St. Rose of Lima was given the name Isabel when she was born in Peru in 1586. She was such a beautiful baby, however, that people could not help calling her Rose.

Her beauty grew as she aged, and she became the subject of much admiration. She decided to devote herself fully to Jesus, however, and the admiration became a distraction to her. She feared her beauty would distract others as well, so she would rub crushed pepper on her face to produce rashes and blisters.

(Scientists recently performed an analysis of her skull, which has been kept by Dominicans in Peru, and created a digital reconstruction of her face. To see what she might have looked like in person, click here.)

Her devotion led her to take on severe mortifications, but she was devoted to those around her with similar intensity. When her parents fell into poverty, she worked to grow food in their garden and took on sewing jobs at night. She dedicated a room in her family’s home to care for orphans and the poor.

She wanted to enter a convent, but her parents would not give her permission because they wanted her to marry. She was obedient to her parents and did not join a convent. She did convince them of her vow of virginity, however--she clung to her single-hearted devotion to Christ and remained at home for her whole life, giving herself to prayer and good works. (She became a third-order Dominican, meaning that she took on the spirituality of the Dominicans as a private lay person.)

She is the patron of the Americas, the Philippines, and of florists. She is depicted, among other places, in a mural and in a window in the Basilica, wearing a crown of roses, and a number of her relics are kept in the reliquary chapel in the Basilica.

St. Rose of Lima, your beauty transcended your body as you stubbornly sought holiness--pray for us!

To learn even more about Saint Rose of Lima, watch this video lecture from the McGrath Institute for Church Life at the University of Notre Dame.