Rose

ON ST. ROSE, VIRGIN, OF THE THIRD ORDER OF ST. DOMINIC,

AT LIMA IN PERU, A PROVINCE OF AMERICA,

In the year MDCXVII.

PRELIMINARY COMMENTARY.

Rose, virgin, of the Third Order of St. Dominic, at Lima in Peru, a province of America (St.)

BY G. C.

§ I. The public fame of this Virgin's happy death soon carried into Europe, and confirmed by the authentic testimonies of distinguished men.

Not long after the death of this Virgin, which befell in the year of Christ 1617, The most holy death of Bl. Rose is announced to the Roman Pontiff: the common opinion of her sanctity passed from America into Europe, and began to be spread abroad everywhere, especially when the religious Orders and other illustrious inhabitants of America declared their esteem of this surpassing Virgin to the Roman Pontiff. Antonio González de Acuña, a Dominican, of whom we shall afterward treat among the chief writers of the Acts, generally indicates those eulogies of neighboring witnesses in his Latin compendium of the Life — which in the year 1672 was published in print at Rome again after seven earlier editions — in chapter 20, in these words: Not only the sacred family of St. Dominic, in letters given in the common name, calls her holy, admirable, illustrious for the most notable miracles and for a prophetic spirit, and in all things nearly equal to St. Catherine of Siena; but also the monastery of Lima of the Fathers of St. Mary of Mercy, and Nicolás Mastrilli Durán, Provincial of the Society of Jesus, with the common votes of his own, and the sacred Order of blessed John of God, and of the Hermit Fathers of St. Augustine, and of the Minors of St. Francis, and letters given in the name of the metropolitan church of Lima, entreat the supreme Pontiff with the lowliest prayers that he would enroll Rose among the Saints, and grant her as patroness of Lima; they enumerate her virtues, and her most well-known sanctity, and her admirable prodigies. But it will be useful to hear these testimonies more distinctly, and to excerpt them from the very fragments of the letters which Serafino Bertolini — to be mentioned again below among the biographers — sets forth in Latin in his Italian Life of the Saint, chapter 32, and distinguishes with a different type.

[2] in the chapter In that very year in which St. Rose passed at Lima to the world above, the Fathers Preachers of the province of Peru came together for the chapter of their Order, and, gathered in the city of Lima, thus informed their absent Brethren of this Virgin's happy death: We announce that a certain admirable Sister of ours has died … The habit of our third Order being taken, she observed its institute, remaining in her father's house, and cleaving to the rule and to the constitutions of our holy Father Dominic, so that to all she seemed another Catherine of Siena (whom from her earliest age she strove with all her strength to imitate) living in this world. This famous Virgin was born of pious parents at Lima in the year of the Lord MDLXXXVI, by whom she was religiously brought up, and was so enlightened by her divine Spouse that in her fifth year she strove to attain the summit of perfection by assiduous fastings and by the harshness of penance. She attained it, therefore, by marvelous abstinence and notable penance. For a little bed she used a rack woven with various potsherds; she had a silver crown set about her head after the manner of a crown of thorns; with an iron chain she cruelly afflicted her body every night even to the shedding of blood. She was notable for incredible patience, rare humility, and purity both of soul and of body.

[3] Admirable for divine revelations, she gave herself to prayer and contemplation, is excellently praised by the Friars Preachers, so that she came to the unitive life with the utmost tranquillity of mind and to the admiration of all; to which exercise of prayer the sacred Virgin Mother of God roused her for a long time every night. She was endowed with a prophetic spirit, by which she foretold many things to come; and at length, distinguished with the other kinds of virtues, leaving illustrious examples of her sanctity, she happily fell asleep in the Lord in that same city on the XXIV day of August. She was buried in this our Convent of that same city of Lima in the Chapter-house of the Friars. There were present the most illustrious archbishop of Lima and the most illustrious bishop of Guatemala, and the cathedral and secular body, carrying with great devotion of mind upon their own shoulders the bier of that most holy Virgin; whose most pure body, because of the multitude of the people, and the incredible and unheard-of affection of all the sick who desired to touch and kiss it, remained unburied for two days, and was illustrated with the most notable miracles. In the following year, namely of Christ 1618, the general chapter of the same Order was celebrated at Lisbon in Portugal, where the Dominican Fathers, being gathered, deservedly declared that this Virgin had been a perfect imitator of St. Catherine of Siena.

[4] Nor had the Dominican Fathers alone conceived so great an opinion of the sanctity of their Sister, and also by other Orders but also Orders of another institute or profession; among whom the Convent of Lima of the Religious of St. Mary of Mercy for captives, in letters given to Pope Urban VIII, adorn that same Virgin with these praises: A golden Rose the fourth Sunday of Lent sends into the hands of your Holiness; into those same hands today St. Dominic likewise sends a golden Rose, who, as she abounded in heavenly gold, went not after earthly gold, and did wonderful things in her life. Her in his

rosary the Mother of God planted, advancing her to the glorious habit of the Preachers, in which the admirable mysteries of her heroic works aptly transformed her into a rose-garden; and (as Cassiodorus said of Eugenius) she bore in name the dignity which she possessed in merits; and thus (as Ambrose once marveled in blessed Agnes) not even her name is empty of the light of praise. So this whole new world thinks of the blessed virgin Rose, to whom (what earth could not) the heavens gave the name Rose of Saint Mary. To the thread of her cross were hung the rigors of scourgings, hair-shirts, nails, spikes, an iron girdle, and food of gall.

[5] she is extolled Her whole life protested with Paul, God forbid that I should glory, save in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ; since nothing was pleasing to her outside the cross; in this alone she turned over the sorrowful mysteries with the joyful and the glorious. It is a marvel that the tops of tall trees bowed themselves to this so humble Rose while she prayed in the garden; but more marvelous, that she, like a palm exalted (or, according to another reading, WEDDED) in Cades, when, the Empress of heaven being bridal attendant, the Son of God pledged Rose to himself as the bride of his heart. This daughter of Oliva never lacked oil, nor was her lamp extinguished in the night; for the grace once kindled in Baptism no darkening interrupted in her down to her death. An eternal monument of her prophetic spirit is the monastery of St. Catherine of Siena at Lima, in which at length the virgin's mother also (as she had foretold) took the veil, having obtained the enclosed garden of the sacred cloister, which the Daughter had desired for herself when at five years old she uttered the vow of virginal purity. But her Spouse preferred her to be beautiful in the fields, that by her fragrance she might draw very many young maidens with her to follow him.

[6] with great eulogies: Lima, the city of the kings, deems itself most happy, while as a suppliant it begs of your Holiness that this virgin be given it as patroness; the city of the kings seeks to have as mother the Queen of flowers whom it bore as daughter: thus the name of the city of the kings inscribed upon this Rose will neatly solve the riddle of Menalcas in Virgil: Tell me, in what lands are born flowers inscribed with the names of kings? From flowers of this kind why should it not be permitted to hope for fruits of honor and honesty? Nor can anything be offered more fit for honey-making to your family bees, most blessed Father, than this Rose, whom by marking her with the just honors of the Church you will fill all the faithful with wondrous sweetness. This they pray: the Presentate Fr. Diego de Borques, commissary Provincial; Master Fr. Gaspar de la Torre; Master Fr. Luis de Teca. What now appears obscure in this eulogy will be more easily understood from the Acts to be read below. For brevity's sake I pass over two petitionary libels which the Magistracy or senate of Lima in the year of Christ 1631 and the following offered to Urban VIII, supreme Pontiff, for obtaining a lawful cult for their Citizen.

[7] various families of Religious In the year of Christ 1633 several religious Orders seem to have conspired to demand Rose's beatification. Among these the Order of St. John of God thus begins its letter: Most blessed Father, the venerable Rose of Saint Mary, of the third Order of saint Dominic, born in this metropolis of Peru, was a virgin of such admirable virtue in life and after death, and so illustrious for miracles, that it belongs to all the inhabitants of Lima, both seculars and Regulars, to procure her honor and exaltation. Moreover at the beginning of June of the same year our Society wished to bestow its labor in promoting this matter, when the Reverend Father Nicolás Mastrilli Durán, Provincial in the kingdom of Peru, set forth his prayers to Urban VIII in this manner: That I may join mine and my brethren's to the common desires of this city and kingdom, I am drawn by obligation, being about to receive with the rest a singular favor and spiritual solace, if the Virgin given by God to this region as a particular pattern of every kind of virtue, and after her happy passing endowed from heaven with so many surpassing prodigies, shall have obtained through the hands of your Holiness the honor of canonization and the title of patroness of Lima, whereby vigor and a spur shall be added to her fellow countrymen, that with greater ardor they may imitate the faith and virtue of the holy Virgin.

