Born in Lima, Peru, in 1586, by all accounts, Isabel Flores de Oliva was a beautiful infant, a beautiful child, a beautiful young woman. With a Puerto Rican father and an indigenous mother of Incan ancestry, she inherited the fine features and fair complexion that marked that combination of lineages. The fourth of eleven children, she was named Isabel after her grandmother; but to her grandmother’s chagrin, the child became known as “Rose” even as a newborn because of an event when her mother, a young servant, and several other women witnessed the appearance of a rose on the infant’s face as she slept. While her grandmother Isabel continued to object strenuously, the change of name was finally settled when Lima’s sainted Archbishop Turibius formally gave her the name Rose at her confirmation. (As you might imagine, Grandma Isabel was not happy about that!)
But Rose’s physical beauty paled in comparison to her spiritual beauty. What made her such a spiritual beauty?
Today’s reading gives us a clue. Sirach tells us that one who conducts her affairs with humility will be loved [3:17-24].
“The one who humbles herself finds mercy in the sight of God.”
Humility is not unlike the biblical virtue of “fear of the Lord.” The Hebrew phrase Yirah Adonai is usually translated “fear of the Lord.” However, the word yirah (יראה) can also mean “awe,” “respect,” “reverence,” or “worship.”
“Fear of the Lord” is a humble recognition of who God is—and who we are. When we begin to grasp who God is and who we are, we are in awe. An understanding of the magnitude of God’s greatness in relation to our lowliness cannot help but make us truly humble. It’s no wonder that “fear of the Lord”—and the humility it brings—is called “the beginning of wisdom” [Proverbs 9:10].
Rose knew who she was and whose she was: that her worth, her value, was not rooted in her physical beauty, but in her oneness with Jesus. That is what made her beautiful. Rose really understood the words of Jesus in today’s gospel:
“Remain in me, as I remain in you.
Just as a branch cannot bear fruit on its own
unless it remains on the vine,
so neither can you unless you remain in me.” [John 15:4-5]
Rose was relentless in her efforts to remain in Jesus, to be one with his will. She clearly had a mind of her own, but she always bent to the will of God, always sought to adopt the mind of Christ. Like many others of her day, Rose embraced an austere life of penance and intense mortification, seeking to be one with Christ through her suffering. But for Rose, seeking to be one with Christ also meant to embrace his concern for and identification with the poor. Emulating her hero, Saint Catherine of Siena, she lived at home as a lay Dominican, using all her strength and resources to bring healing and peace to the poor and suffering of Lima. Gifted in the arts of sewing, embroidery, and gardening, she sold hand-sewn articles and roses from her garden, using the income to provide for the sick and poverty-stricken of Lima who came to her in the small grotto of the rose garden in her family’s home, where her roses still abound today. There she gave them nourishment and tender care in a way that echoed the ministry of another Dominican, her friend, Martin de Porres, who lived just across the road from her. (We too know how the goodness of our neighbors and companions inspires us to strive for goodness!)
The first canonized saint of the Americas, Rose of Lima was beautiful—with the profound beauty that comes from being truly one with Christ in our suffering and one with Christ in works of mercy. In humility, she knew who she was and whose she was. We ask her to intercede for us as we approach the Table of the Lord in this Eucharist, where we too become one with Christ, put on the mind of Christ. Let us heed his words, “Remain in me,” and continue to embrace his mission of mercy that is so needed in our own day—and do so with profound humility. Just look around this chapel and see who we are and whose we are—indeed, beauty is all around us!
– Sister Margaret Palliser, OP
With expertise in Theology, Music, Education, and Liturgy,
Sister Margaret shares her gifts through the Office of Dominican Life.