Biography of Santa Rosa de Lima | Peruvian nun.

(Isabel Flores de Oliva; Lima, 1586-1617) Peruvian nun of the Dominican order who was the first American Saint. Having already given signs of an intense spiritual precocity, twenty years took the habit of a Dominican tertiary, and devoted his life to the care of the sick and children and ascetic practices, ranging soon the fame of his Holiness. Already venerated by his mystical visions and miracles that were attributed to him in life, in a little more than half a century was canonized by the Catholic Church, which declared her patroness of Lima and Peru, and soon after America, Philippines and East Indies.

Biography

Santa Rosa de Lima was born April 30, 1586, in the vicinity of the hospital of the Holy Spirit of the city of Lima, then capital of the Viceroyalty of the Peru. She was the daughter of Gaspar Flores (an arquebus of the natural colonial guard of San Juan de Puerto Rico) and the limean Maria de Oliva, which in the course of their marriage her husband gave other twelve children. He received baptism in the parish of San Sebastián de Lima, being his godparents Hernando de Valdés and María Orozco.

Santa Rosa de Lima (Murillo oil)

In the company of his many brothers, the pink girl moved to the mountain town of Quives (Andean town in the basin of the Chillon, near Lima) when his father took the job of administrator of a mill where silver ore is refined. The biographies of Santa Rosa de Lima have vividly retained the fact that in Quives, it was doctrine of mercedarian friars, the future Saint was in 1597 the sacrament of confirmation at the hands of the Archbishop of Lima, Santo Toribio Alfonso de Mogrovejo, who made a pastoral visit in the jurisdiction.

Although she had been baptized as Isabel Flores de Oliva, in the confirmation he received the name of rose, nickname employing relatives practically since birth by her beauty and a vision that was his mother, in which the face of the girl became a rose. Santa Rosa definitely assume the name later, when he understood that it was "rose garden of Christ" and adopted the religious name of Rosa de Santa Maria.

Dealing with the "dark phase" in the biography of Santa Rosa de Lima, which corresponds precisely to their years of childhood and early adolescence in Quives, Luis million has sought to shed light through the interpretation of dreams that biographers of the santa. View million that could be the most important stage for the formation of their personality, despite the fact that the authors have preferred to make abstraction of the economic environment and cultural experiences that influenced the life of the Flores-Oliva family in the mountains, a mining seat linked to the heart of the colonial production. Probably that experience (daily view of the sufferings that Indian workers suffered from) might be that gave to Rosa concern cure diseases and miseries of people who would then believe in virtue.

In Lima

Since his childhood had been manifested in the future santa his religious vocation and a singular spiritual elevation. He learned music, song and poetry at the hands of his mother, who used to instruct the daughters of the nobility. It is claimed was well equipped for the work of sewing, which would help sustain the family budget. With the return of the family to the Peruvian capital, I would soon highlight for his selfless dedication to others and for his extraordinary mystical gifts.

At the time, Lima Santa Rosa lived an atmosphere of religious effervescence which was not alien: was an era in which abounded the powers of miracles, cures, and all sorts of wonders by a population that put great emphasis on the virtues and the ideal of life Christian. Around of sixty people, they died in "odor of sanctity" in the Peruvian capital between late 16th century and the mid-eighteenth. This led to a long series of biographies of Saints, blesseds, and servants of God works very similar in their content, governed by the same formal structures and similar categories of thought.

In adolescence, Santa Rosa was attracted with singular force by the model of the dominica Saint Catherine of Siena (Tuscany Mystic of the 14th century); following his example, he is stripped of his sexy hair and made a vow of perpetual chastity, contrary to the plans of his parents, whose idea was to marry her. After much insistence, parents withdrew their inspirations and allowed him to continue his spiritual life. He wanted to enter the Dominican order, but in the absence of any convent of the order in the city, in 1606 he took the habit of a Dominican tertiary in Lima Church of Santo Domingo.

Santa Rosa de Lima (detail
of an oil painting by Claudio Coello)

It would never come to seclusion in a convent; Rosa continued living with their relatives, helping with the household chores and worrying about people in need. Well soon had great fame by their virtues, which expanded over a lifetime dedicated to the Christian education of children and the care of the sick; He came to install a hospital near his home to be able to assist you better. In these purposes apparently helped a mulatto Friar who, like her, was destined to be elevated to the altars: St. Martin de Porres.