[8] At the same time the Reverend Father Provincial of the Hermits of saint Augustine wrote the following to this end: as it were conspire to ask her beatification: This fertile Rose is the first offspring which this country gave to heaven with the increase of notorious sanctity, as the first fruits of its faith; for although among the natives of this region we venerate the memory of several and indeed notable servants of God, this blessed Virgin excels in the right of her country. She was born in this metropolis of Peru, in it she grew up and lived, nature and grace approving alike. Sanctity in her outstripped the bounds of her years, and in dying in the spring of her age she showed by surpassing miracles how far the course of her virtues had outrun the swiftness of time. At her sepulcher the sick and the afflicted find life and health. In the month of July of the same year the Minister Provincial of the Minor Fathers of St. Francis, in the name of his Order and province, briefly proposes to the Roman Pontiff the reasons for granting public veneration in this manner: For the canonization of the handmaid of God Rose of Saint Mary, of the third Order of Preachers, the causes are suggested by her life so blameless, her death so glorious, her miracles so numerous and surpassing, and finally the highest and incomparable edification of this kingdom, so new in the faith.

[9] On the XII day of the same month and year the metropolitan church of Lima confirmed by its testimony the prayers of the religious Orders, to which is added the metropolitan church of Lima: and sent to that same Vicar of Christ a commendatory letter, which thus begins: It is not just that to the universal acclamation of these kingdoms there should be lacking the voice of this metropolitan church for the apotheosis of the venerable virgin Rose of Saint Mary, our fellow citizen, whose admirable life and prodigious miracles after her death have kindled so great an affection of devotion in all these kingdoms that it plainly appears that Christ our Lord wills to glorify her likewise upon earth; and through the most liberal hands of your Holiness give us as patroness and advocate of this her country, from whose first fruit an illustrious honor may reach, as from the head of these most ample regions, to each of them. Here I omit Diego de Córdoba, Buenaventura de Salinas, and other public writers of those times, who in their books made honorable mention of this venerable Virgin.

[10] But I cannot pass over the report which Decio Azzolini, Cardinal of the Holy Roman Church, made in the year 1663 before Alexander VII, supreme Pontiff, Cardinal Azzolini before Alexander VII, Pope, whose tenor is this: The servant of God Rose of Saint Mary, born at Lima on the XX day of April in the year MDLXXXVI, had Catholic, honorable, and pious parents, Gaspar Flores and María de Oliva. Her name from baptism was Isabella; but on account of the rosy beauty of her face she was called Rose by her mother, and out of her devotion toward the Mother of God she willed to be called Rose of Saint Mary. She strengthened with robust virtue the still tender senses of her sex and of her early age; and as a girl she anticipated her parents' admonitions and desires with a grown-up uprightness and with manifold exercise of piety, and as a young woman surpassed them. For so great was her love toward God, so great her devotion toward the Mother of God, so great the chastisement of her senses and flesh, so great the cleanness of her manners and thoughts, that, her head girt with a silver crown (after the manner of the crown of thorns which Christ suffered), and an iron chain tearing her virgin body every night, like a lily among thorns she kept the virginity which, when she vowed herself wholly to God, she both vowed perpetual and preserved.

[11] pleads earnestly on her behalf, In her twentieth year she gave her name to the third Order of saint Dominic, whose institute she cultivated in her father's house with an example of wondrous piety and of all virtues. Prayer, contemplation of divine things, fastings, affliction of the body, contempt of the world, the good of her neighbors, cleaving to God by an altogether heroic charity, was her life, most perfect for her state of life. And therefore, being increased by God with a prophetic spirit, with ecstasy and manifold rapture, with signs and other supernatural gifts, being at length called into the fellowship of her inheritance, after a constant endurance in the Lord of a long illness, the Sacraments of the Church being duly and piously received, she died on the XXIV day of August in the year MDCXVII, leaving in her very death a notable fame of her sanctity, which both in her life and after her death was confirmed from heaven by God with very many signs.

[12] gravely also Concerning the fame of her sanctity, virtues, and miracles, the processes drawn up by ordinary authority having been examined in the sacred Congregation of Rites, upon the report of Cardinal Peretti of good memory, it was decreed on the XXII day of March MDCXXV that, if it should seem good to His Holiness, a special inquiry might be entered upon by Apostolic authority. Thence, at the prayers of the Catholic king, of the city of Lima, and of the Order of Preachers, there came forth a commission of Urban VIII of happy memory, and by force of it remissorial and compulsorial letters were given to the archbishop of Lima, and, he being hindered or absent, to the bishop of Huamanga with two Dignitaries. Likewise a process in specie, drawn up before the archbishop, the dean, and the archdeacon of the church of Lima in the year MDCXXXII on the XII day of July, and on the XXIII\ of July of the year MDCXXXIV, was exhibited at Rome to the Sacred Congregation of Rites, and, the things to be observed being observed, was recognized, opened, and explained through an interpreter by Cardinal de Torres, substituted (Peretti being dead). But the latest decrees of the same Urban coming on in the year MDCXXXIV, it has hitherto been left off in the cause.*

[13] makes his plea, But since the fame of the sanctity of the Servant of God, and the devout zeal of the peoples toward her, together with the divine confirmation of signs, increase daily, it is most humbly asked of your Holiness by a procurator specially appointed for this that there be admitted and signed a commission which is proposed for the resumption of the cause in the state and terms in which it is found, according to the form of the latest decrees. And there seems to be room for the favor, since all the requisites of those same decrees are brought forward: namely the supplications of nine different Orders and of illustrious men of Lima, three of the Catholic king, three of the most reverend Cardinal of Aragon, two of the Master general of the Order of Preachers, the attestation of a decree of the general chapter of the same Order for asking the same of your Holiness in the common name, a mandate of procuration in the person of Fr. Antonio González specially constituted by a solemn instrument, confirmed by the General of the Order; finally the perseverance and increase of the fame of her sanctity, of the veneration and devotion of the peoples, and more than one hundred and nineteen miracles from the remissorial process in specie, drawn up by Apostolic authority; among which is a healing from leprosy, and very many from paralysis and other most grievous diseases.

[14] After some years those desires of so many illustrious men prevailed, the desires of illustrious men being afterward fulfilled. namely when Pope Clement IX enrolled the venerable Rose in the number of the blessed virgins, as we shall see below. But the honorable title of Blessed was not granted her save after repeated examinations of her deeds and miracles, and several decrees of the Roman curia preceding the Beatification, which we shall relate in the following paragraph; that heretical detractors, or Catholics unskilled in these matters, may learn how slowly, prudently, and accurately the Apostolic See in causes of this kind

is wont to proceed.

\* Otherwise XIII.

§ II. The process for obtaining a lawful cult for this venerable virgin, and the diploma itself of the Beatification, upon which Clement IX, Pontiff, congratulates the inhabitants of the city of Lima.

Various Since the fame of her sanctity and the number of her miracles grew daily, the Catholic king asked of Alexander VII, Pontiff, that the cause of the venerable Rose of Lima be again examined, as is clear from the authentic instruments which in the order of time we do not think it burdensome here to transcribe, and of which the first runs thus: The most eminent Cardinal of Aragon supplicating His Holiness in the name of the Catholic king that in the Sacred Congregation of Rites there be resumed the cause of the Beatification and Canonization of the said venerable Servant of God Rose of Saint Mary, of the third Order of saint Dominic, to the effect of afterward signing a commission for drawing up a particular Process upon the non-cult, according to the form of the decrees of Urban VIII of holy memory; and the petitions being referred by His Holiness to the said Congregation, the same judged, upon the proposal of the most eminent Azzolini, that the cause and its state should be reported in the preparatory session, on this IV day of August MDCLXIII.

[16] The most eminent Azzolini in the month of September of the same year reported the cause, are brought forward as we heard at the end of the preceding paragraph; and after this report two decrees of this tenor were issued: The Sacred Congregation of Rites, for the reporting of the cause of the Beatification and Canonization of the venerable servant of God Rose of Saint Mary, of the third Order of saint Dominic, whose commission, upon the report of the most eminent Azzolini, was signed in the congregation held before His Holiness on the XXV day of September last past, has again deputed as reporter that same most eminent Azzolini, if it shall seem good to His Holiness, on this XXIV day of November MDCLXIII. And a report of the aforesaid having been made to His Holiness by the most eminent Ginetti, prefect, in consistory, His Holiness graciously assented on the XXVI day of November MDCLXIII. Then another is expressed in these words: Whereas, upon the report of Azzolini in the congregation held before His Holiness, on the XXV day of September last past a commission of the cause of the said Servant of God was signed, today the Sacred Congregation of Rites, for the drawing up of a particular Process upon the non-cult according to the form of the decrees, has deputed the most eminent Vicar in the City with power, if he be hindered, to subdelegate some bishop, and with the other powers necessary and opportune thereupon, if it shall seem good to His Holiness, on this XXIV day of November MDCLXIII. And a report of the aforesaid having been made to His Holiness by the most eminent Ginetti, prefect, in consistory, His Holiness graciously assented on the XXVI day of the same month.

