long as we’re embodied humans, we have no choice but to suffer, and that also includes emotional, psychological, and spiritual suffering.  Like Rose, we can hand all that over to Christ.

She secluded herself from a very young age in her family’s garden, living in a little hut, praying and having mystical experiences.  She was even investigated by the Inquisition, which concluded that her experiences were of divine origin.  When her family hit hard times, she helped support them by selling the flowers she cultivated in the garden and the lacework she produced.

You who are somewhat secluded can join Rose in praying for all sorts of people, especially the poor, the sick, and the desperate—the sorts of people to whom Rose reached out.  Likewise, we can try to practice patience with those who misunderstand us.

Denied entrance to a convent by her mother’s opposition, she became a 3d Order Dominican.  In that capacity, she took St. Catherine of Siena as a model, but without Catherine’s intellectual gifts and force of personality.  Like Catherine, she died very young—just 31 (Catherine was 33).  What she did have was devotion and zeal.  Rose advocated for the poor, especially the oppressed native people, so brutalized by the conquistadors.  When her sisters married and moved out of the house, Rose set up a little hospital for the needy.  She was their friend, and they recognized and appreciated that.  Friendship with whoever comes to us is, thus, another way we might imitate Rose.