There were very few persons with whom Rosa came to have some privacy. In its most narrow circle were virtuous women as Doña Luisa Melgarejo and his group of "beatas", together with friends of the paternal home and close to the home of Gonzalo de la Maza counter. Confessors of Santa Rosa de Lima were mostly priests of the Dominican congregation. He also had spiritual contact with religious of the society of Jesus. It is also important to contact who developed with the doctor Juan de el Castillo, Extremadura doctor well versed in matters of spirituality, with whom he shared the most secret minutiae of their relationship with God. These spiritual advisers exerted profound influence on rose.

Not surprising since then that his mother, María de Oliva, abominase of the cohort of priests who surrounded his pious daughter, because I was sure that the ascetic rigors that she herself was imposed were "to be of this opinion, ignorant credulity and judgment of some confessors", recalls a contemporary. The stereotyped behavior of Santa Rosa de Lima is most evident while he repaired that, by order of their confessors, scored several mercies he had received from the sky, thus composing the panel titled spiritual scale. It is not known much about Santa Rosa readings, although it is known that he found inspiration in the theological works of Fray Luis de Granada.

Last years

1615, and with the help of his favorite brother, Hernando Flores de Herrera, he built a small cell or chapel in the garden of her parent's House. There, in a space of just over two square meters (which is still possible to appreciate), Santa Rosa de Lima collecting it with relish to pray and do penance, practicing a severisimo asceticism, with Crown of thorns under the veil, hair stuck to the wall not to be asleep, gall as beverage, rigorous fasts and disciplines constant.

His biographers have their mystical experiences and States of ecstasy were very frequent. Apparently, every week undergoing an Ecstasy like the de Santa Catalina de Ricci, its coetanea and sister of habit; said that every Thursday morning it locked in his oratorio and did not return itself until Saturday morning. Several gifts, it was also as the prophecy (according to the tradition, prophesied his death a year earlier); the legend holds that even saved to the Peruvian capital an incursion of pirates.

Santa Rosa de Lima suffered at that time the misunderstanding of family and friends and suffered stages of vacuum deep, but this resulted in an intense experience spiritual, full of Ecstasy and wonders, as communication with plants and animals, without ever losing the joy of his spirit (amateur writing songs of love with Mystic symbolism) and the beauty of your face. It came thus to attain the highest level of mystical ladder, spiritual marriage: tradition account that saw Jesus in the Church of Santo Domingo, and it asked him to be his wife. March 26, 1617 is held in the Church of Santo Domingo de Lima its mystical marriage with Christ, being Fray Alonso Velásquez (one of their confessors) who put on his fingers the symbolic ring as a sign of perpetual union.

With every success, rose had predicted that his life would end up at the home of its benefactor and confidant Gonzalo de la Maza (the Court of the holy crusade counter), he lived in recent years. A few months after that mystical espousal, Santa Rosa de Lima fell seriously ill and was affected by an acute hemiplegia. Doña María de Uzátegui, Madrid's wife of the counter, it admired; before his death, Santa Rosa asked that it was she who amortajase it. Around his bed from agony was the marriage of the Maza-Sánchez with two daughters, Doña Micaela and Doña Andrea, and one of his closest disciples, Luisa Daza, whom Santa Rosa de Lima requested that he sang a song with accompaniment of vihuela. So Lima Virgin gave his soul to God, August 24, 1617, in the first hours of the morning; He was only 31 years old.

The day of his death, in the afternoon, was the transfer of the corpse of Santa Rosa to the large Dominican convent, known as our Lady of the Rosary. His obsequies were imposing for its resonance among the city population. A motley crowd filled walkways, balconies and roofs in the nine blocks separating the street from the Capon (where was the residence of Gonzalo de la Maza) of this temple. The next day, 25 August, there was a present body mass officiated by don Pedro de Valencia, elected Bishop of La Paz, and then proceeded quietly to bury the remains of the Saint in a room of the convent, without hint of campaigns nor any ceremony, to prevent the agglomeration of faithful and curious.

The process that led to the beatification and canonization of rose of Lima began almost immediately, with witnesses information promoted in 1617-1618 by the Archbishop of Lima, Bartolomé Wolf Warrior. After five decades of procedure, Pope Clement IX beatified her in 1668, and a year later declared her patroness of Lima, Peru. His successor, Clement X, canonized her in 1671; a year earlier had declared it in addition principal patroness of America, the Philippines and the East Indies. The feast of Santa Rosa de Lima is held on August 30 in most of the countries, despite the fact that Vatican Council II moved it to August 23.

Extracted from the website: Biografías y Vidas