[17] authentic instruments, The cause was little by little further advanced in the following year, in which a decree of this kind is read: A particular Process upon compliance with the decrees issued by Urban VIII of happy recollection in the Congregation of the most holy Inquisition upon the non-cult having been drawn up before the most eminent Vicar of the City, delegated by the Congregation of Sacred Rites, and a full report of it and of the sentence passed by that same most eminent man having been made by the most eminent Cardinal Azzolini, and the Reverend Father Promoter of the faith having been heard by word and in writing, the same Sacred Congregation judged and decreed that in this cause it might be proceeded to further matters. On this XV day of March MDCLXIV. To which decree, a report of the premises having been made to His Holiness by the most eminent Cardinal Ginetti, prefect, in consistory, His Holiness graciously assented on the XVII day of the same month.

[18] which by the Sacred Congregation of Rites In the month of September of the same year the Pontiff excepted this cause from a certain rule of Urban VIII, as is plain from the following decree: Our most holy lord Pope Alexander the seventh, graciously inclining to the earnest supplications of the most excellent lord Pedro of Aragon, Ambassador of the Catholic king, granted that the cause of the Beatification and Canonization of the said venerable servant of God Rose might be prosecuted, handled, and discussed upon her merits down to a total determination; notwithstanding that from the day of her death, which followed on the XXIV day of August MDCXVII, fifty years have not yet elapsed according to the form of the decrees of Urban the eighth of holy memory, from which he expressly derogated in this cause; and so he commanded it to be observed, prosecuted, handled, discussed, and terminated, the said decrees, other Apostolic constitutions, and all other things to the contrary notwithstanding. On this XXVI day of September MDCLXIV. To these may be added a decree of the same year, which follows thus: The Holiness of our lord Pope Alexander the seventh, graciously inclined to the pious and earnest prayers of the most excellent lord Pedro of Aragon, Ambassador of his Catholic Majesty, has assented that in the next Congregation of Sacred Rites, to be held before His Holiness, there be proposed the cause of the Beatification and Canonization of the said servant of God Rose of Saint Mary of the kingdom of Peru, upon the doubt whether her virtues, both theological and cardinal, be established. On this XII day of November MDCLXIV.

[19] were given That examination of her virtues and miracles seems to have been long enough, since it is first answered concerning the miracles in the year 1666 thus: The doubt having been proposed by the most eminent Azzolini, whether seven miracles in her life and sixteen after her death be established, in the Sacred Congregation of Rites held before His Holiness, the same Most Holy Father, the consultors having first been heard and afterward dismissed, and then the matter being fully discussed, with each of the Cardinals assenting, conclusively approved the miracle of the instantaneous healing of María de Jesús, a girl of nine years, powerless and contracted in her legs without motion for three years. On this XXIII day of March MDCLXVI. In the month of May of the year 1667 Alexander VII, Pontiff, departed this life, and Clement IX succeeded him.

[20] before the beatification: Meanwhile the Postulators of the cause so far advanced the business committed to them that in that same year 1667, under the Pontificate of Clement IX, the Sacred Congregation of Rites approved four out of several miracles in this manner: The doubt being again brought before the Congregation of Sacred Rites, whether the miracles wrought by almighty God, who alone doeth great wonders, by the intercession of his servant Rose of Saint Mary, be established, the same sacred Congregation held before His Holiness declared that conclusive proofs are had upon four of the events adduced and reported by the most eminent Lord Cardinal Azzolini, and that these involve the character of a true miracle, and were wrought by the intercession of the Servant of God: namely of the instantaneous and perfect healing of the arm of Isabel Durán, drawn together by a strong and inveterate paralysis, at the touch of the Servant of God's body; likewise of the arm of the Moor Diego de Ayala, maimed for two years, at the touch of her sepulcher; of the feet [and] legs of Magdalena Chamiso, withered by a strong paralysis of three years, the relics being applied to them; and also of the most grievous infirmities of María de Vera, who was at the point of death, at the embracing of an image of that same Servant of God. On this IV day of October MDCLXVII.

[21] Toward the end of the same year 1667 there came forth the following instrument: Public cult: While Alexander VII of holy memory was sitting, whereas in the cause of the Beatification and Canonization of the servant of God Rose of Saint Mary, of the third Order of St. Dominic, on the III day of March MDCLXV the Congregation of sacred Rites had declared that her holiness of life, and her virtues in a heroic degree, were established; and moreover on the XXIII day of March MDCLXVI the same Sacred Congregation had judged that the seventh of the miracles adduced abounded in proofs; and thereupon, namely on the fourth day of the month last past, in a like Congregation held before our most holy lord, four other miracles wrought by God by the intercession of that same servant of his Rose having been approved: by command of His Holiness the lord consultors being called to the ordinary Congregation, in it the most eminent Lord Cardinal Azzolini, reporter in the same cause, on the X day of December MDCLXVII proposed the doubt whether there seemed to be room for a decree of Beatification to be issued in the accustomed form. And when the most eminent Fathers had heard that the opinion of the consultors converged with unanimous vote upon the affirmative, they judged that, if it should seem good to His Holiness, it might safely at any time be proceeded to the solemn Canonization of the servant of God Rose, and that in the meantime it be granted that she be called Blessed throughout the whole world, and that of her, as of a virgin not a martyr, Mass may be celebrated and the Office recited in the city and diocese of Lima, and also in the whole Order of St. Dominic of both sexes, on the first unimpeded day after the twenty-fourth of August, on which the Servant of God fell asleep in the Lord at Lima in the year MDCXVII. But a distinct report of the aforesaid having been made to His Holiness, His Holiness answered that he would pour out assiduous prayers to almighty God, that he would deign to point out to him with his finger whatever should be more conducive to his glory. On the XXI day of December MDCLXVII. At length in the year of Christ 1668 a lawful cult was granted to this venerable Virgin; and on the VIII day of February of that year, before the solemn constitution of Beatification, this preliminary decree came forth: Our most holy lord Clement IX, at the pious prayers of the most excellent lord Marquis of Astorga, Ambassador of the Catholic king, has granted that in all convents and monasteries of the Order of Preachers of both sexes throughout the whole world the feast of the Beatification of the venerable servant of God Rose of Saint Mary of the city of Lima in the kingdom of Peru, of the third Order of saint Dominic, may for the first year be celebrated with a solemn octave. On this VIII day of February MDCLXVIII.

[22] the solemn diploma Three days of the same month and year having passed, the solemn diploma of Beatification was issued, which we here faithfully transcribe thus from the Dominican Bullarium: Pope Clement IX, for the perpetual memory of the matter. The glorious fruitfulness of holy mother Church, who as a chaste virgin has been betrothed to one husband, Christ, rejoices manifoldly indeed in all the offspring which by the grace of God she daily brings forth; but in the sacred virgins who, by a zealous emulation of the better gifts, have adorned with the flowers of the virtues an integrity free from carnal contagion, she exults and flourishes ineffably. It is fitting that the sublime glory of those who with lighted lamps went forth to meet the Bridegroom, and entered with him to the marriage, be celebrated on earth with worthy honors, that they who follow the Lamb whithersoever he goeth may deign continually to obtain from the Bridegroom for our infirmity, struggling with the temptations of the world, the help and protection of heavenly aid.

[23] of beatification Applying ourselves the more readily to this care out of the duty of the Pastoral office by which we are bound to the Catholic Church, we willingly assent to the pious desires of Catholic kings and of other faithful of Christ, by which the veneration on earth of the handmaids of God reigning in heaven is promoted, as, mature deliberation being used, we judge it salutarily expedient in the Lord for the glory of almighty God, the honor of the Church, the strength of the Christian religion, and the spiritual consolation and edification of the faithful. Whereas, therefore, the Processes drawn up by leave of the Apostolic See upon the holiness of life and the virtues in a heroic degree with which the servant of God Rose of Saint Mary, a virgin of Lima of the third Order of St. Dominic, was asserted to have shone manifoldly, and also upon the miracles which were asserted to have been wrought by God at her intercession, having been most diligently discussed and weighed by the Congregation of our venerable Brethren the Cardinals of the Holy Roman Church set over the sacred Rites, the aforesaid Congregation, constituted before Us, has unanimously judged that whenever it should seem good to Us it might safely be come to the solemn Canonization of that same servant of God Rose according to the rite of the Holy Roman Church, but that in the meantime it be granted that throughout the whole world she be called Blessed:

[24] by Clement IX, Pope Hence it is that We, graciously inclining to the pious and earnest supplications of our most dear son in Christ Charles, Catholic king of the Spains, and of our most dear daughter in Christ Mariana, queen dowager, his mother, and of the whole Order of St. Dominic, humbly offered to Us upon this matter, by the counsel and unanimous assent of the aforesaid Cardinals, by Apostolic authority, by the tenor of these presents grant that the aforesaid servant of God Rose of Saint Mary be henceforth called by the name of Blessed; and that her body and relics be exposed to the veneration of the faithful (yet not to be carried about in processions); that her images also be adorned with rays or splendors; and that of her the Office be recited under a double rite, and Mass celebrated of a virgin not a martyr, every year according to the Rubrics of the Roman Breviary and Missal, on the twenty-sixth day of August, which is the first unimpeded day after the twenty-fourth day of the same month, on which she rendered her spirit to her Creator.

