Rose of Saint Mary

By Cayetano Bruno, S.D.B.

Sealed and signed by the diocese of Lima on December 19, 1991.

Introduction

This new "Life of Saint Rose of Lima" was edited and first printed in Peru, by the express wishes of its author, the Rev. Father Cayetano Bruno, SDB.

Father Bruno, a member of the Royal Academy of Language and of the Argentine Council of Ecclesiastical History, is profoundly knowledgeable about the life of our Saint, through his investigation of the Archives of the Canonization process and of the extensive existing bibliography.

Our desire is that You, gentle reader, may encounter in this work an amenable and attractive, as well as profitable, read, and that it may serve to increase your understanding of and admiration for this giant of Sanctity in Latin American and in the world...

It should go without saying that the life of sanctity, as it is here related, is only comprehensible to the "believer," that is to say, to one who can recognize the miracles grace works in such "souls" which are the object of a preferential love on the part of God.

We trust that in proceeding to read You shall feel attracted and as if carried by her immense love of God and complete surrender to Him to follow in her steps on the way to Sanctity, common goal of all Christians.

Lima, January 1992
5th Centennial Year of Evangelization

THE EDITORS

Prologue

Admire the spontaneous popularity of this Saint, whose life, nearly hermitic and of hair-raising macerations, more appropriate to the Middle Ages, disconcerts and repulses those who have even glanced at one of her monographs.

Because Rose of Lima, from the most tender age, mortified her flesh with extreme fasts, abstinences and hair shirts, merciless scourgings, crowns of hurtful thorns cap-style, bed bristling with sharp tiles. All with her gaze fixed on Jesus Crucified, whom she loved desperately and whose dolorous humanity she resolved to copy in her delicate flesh.

The same determination and industriousness that the common mortal applies to freeing the body from pain and making fatigue more bearable and the good life more comfortable, this singular maiden employed in tormenting herself, until she had firmly disrupted even the most subtle of nature's demands.

This notwithstanding, and Rose having cultivated a sanctity so removed from the preoccupations of yesterday and of today, her name reached far beyond the borders of Peru which raised her, eventually invading the American landscape with unforseen determination.

So in Mexico there is Saint Rose of Coxilahuaca and Saint Rose of Jauregui; in Nicaragua, Saint Rose of Piñon; in Honduras, Saint Rose of Aguan, Saint Rose of Aguan, Saint Rose of Copan and Saint Rose of Guaimaca; in Venezuela, Saint Rose of Anzoategui; in Colombia, Saint Rose of Cabal and Saint Rose of Osos; in Ecuador, Saint Rose of Chobos; in Peru, Saint Rose of Ataura, Saint Rose of Chonta, Saint Rose of Huayabamba, Saint Rose of Quives and Saint Rose of Mina; in Chile, Saint Rose of Arqueros, Saint Rose of Cato, Saint Rose of Catripulli and Saint Rose of the Andes; in Uruguay, Saint Rose of Cuareim. And many more.

There is hardly a region in Argentina without a settlement, parish, church or chapel named for her. So there is Santa Rosa in the province of La Pampa; Saint Rose of Calchines in Santa Fe; Saint Rose of Calamuchita and Saint Rose of Rio Primero in Cordoba. The old college of Saint Rose in San Juan de Cuyo, founded by Bishop-Friar Justo of Maria de Oro and regented by Domingo Faustino Sarmiento, and the monumental church of Saint Rose of Lima in Buenos Aires, inaugurated by Cardinal Eugenio Pacelli, the future Pius XII, during the International Eucharistic Congress of 1934, complete the picture of all this.

Furthermore, devotion to Rose of Lima has not diminished in America with the Saint's having been dead several centuries now. Her feast is more than popular, like her person, which continues to awaken sympathy perhaps because she was consistent to the core. She chose the way of the cross, and went straight for it without temperance or adjustment until it was too much...

The critic, the biographer, the historian panning Rosa's life for spots, deviations or accomodations will have to sharpen his imagination. She absolutely did not know them, giving herself to God, whether actively or passively, without the slightest reservation. And if there were excess deserving censure in her conduct, it would be because she gave excessively, even to an inhuman degree, afflicting her flesh with aggressive macerations, and requiring her spiritual parents to rein her in.

For which she attracted the most dear rewards for all America. Are we not stuffed, smug, with the handsome blessings that Rose of Saint Mary gained from Heaven for us, by the mercy of her complete surrender to the Cross?

Saint Rose was born in Lima on April 30, 1586. And she died there on August 24, 1617, at thirty one years and nearly four months old; and the ordinary process for her beatification and canonization was opened eight days later. This was followed in 1630 with the apostolic process: one after another eyewitness sworn in one after another.

I am using precisely that immensity of material stored in the vault of the Sacred Congregation of Rites of the Secret Vatican Archives, specifically the manuscript volumes No. 1570 and 1573, which correspond to both processes, and which best serve to encompass the life and virtues of the Saint. [...]

THE AUTHOR

Buenos Aires, October 1986