[25] issued from But these things only in the places written below: namely in the city and diocese of Lima, and in the whole Order of saint Dominic, both of Friars and of Nuns; and, as regards the Masses, also by priests resorting thither. Moreover, for the first year only from the date of these letters — and as to the Indies, beginning from the day on which these same present letters shall have arrived there — we give leave to celebrate in the churches of the aforesaid city and diocese and Order, and also in all the cathedrals and metropolitan churches of the Spains and the Indies, the solemnities of her Beatification with Office and Mass under a greater double rite, on a day to be appointed by the Ordinaries and to be published within six months. But at Rome, in the church of saint James of the Spanish nation, we permit them likewise to be celebrated within two months, yet after those same solemnities shall have been celebrated in the basilica of the Prince of the Apostles. Notwithstanding Apostolic constitutions and ordinances, and the decrees issued upon the non-cult, and all other things to the contrary whatsoever. But We will that to transcripts or copies of these same present letters, even printed, subscribed by the hand of the secretary of the aforesaid Congregation of Cardinals, and fortified with the seal of the Prefect of the same Congregation, the very same credit be given by all and everywhere, both in court and out of it, which would be given to these presents themselves, if they were exhibited or shown. Given at Rome at Santa Sabina under the Fisherman's ring, on the XII day of February MDCLXVIII, in the first year of our Pontificate.

[26] In the same year the Pontiff granted plenary indulgences to all the faithful of Christ indulgences granted by him, and a solemn congratulation who should piously visit the appointed churches, in which the festival of this Beatification was solemnly celebrated with huge joy. Indeed Clement IX congratulated the governors and other inhabitants of Lima upon that new glory of Bl. Rose of Lima in this letter: How weak, uncertain, and little successful in searching out matters the thoughts and judgments of men are — that from this too we may the more acknowledge the benefit of a truth divinely revealed — we are admonished in almost all times and places. But above all the very region which you inhabit eminently suggests an illustrious example of the ignorance of mortals. For how many\ were there of the ancients, or even, before the matter was openly discovered, of the wise men of more recent memory, who did not assert, with the highest reason (as certainly it so long seemed) and with no less confidence, that under the heat of the torrid zone it could by no means be inhabited, and who did not judge that certain few who thought otherwise were mad? Who would have sought roses, the companions of spring, in lands inhospitable and scorched by the excessive burning of the sun? Yet that this is plainly true, no one today is ignorant, no one wonders. Behold your Rose — or now rather our common one — breathing the heavenly odors of heroic virtues, and blossoming with the colors of an ethereal light, not indeed such as appear on the surface only, but true ones, and proved by the undoubted credit of remarkable\ miracles — whom, admonished from heaven, We have lately set upon the candlestick of the Church; and whom, after the declaration of the Apostolic oracle, received with the incomparable gladness of a public consent, not only the assembly of the city of Rome, but also the faithful peoples of all Europe, at once joyful and compunctious, venerate with due cult, together with the Blessed who clearly behold the face of God in their country, seeking also for her with common desires yet ampler honors, if it shall please the Lord.

[27] And so we greatly congratulate you, beloved sons, upon such surpassing first fruits of that field of the Lord; congratulation. which,\ since we find it so fruitful and so full of good hope, We shall the more and the more eagerly bestow benignly and liberally, whatever can rightly proceed with the Lord from the authority of this holy See and from our paternal love, even for its yet more exquisite cultivation and more fruitful yield. In the meantime we have granted several graces looking to the same end, and have moreover added certain gifts, as our beloved son Antonio González of the Order of Preachers, sent hither by you as procurator in this cause of blessed Rose, will more fully explain — who indeed has abundantly satisfied all the parts of his office with piety, fidelity, and zeal. For the rest, to you, most beloved sons, and to all the faithful both of that Chapter and clergy and of the lay state, whom we most lovingly embrace in the Lord, we altogether paternally impart the Apostolic blessing. Given at Rome at Santa Maria Maggiore under the Fisherman's ring, on the VI day of November MDCLXVIII, in the second year of our Pontificate.* That kindness of Clement IX gave courage to the inhabitants of Lima to ask shortly for the Canonization of Bl. Rose. But this they obtained from his successor after many preliminary decrees, which would perhaps here weary the reader, since they do not much differ in style and number from the others already adduced above and preceding the Beatification. These things, therefore, being omitted, we shall only relate in the following paragraph how the lawful veneration of this Blessed one gradually grew, and extended itself more widely.

\ Perhaps Quotus*.

\ Read insignium*.

\ Perhaps cui*.

§ III. The veneration of this Blessed one gradually increased and extended far and wide.

Clement IX, Pope, declares Bl. Rose At the beginning of the year 1669 Clement IX, Pontiff, gave to this blessed Virgin the title of principal patroness, and permitted her to be honored as such by all the Catholic inhabitants of the kingdom of Peru, as we see in the following decree: Pope Clement IX, for the perpetual memory of the matter. The zeal of orthodox kings, who have deserved excellently of the Church of God on many accounts, whereby the devotion and piety of Christian peoples toward the Blessed inhabitants of the heavenly kingdom is fostered, we willingly attend with Apostolic favor, as we judge it conducive in the Lord to the spiritual consolation and protection of those same peoples. Whereas therefore We, by our letters issued in like form of a Brief on the XII day of February last past, have by Apostolic authority, according to the rite of this holy See, enrolled among the Blessed the blessed Rose of Saint Mary of Lima, of the third Order of St. Dominic, flourishing with the manifold beauty of her virtues, and have established and granted other things for the honor and veneration of that same blessed Rose, as is contained in those same letters:

[29] principal patroness And as, on the part of our most dear son in Christ Charles, Catholic king of the Spains, and of our most dear daughter in Christ Mariana, queen dowager, his mother, it was lately set forth to Us by our beloved son the noble man the present Marquis of Astorga, Ambassador of that same king Charles to Us and to the aforesaid See, that king Charles himself and queen Mariana greatly desire that that same blessed Rose — whom the heavenly Spouse adorned with so many necklaces of graces, decked with so many flowers of virtues, and imbued with so great and so widely scattered a fragrance from the odor of his ointments, that of the servants of God whom the western Indies have brought forth she has first deserved to be adorned with the honor of a public cult by this holy See — be chosen and declared principal patroness of the city of Lima, or of the Kings, and of the whole kingdom of Peru, that an increase of veneration may be made to her, and that the peoples of those parts may hope for her patronage the more powerfully by her intercession, the more those peoples themselves shall have striven to honor and venerate her with a more celebrated and more earnest devotion: We, although Apostolic constitutions and the decrees of the Congregation of our venerable Brethren the Cardinals of the Holy Roman Church set over the Sacred Rites forbid such elections of the blessed who have not been canonized as principal Patrons, and although the requisites necessary for a valid election of this kind are wanting, nevertheless, out of the special affection of our paternal charity toward them, have judged that we should assent to the pious and earnest prayers of those same king Charles and queen Mariana, who shine with a great splendor of merits toward the Church of God, humbly offered to Us upon this matter.

[30] And so the aforesaid blessed Rose of Saint Mary we choose and declare, by Apostolic authority by the tenor of these presents, principal patroness of the aforesaid city of the Kings or of Lima and of the whole kingdom of Peru, with all the prerogatives of the whole kingdom of Peru: which are due to principal patrons; and by the aforesaid authority and tenor we command that the feast of that same blessed Rose be kept as of precept in the whole of this kingdom, as of a principal patroness, by all the faithful of Christ of both sexes dwelling there, and be celebrated like other feasts of precept; and that her Office be recited there by the whole clergy, both secular and Regular, as of a principal patroness, according to the Rubrics of the Roman Breviary. Notwithstanding any decrees, Apostolic constitutions and ordinances, and all other things making to the contrary whatsoever. But We will that to transcripts or copies of these same present letters, even printed, subscribed by the hand of some public notary, and fortified with the seal of a person constituted in ecclesiastical dignity, the very same credit be given by all and everywhere, both in court and out of it, which would be given to these presents themselves, if they were exhibited or shown. Given at Rome at Santa Maria Maggiore under the Fisherman's ring, on the second day of January MDCLXIX, in the second year of our Pontificate.

[31] When the most reverend Master General of the Order of Preachers in the month of October of the past year had asked of the same Pontiff her name is entered in the Roman Martyrology: that the name of Bl. Rose be added to the Roman Martyrology, His Holiness graciously assented, and left the form of this announcement to be approved by the Sacred Congregation of Rites, which in the month of January of the following year answered in this manner: Whereas our most holy lord Clement the ninth, under the date of the XVIII of October last past, has commanded that blessed Rose of Saint Mary of the third Order of saint Dominic be set in the Roman Martyrology, yet with words to be approved by the Sacred Congregation of Rites, the same Sacred Congregation has approved the words written below, and has granted that they may be printed, namely: At Lima in the kingdom of Peru, of blessed Rose of Saint Mary, of the third Order of saint Dominic. On this XII day of January MDCLXIX. M., bishop of Porto, Cardinal Ginetti. In place of the ✠ seal. Bernardino Casali, Secretary of the Sacred Congregation of Rites. Besides, Clement IX propagated the cult of Bl. Rose through America and Spain; and in this year 1669, on the IX day of December, he rendered his soul to his Creator.

[32] In the place of this deceased Pontiff there was substituted Clement X, Clement X, Pope who, treading in his predecessor's footsteps, extended the cult

of the same blessed Virgin still further to more regions of Europe, as we learn from the following declaration: Formerly Clement IX, Pope of happy memory, under the date of the 14th of September, in the year 1668, granted to the whole clergy of America and of the Indies, both secular and [] Regular, of either sex, of whatsoever province or district, that in perpetual times to come, on the 26th day of August yearly, under the double rite the Office should be recited and the Mass celebrated of blessed Rose of St. Mary of Lima, virgin of the third rule of St. Dominic, according to the Rubrics of the Roman Breviary and respectively of the Missal. Then in the following year 1669, on the 30th day of October, the same Pontiff kindly extended this his indult in perpetuity to the whole secular and likewise Regular clergy of the Spains.*

[33] to more provinces of Europe. Finally, after receiving notice that the aforementioned virgin Rose, already most devoutly honored with the solemn applause of all peoples everywhere, was daily filling both the old and the new world more and more with the fragrance of her odor, the same Most Holy Father, clemently enlarging this very indult, on the 9th day of November of the same year 1669 paternally granted to the whole secular and Regular clergy of either sex established in all the regions, provinces, and kingdoms, and dominions wheresoever situated subject to the Most August Emperor, to the Catholic King, and to the House of Austria, as above — namely that in each several year, on the 26th day of August, in perpetual times to come, under the aforesaid double rite the Office should be recited and the Mass celebrated of the same blessed Rose.

[34] He extends the cult of this Blessed one: Furthermore our Most Holy Lord Pope Clement X, having likewise received notice of that common devotion with which the faithful of the whole kingdom of Poland, of the grand Duchy of Lithuania, of the domains of Russia and of Prussia, and of the other regions subject to the said Crown are moved toward the veneration of the same blessed Rose, being entreated by the instances of the most eminent lord Cardinal Orsini, most kindly extended that very indult of his Predecessor likewise to the whole clergy of either sex, both secular and Regular, of Poland, Lithuania, Russia, Prussia, and of the other dominions pertaining to the crown of Poland, granting to the same universally and in perpetuity that yearly on the 26th day of August they should perform under the double rite the Office and the Mass of blessed Rose of St. Mary, according to the Rubrics of the Roman Missal and Breviary, notwithstanding whatsoever to the contrary. On this 26th day of July, 1670.

[35] a Mass is granted to her After an interval of one month the aforesaid Clement X still further enlarged the faculty of reciting the Office and celebrating the Mass of B. Rose, as the decree of the following tenor indicates: The wonderful devotion of the peoples toward blessed Rose of St. Mary, virgin of Lima, of the third Order of St. Dominic, increasing day by day, and the fragrance of her virtues spreading itself more widely in every direction, our Most Holy Lord Pope Clement X, having admitted the instances of the most excellent lord Ambassador the Marquis of Astorga presented to him in the name of His Catholic Majesty, has kindly indulged to the whole clergy, both secular and Regular, throughout the whole globe of the earth, for perpetual times to come, that of the aforesaid blessed Rose the Mass may everywhere be celebrated in the churches of whomsoever, both Regulars and seculars, throughout the circuit of the year, whether by vow or of free devotion, according to the Rubrics and disposition of the Roman Missal, even though the aforesaid blessed Rose has not yet been enrolled among the Saints by the universal Church by the solemn rite of Canonization. And to this effect he has specially dispensed in the decrees both of Urban VIII of happy memory and of the Sacred Congregation of Rites, and in whatsoever others in any way standing in the way of this indult. On this 27th day of August, 1670.

[36] When at length, after various decrees of the Sacred Congregation and a rigorous examination of miracles, B. Rose seemed to be enrolled in the number of the holy virgins, and public veneration the following instrument was set before her solemn Canonization: After two Processes drawn up in the cities of Soissons and Palermo by judges deputed through the Congregation of Sacred Rites by virtue of remissorial letters issued by the same, and another formed at Antwerp by ordinary authority by the bishop of the place, and the relevancy of these Processes with a view to the solemn Canonization of blessed Rose of St. Mary, of the third Order of S. Dominic, virgin of Lima, having been diligently weighed and accurately discussed by mandate of our Most Holy Lord Pope Clement X in the said ordinary Congregation of Sacred Rites with the intervention of the consultors, upon the report of the Most Eminent Lord Cardinal Azzolini, Ponent of this cause, the aforementioned Sacred Congregation by unanimous vote judged and declared that it is lawfully established concerning the ever-increasing fame of sanctity and of the working of miracles, and also concerning the celebrated devotion of the peoples, and the suppliant confidence and pious recourse toward this Blessed one, from the time when the Holy Apostolic See indulged to her public veneration in the whole Church of God.

[37] Likewise, of the nine miracles produced in the same place it approved four, throughout the whole globe of the earth, as conclusively, fully, and irrefragably proved, and undoubtedly established above the powers of all created nature. Then those four miracles are recounted, which we here pass over, since they are afterward repeated in the Bull of Canonization itself. These therefore being omitted, we proceed to transcribe the instrument we had begun, which is thus concluded: Which things being proved and approved, the same Sacred Congregation judged that, whensoever it shall please His Holiness, one may safely proceed and come to the solemn Canonization of this blessed Rose according to the rite of the Holy Roman Church and the disposition of the sacred Canons, and define her a Saint reigning with God, and propose her to be venerated by the universal Church. On the 7th day of October, 1670. Finally, report of all and each of the above having been made to our Most Holy Lord, and the Reverend Father Lord Promoter of the faith having been heard thereupon, His Holiness approved the mind of the same Sacred Congregation, and commanded the aforesaid final decree to be issued to the effect of the solemn Canonization of the said blessed Rose. Enacted on this 9th day of the present month and year. Finally, in the year of Christ 1671, on the 12th day of April, the solemn diploma of Canonization was published (which may with good right be called a copious compendium of her Life and miracles), which we reserve for the posthumous glory of S. Rose, and shall divide into several paragraphs after her Acts have been illustrated. For the rest, we have excerpted these authentic documents from the Bullarium of the Order of the Friars Preachers, of which the sixth volume was printed at Rome in the year 1735, where each may easily be found in the order of years and months.

[38] We do not know whether after the solemn Canonization of S. Rose any ampler extension of the ecclesiastical Office was made. But at least we know that to the Spaniards and their subjects, about the end of the year 1672, proper Lessons of the second Nocturn were granted, with this peculiar prayer: and the decree of canonization is published. Bestower of all good things, almighty God, who didst will that blessed Rose, prevented by the dew of heavenly grace, should flower among the Indians with the beauty of virginity and of patience: grant to us thy servants that, running in the odor of her sweetness, we may deserve to be made the good odor of Christ. Through the same Christ our Lord. These proper lessons, which contain a well-arranged synopsis of her Life, were lawfully approved together with the prayer already related, as is expressed after them in these words: The Sacred Congregation of Rites has approved the above-said Lessons and Prayer proper to St. Rose, virgin of Lima, composed by the Most Eminent Lord Cardinal Bona and by him diligently revised and reported, for the Indies, the kingdoms of the Spains, and other places where, by concession of the same Sacred Congregation at the command of the Holy Apostolic See, the faculty of reciting her Office on the feast day of the said Saint is extended. On this 3rd day of December, 1672. Cardinal Brancaccio, bishop of Porto, and Bernardinus Casalius, secretary of the Sacred Congregation of Rites, here subscribed their names. Although in Belgium we recite that proper Office yearly on the 30th day of August, nevertheless after our custom we follow the announcement of the Roman Martyrology, and therefore we illustrate the Life of S. Rose today. Now we judge that some things must be premised concerning the biographers of this Saint.

\ read quam*.

§ IV. Notice of the several authors who wrote the deeds of this holy Virgin in different languages.

A Spanish Life; While the Beatification or Canonization of S. Rose was being treated in the Roman court, many writers of the Order of Preachers published her Life in various languages. Of these we shall enumerate the chief, so far as we can in the order of time or of edition, whose notice has come to us. Among the first occurs John de Vargas Machuca, whom James Échard in his Writers of the Order of Preachers reviewed in volume 2, page 587, thus praises: Brother John de Vargas Machuca, a Spaniard, of the Peruvian province of St. John the Baptist, to which he had given his name, conferred no slight ornament upon it, whether by the offices excellently discharged in it, or by his great gifts of intellect, his erudition, his eloquence of speech, and his religion. Then he recounts one by one the various offices of the Order which he discharged in America, and relates from Antonio Gonzales de Acuña that he crossed over into Europe in the year 1649, and at length in the year 1657 was decorated with the laurel of the mastership. On the same authority, he published in Spanish the Life of Rose of Peru, which he dedicated to the royal and supreme council of the Indies. Since after the year 1657 no further mention of that man is made in Échard, we do not altogether rashly suspect that this lucubration of his appeared before the aforesaid year 1657, and on that account we have placed its author in the first place among the biographers.

[40] an Italian one, In the years 1665 and 1668 Dominic Maria Marchesi published in Italian the deeds of the same Virgin — afterward raised from the Order of the Fathers Preachers to the see of Pozzuoli — whom the aforesaid Échard, in volume 2 of the Work just cited, pages 730 and 731, adorns with this eulogy: Brother Dominic Maria Marchese, a Sicilian of Naples, born in a noble station, while yet a youth, and without his parents' knowledge, put on the habit of the Order at Naples in the year 1649, in the house of St. Thomas; which when his father and mother learned, they wished to carry him off from the cloister by force, but in vain — so constant in his purpose did they find him. He heard Theology in Spain under master Peter Godoy, then teaching at Salamanca with a great fame of his name, and he so shone under the discipline of so great a man that on his return from thence to his own he was employed to teach others. Twice he acted as regent in the Gymnasium of St. Thomas, and obtained the summit of the Mastership in the year 1672. Notwithstanding those scholastic studies, he was a man most tenacious of regular discipline, given to prayer, and taking care of the interior man, always stretching himself forth to the things before. His brethren several times chose him Prior of various houses; but he constantly refused to undertake these offices. Yet he could not escape the government of the province of Sicily, to which he had been elected, being compelled by the commands of the Master of the Order.

[41] At length, presented to the see of Pozzuoli by the Catholic King Charles II, published twice: he was accepted and confirmed by Innocent XI in the year 1688, on the last day of May, and on the eighth day of the following June was consecrated by Cardinal Marescotti. He strove to adorn his Church with the best laws, regularly convoked synods, made the visitation of his diocese yearly, and carefully fed his flock by word and example. In these things he was wholly taken up, when, being at Naples in his house of St. Thomas, called by God, he left this mortal life in the year 1692, on the 11th day of February, in the 59th year of his age, and there with

solemn obsequies he was buried. Among other things he wrote in Italian the Life of S. Rose of Lima, and had it printed twice at Naples from the press of Hieronymus Fasulo, as Échard testifies in the same place. We lack this lucubration of his; but in the Dominican Diary of the same author we have, on the 30th day of August, a lengthy synopsis of the Acts, which we shall be able to consult if occasion presents itself.

[42] Even though the Reverend Father Leonard Hansen published twice at Rome, in the year 1664, the Life of the same Virgin in Latin, a Spanish one nevertheless we have here passed him over, or rather deferred him, on account of the more recent amplification of that Work, which first appeared in the year 1680, as we shall say below. Therefore in the series of publication the most illustrious Marchesi is next followed by Antonio Gonzales de Acuña, whom we have already often praised above, and whose eulogy Échard wove in volume 2 of the Work mentioned, page 692, in these words: Brother Antonio Gonzalez de Acuña, a Spaniard by origin, of Lima by birth, an alumnus of the Peruvian province and of the Convent of the most holy Rosary of Lima, after he had for several years professed theology in the university of Lima as doctor and, as they call it, holder of a chair, betook himself, as legate from the same to the Catholic King, to Madrid. Thence, elected definitor of his province, he proceeded to Rome, where he was no sooner seen by the Master of the Order, Brother John Baptist de Marinis, than he was pleasing and acceptable to him on account of his exceptional gifts and his skill in transacting business, and was taken into a share in the government (they call it "companion") for the western Indies, which office he also discharged under his successor, Brother Thomas de Roccaberti, in whose election he had taken part, as also he sat as definitor of the Peruvian province in the general Chapter at Rome in 1670.

[43] He contributed not a little to promoting the canonization of St. Rose of Lima of the third Order of St. Dominic; another: which being scarcely accomplished, at the instance of the Catholic King he was consecrated at Rome, in the month of November 1670, bishop of Caracas — commonly "de Caracas" — in the island of Venitiola, called in the vernacular Venezuela, in the new world; and in the following year he set out on his journey to visit his church and spouse. Then, besides other lucubrations of the same author, he adduces a little work whose title is: Compendium of the admirable life of Rose of St. Mary of Lima, of the Order of St. Dominic, drawn from the more lengthy Life published by Brother Leonard Hansen in the preceding year — which was first printed at Rome in the year 1665 from the press of Nicolaus Angelus Tinassius. Nicolaus Antonius in his Bibliotheca Hispana nova, volume 1, page 96, and from him Échard, make mention of a fuller Life of the same Saint, which the aforesaid writer of the Latin compendium was preparing for the press in the Spanish tongue. Whether this ever came forth into the public light, we do not know.

[44] The compendium of the Life often reprinted: Further, John William Lipman, a Dominican, had this first Roman edition of the Latin compendium, which we lack, reprinted at Cologne in the year 1668, and dedicated it to the most ample lord abbot of the monastery of Brauweiler. But this Cologne editor prefixed to the same little work another title, in this manner: The Life of the spouse of Christ B. Rose of St. Mary, virgin of Peru, of the third Order of St. Dominic, narrated in compendium by the very Reverend Father Brother Antonio Gonsalez, master of sacred theology of the Order of Preachers, according to the copy printed at Rome. Now this compendium was more often reprinted elsewhere, as we gather from the eighth edition of the same, which we possess, and to which the Roman printer prefixed, among other things, this notice: This indeed is the third Roman edition of this little work; but the eighth, if there be besides enumerated those in which it has again seen the light elsewhere in Italy, Germany, and Poland; while meanwhile there are passed over the very many in which it has been printed in French, Spanish, Polish, and the language of the Indies; for almost all tongues have wished to make it their own. From my press alone five thousand Latin copies of it have come forth: and since at present none stand for sale among the booksellers, it had to be struck off again in type, that satisfaction might be given to the wishes of very many. This third Roman edition of the year 1672 we have already used above, and shall use hereafter, if occasion presents itself.

[45] A more lengthy Italian Life. In the year 1666 there was printed at Rome, from the Tinassian press, in Italian, another and more lengthy Life of the same Blessed one, concerning whose author Échard, volume 2, page 619, has this: Brother Seraphinus Bertolini, a Tuscan, of Lucca by birth, and by profession a master of sacred theology, chosen apostolic penitentiary at Rome at St. Mary Major in the year 1665, on the 13th day of May, wrote concerning B. Rose — of which Work the Italian title and the year of impression are exhibited in the same place. Then Échard there passes this judgment upon that lucubration of his fellow religious: It is written in an elegant style indeed, but one little historical, which is not approved by many; and besides, he seems to speak less soberly than they concerning the apparitions made to blessed Rose, as when he exhibits Jesus himself playing with Rose. It will be useful hereafter to remember this censure, which is by no means suspect of partisan zeal.

[46] The remaining In the same year, at Madrid, from the press of Paul del Val, the Acts of this blessed Virgin were published in Spanish, as Nicolaus Antonius testifies in his Bibliotheca Hispana nova, volume 1, page 57, in these few words: Brother Andrew Ferrer de Valdecebro, a Dominican, while he was teaching theology to his brethren of the monastery of the Mother of God at Alcalá, published the History of the wonderful life of the venerable mother and illustrious virgin Rose of St. Mary, of the third Order of St. Dominic. This title of the Work we render into Latin, although Nicolaus Antonius reported the same in Spanish. But a fuller notice of this author and of his lucubrations is furnished us by Échard, when in volume 2, page 657, he writes thus of the same man: Brother Andrew Ferrer de Valdecebro had for his native place Teruel, a by no means obscure city of Aragon, and professed the Order at Madrid while a youth in the Convent of St. Thomas, which he thereafter greatly adorned by the excellent virtues of his mind, by his manifold erudition, and by the grace and eloquence of his speech. Through the customary degrees of the academy he deserved to be promoted to the summit of the mastership: for when he had set out for the western Indies and America, he was appointed lecturer of sacred theology in the College of St. Louis of Tlaxcala, in the vernacular "la puebla de los Angeles"; nor meanwhile was he wanting to the office of an apostolic and most eloquent preacher. Then returning thence to the province of Spain, in which he had grown up, with great fame and praise of his name he discharged the nobler offices whether of the school or of the sacred pulpit, and at Alcalá, in the years 1662 and 1664, in our gymnasium, as presented professor of moral theology, he was acting with a view to the laurel with which he afterward shone. Having been made also a censor of propositions of the faith, he was living in the year 1675, held to be in his age the most eloquent and most elegant preacher among the Spaniards, and famous for the Works which follow. Afterward he enumerates many lucubrations of the same man, and among them exhibits the Spanish title of the Life mentioned, which we above rendered into Latin.

[47] Antoninus Mongitore in his Bibliotheca Sicula, volume 2, concerning the Lives pages 138 and 158, makes mention of Peter Emmanuel and Peter Scoto, Preachers of Palermo, who in the years 1668 and 1669 wrote the Life of S. Rose of Lima in their native tongue. To these add John Andrew Faure, a Frenchman, Hyacinth de Parra, a Spaniard, and Joseph Lotello, an Italian, who in the year 1668 published in the vernacular the deeds of the same holy Virgin, as may be seen in Échard, already so often praised, volume 2, pages 651, 701, and 625. Besides, in the year of Christ 1671, John Baptist Feuillet, a Frenchman, Antonio de Lorea, a Spaniard, and John Baptist Wouters, a Belgian, treated the same matter in French, Spanish, and Flemish, and James Échard in his Writers of the Order of Preachers reviewed, volume 2, pages 713, 715, and 702, numbers them among the biographers of this Saint. Finally, being about presently to assign the fountain from which most drew their materials, I here omit certain anonymous writers who committed to letters the Life or the posthumous glory of S. Rose.

[48] Many of the biographers mentioned above abridged the Life of today's Saint, of this Saint or translated it into the vernacular tongue, from the fuller Latin lucubration of the Reverend Father Leonard Hansen, a Dominican, whom the above-said Échard, in volume 2 of the Work now so often cited, page 705, thus extols with deserved praises: Brother Leonard Hansen, a German born at Jülich, but received into the Order as a youth at Cologne, ascended through all the degrees to the mastership; he was publicly teaching theology at Vienna in Austria in the year 1638; thereafter he was several times sent to the assemblies of the Order at Rome as general definitor for his province of Germany, in the years 1644 and 1656; whom then, on account of his outstanding gifts, especially his zeal for regular discipline and his exceptional piety, the Master of the Order, Brother John Baptist de Marinis, chose to himself as companion for the German provinces, and a few years afterward decorated with the title of Provincial of England. In this capacity he cast his vote at Rome in the election of the two following Masters of the Order, Brother John Thomas de Rocaberti and Brother Antonio de Monroy, in the years 1670 and 1677, with whom he discharged the same office of companion and was held in the same esteem.

[49] there are furnished A man conspicuous not only for erudition but for wonderful humility, he won to himself the affection of all; a lover of solitude, he was always either reading, or writing, or praying, until, heavy with years, with his understanding entire to the very last hour, he rendered his pious soul to God with the odor of virtues on the 28th of March 1685, in the 82nd year of his age, and was buried at St. Mary above Minerva. He published certain Works, which follow: First, the Wonderful Life and precious death of the venerable sister Rose of St. Mary of Lima, of the third Order of the holy Father Dominic. Rome (from the press of) Nicolaus Angelus Tinassi, 1664, in duodecimo, 452 pages; in the same place and the same year, in quarto, 360 pages. The latter is extant at Paris in the Royal Library, H 1717, the former among our brethren at St. Honoré. The same at Rome from the same press, 1680, in folio. It is extant at Rome in the Casanatense. Then he reviews a few other little works of the same writer.

[50] notices: We have none of these Roman editions; but their place will easily be supplied by the Louvain edition of the year 1668, which the Reverend Father John Antony D'Aubermont, of the Order of Preachers, doctor of sacred theology, ordered to be reprinted after the two Roman ones, and dedicated to a noble courtier of His Imperial Majesty, as may be seen in the dedicatory epistle. Moreover, Leonard Hansen in the prologue of his lucubration warns the reader not to wonder at the barren silence concerning miracles, and promises a rich appendix of these when it shall be permitted by the Sacred Congregation of Rites. Then concerning the deeds of the holy Virgin collected by him and to be published he thus prefaces: Meanwhile receive the little history of her Life alone, extracted in good faith from the Remissorial (as they call it) Process and from sworn testimonies — which would also be fuller, had not the ingenious and cautious humility of the virgin Rose (concerning which see below, chapter V) so studied to hide most things, that they became known neither to the most intimate of her familiars, nor to the members of the household with their curious eyes, nor finally to her ever-watchful mother, save those very few which could from time to time be noted almost by stealth and as it were through little chinks. And so not except

things ascertained do we here give, which in these chapters, though they will seem so many handfuls, do not exceed a gleaning.

[51] we reprint the Life which Hansen published, The aforesaid Hansen afterward stood by his promises, and appended to the Life a copious appendix of miracles, to which he prefixed this admonition: "A time to be silent, a time to speak," Ecclesiastes chapter III presently subjoins. Well done. That I should not write of the miracles of Rose, hitherto the time to be silent has held back my pen. Now, at the nod of my superiors, the time to speak has succeeded. Therefore what I promised in anticipation I here perform, this makeweight of a few chapters being added, which may exhibit from the authentic Processes a selection of signs, graces, and miracles, not a full catalogue. Others will give more copious things. Thus far we do not know who those others may be who have given more copious things, unless perhaps the Bull of Canonization itself be understood, in which certain more recent miracles are related, as we shall afterward see. Neither do we know whether Hansen wished in this place to signify beforehand the third edition of his lucubration, which afterward appeared enlarged at Rome in the year 1688, and in which perhaps he reviewed more miracles of S. Rose. But on this matter we can pronounce nothing certain, since we have sought that Roman edition of the year 1688 in various places in vain. And so we are compelled to be content with this shorter makeweight of miracles, which was reprinted at Louvain in the year 1668, and we shall reprint it in the posthumous glory of the Saint, and shall endeavor to illustrate it with our annotations. But since the Louvain edition is from time to time faulty, and we cannot compare it with the Roman, we shall now and then correct typographical errors by conjecture.

[52] After Hansen, Thomas Souëges, a Dominican, and Adrien Baillet, the famous author of a more recent Legend, published the Life of the same holy Virgin in the French tongue, two more recent writers being left aside: of whom Baillet is censured. or rather reduced it to a compendium. But these can render us no service: for Souëges, who published a compendious Life of S. Rose of Lima at Amiens in the year 1696, and inserted it into his Dominican Year at the 30th day of August, for brevity's sake passes over most of her miracles wrought after her death, or commemorates them in general terms. Baillet, however, that hypercritic, abridged her Acts still further, and, omitting almost all the prodigies of this Saint both living and dead, tacitly hints that they do not deserve great credit. Nay more, in his French Legend, which was printed at Paris in the year 1704, at the 30th day of August, page 495, column 1, he boldly asserts that those circumstances which are related concerning the fasting or abstinence of the holy Virgin remain in the number of incredible things, although they might be altogether true. But why does this Aristarchus number them among incredible things, if they can be true, as he himself confesses, and are affirmed by witnesses worthy of credit? No help therefore is to be expected by us from these and like more recent biographers, and there remain only the Acts composed by Hansen before the year 1668, which we shall now reprint, and illustrate with the customary annotations. To these, however, for confirmation and for a fuller notice, we shall subjoin, in the posthumous glory of the Saint, the very decree of Canonization from the Roman Bullarium, which we shall compare with the most recent Bullarium of the Order of the Friars Preachers.

LIFE

By the Reverend Father Brother Leonard Hansen of the Order of Preachers.

From the third edition, which was printed at Louvain in the year 1668 after the second Roman one.

Rose, virgin, of the third Order of S. Dominic, at Lima in Peru, a province of America (S.)

By Leonard Hansen.

CHAPTER I.

The Saint's native place, parents, name, and pious childhood.

Lima, ^a the noble emporium of southern America, where it is ^b washed by the Pacific sea, and the metropolis of the kingdom of Peru, brought forth this new Rose in the new world in the year of the Virginal birth 1586, in the month of April, This Saint is born in the year 1586 at Lima in Peru, which drew its name from its office, because it ^c opens the earth to the flowers about to burst forth. The twentieth day of this month is sacred to blessed Agnes of Montepulciano, ^d a Dominican virgin most renowned for the heavenly dew and for flowers of various kinds suddenly springing up; and the same was the birthday of this Rose. And so all things here are in spring: since indeed the Virgin's parents also were Gaspar de Flores and Maria de Oliva; he sprung from the Spaniards' island which has its name from the ^e Rich Port; she born at Lima; both of no ignoble stock, but of very moderate means, save that it stood in place of vast wealth to be enriched from heaven with such a little daughter.

[2] and in Baptism receives the name Elizabeth To Rose at her birth the paternal house fell in the street of S. Dominic, and indeed close beside the Church of the Holy Spirit, ^f so that the very place might seem to have marked the presage of her future holiness and manner of life. Her mother testified upon oath (in the Remissorial Process) that this birth was to her as most happy, so also most easy, and least subject to those anguishes with which she used most cruelly to be afflicted in the bringing forth of her other children. Nor did the midwife wonder less, when she saw this infant come forth heavy with the wrappings of the afterbirth, and as it were cloaked. Doubtless thus are Roses born, everywhere as it were mantled with a cloak in their congenital coverings. Then on the most festive day of Pentecost itself (which by the ^g Spaniards as well as by the ^h Italians is called the pasch of Roses) Rose was baptized, and was steeped in the first dew of heavenly grace; nor yet was the name of Rose then imposed upon her, but that of Isabel or Elizabeth; namely from her maternal grandmother Isabel de Herrera, to whom, after human fashion, this honor seemed due amid the lustral waters.

[3] which her mother afterward changed on account of a prodigy, Now, that the name of Rose, divinely destined for the offspring, might at length break forth after the roundabout course of three months, a prodigy was awaited, which was of this kind. The little one, three months old, was resting in her cradle, when the mother, summoned along with a maidservant and her daughters, beheld her little daughter's face covered on every side by an open rose, which, however, a little afterward disappeared. All were astounded; but the mother, struck more deeply than the rest by the sight, with a sudden embrace and tender kisses covered the little one with caresses, saying: "To me you shall henceforth be called, and shall be, Rose; nor hereafter shall I address you by any other name": as though with the Forerunner's mother she protested in these words of Ambrose: "She has her own appellation, which we have recognized, not which we have chosen." Yet the grandmother took the matter ill; she grieved that her own name should be thus blotted out in her tender granddaughter, and almost despised; whence not even a lustrum of years was enough to appease this quarrel, until at last the Sacramental Chrism put an end to the controversy, wherewith the most holy archbishop of Lima, Turibius, ⁱ in the parish of the place Quivi, while he was anointing upon Rose the seal of confirmation, omitting the baptismal name, chose rather to pronounce "Rose" — whose fragrance perhaps he had even then perceived in the spirit with which he was full. Truly the unction seemed to have taught him concerning all things, so that neither could he err in the name of Rose, in which thereafter the grandmother likewise acquiesced.

[4] so that she was first called Rose, Nevertheless, when some years had passed, the Virgin's own timorous conscience raised another suit concerning the name of Rose — namely, that thus occasion and place might be afforded for a heavenly oracle, by which the name of Rose was finally to be confirmed. The matter fell out thus. The girl had grown, and was already mistress of herself through her age, when, as she learned that she had by no means at the font but in the cradle taken this substituted name, she suspected that perhaps this name had been given her for the sole allurement of vanity, whereby the form and comeliness of her face might be commended. And so, wounded by this scruple and unquiet in mind, she went to the chapel of the Mother of God in the church of the Friars Preachers dedicated to the Most Holy Rosary; there, prostrating herself in tears before the Mother of mercy, she set forth her anguish and demanded a remedy. Nor did the Virgin, the mystical rose, delay to console the little virgin Rose: since indeed in a deep but inexplicable ray of inward illumination, addressing the frightened girl, she taught her that this name of hers was wonderfully approved by the divine Child whom she bore; but that she wished this further increment to be added to it from her own name, whereby she should thenceforth be surnamed Rose of St. Mary. Thus she who trembled at her name was strengthened by her surname, secure and glad that she possessed both as given from heaven.

[5] The merits of the Saints have this indeed (as Ambrose witnesses), that they receive their name from God; but such as receive from heaven, beyond a name, a surname also, I think are rare. to which afterward the surname "of St. Mary" was added. The girl admitted the grace of the unhoped-for nomenclature not without a lofty sense of inward sweetness, so much so that on a certain day, returning home from the most holy Communion, with unwonted ardor she besought her mother that she would repeat to her as often as possible, and more frequently chant, this single name of the twofold favor, "Rose of St. Mary"; saying that she was hereafter wonderfully delighted, soothed, and melted by it. The parent hesitated, wondering at the novelty. But the Virgin added that she was even now returning from the feet of the Great Mother of God; that this matter had been at her heart; that by her blessing and maternal auspices her own soul had passed into a Rose sacred to the flowering little Jesus of Nazareth; and therefore, if at any time the epithet of Rose had been suspect to her, now it was safe, as being divinely approved; and that therefore by the frequent hearing of this most welcome appellation she wished to be very often reminded both of her name and of her office. The rest, which had befallen her in that sacred Communion, the humble Virgin modestly kept silent, and it was enough for her mother that the name of Rose, which she first had imposed upon the infant, had pleased heaven.

[6] The infancy and childhood of St. Catherine of Siena are read to have been so sweet and winning to all, While yet a tender girl she gives an indication that most began to call her not Catherine but Euphrosyne. ^k The same was the disposition of the infant Rose: quiet, sweet, charming, and continually serene, so that she seemed to be simply the common joy of the whole house. The members of the household observed that never in her swaddling-bands did the little one disturb the silence of the house with querulous voice or shrill wailings, never wept, save that once, when her mother, visiting a noble matron, had carried Rose abroad, she could not be restrained from weeping until she was brought back from the strange house into her own — as though even then she knew how to flee and turn from what is public; whence from that time the parent determined not to carry out with her thereafter, when she had to go abroad, that most placid infant.

[7] She was three years old when in her most tender disposition there began to shine forth specimens of the virtues robust beyond her age. of her future sanctity and patience, And the first indeed was of endurance and of a spirit amid pains undaunted, brave, and tranquil, so that it was clear that she was a Rose whom thorns neither terrify, nor wear away, nor cast down. It happened that a very large chest, while being shut incautiously and in haste, caught by chance little Rose's right thumb. The mother flew to her in alarm, but the tranquil little daughter concealed the pain and hid her hand, until after some days the dead blood putrefied beneath the little nail. A surgeon is called, and he, in order to draw the swollen matter from the injured joint, consumed with sharp remedies almost the whole nail, and at last tore away by the roots the remnant of the little nail also with a slow and violent forceps. You would have seen Rose unmoved under these torments, as if the thumb were not her own upon which the iron so often raged. Beyond the rest John Perez de Zumeta (that was the surgeon's name) was astounded, by no means grasping whence in so tiny a little Virgin so great a constancy had hardened amid those torments: for during that whole

time she had neither uttered a groan nor ever grown pale at the sight of the probe, the blood, and the fresh wounds. Rose was not yet four years old when a biting suppuration grew in her little ear. Again therefore there was need of the surgeon's hand, and after a mild plaster, at last of the knife also. Rose, while the corrupted part of the eaten-away cartilage was being cut away, received the wound with such firmness of countenance and of mind as those standing by could not even bear to look upon the furrowing blade. The blood flowed down upon her shoulder, and Rose did not shudder at her own dyeing.

[8] while she endures the surgeon's dreadful steel She had completed four years of life when a certain kind of scurf began to encrust the topmost skin of her head. Her mother, persuaded by ready but unskilled counsel, sprinkled on modest powders with an outcome altogether unfortunate: for these, as smelling of the Hermetic ^l box, gnawed the affected parts with their caustic acrimony so savagely that at fixed intervals the members of the household silently noted that the girl trembled through her whole little body. Nor yet could this continual and most bitter pain wring from her even the least groan or sign of distress, save that, being asked by her mother about the pain, when she could not wholly deny it, she answered that it was moderate and easy to bear: and thus amid those torments she passed the night with her mother, silent, unmoved, most quiet.

[9] and other tortures with unconquered spirit, But the anxious parent, on the next day, when the poultice had been gently pulled away, shuddered, seeing her little daughter's crown here swollen with blisters, there deeply ulcerated with little pits, and said: "O wretched child, is it thus that you have passed this whole night under the devouring burning of such torment?" Rose was silent, nor to her mother's urging did she ever reply anything else than that her pains had stood within moderation. The surgeon, then summoned, spent forty-two continuous days in healing the sore and drawing on new skin, with a torment scarcely milder than that with which the first night had torn the Virgin. But neither then was there wanting to Rose a constancy equal to a pain so tedious — greater than the surgeon believed could be hoped for from that, or indeed from any, age. The same strength of Rose, now six years old, appeared under the same surgeon's forceps, when a phaseolus ^m had to be removed from deep within her nostril, plucked out at last by a third pull. You would have said that this nature was born for patience alone. But these were the rudiments and timely preludes of a spirit that was to treat its own little body as though another's. It remains for us to touch briefly upon the rest of her childhood.

[10] and being only five years old, To Rose at five years, and still set upon the borders between childhood and infancy, the knowledge and fear of God insinuated itself in a manner altogether wonderful: because amid play. The matter fell out thus: Her elder brother by blood was playing with her, and he (whether by chance or of set purpose is uncertain) smeared with mud the ruddy and most beautiful hair of the innocent girl. It was a jest, and a boyish matter for laughter; but it did not so please the little Virgin, whom not contempt but filth offended. And so she broke off the game; to whom presently her brother said: "Ha, my sister, if the injury of your disfigured hair afflicts you so seriously, know that the trimmed ringlets of girls are the ropes of hell, by which the incautious souls of young men are ensnared, that they may be dragged down into eternal Gehenna. Therefore reckon that the hair which you seem to love is hateful to God." The boy, having uttered these things in sport with a gesture as of a preacher, was returning to the game; but these words penetrated the girl's mind more deeply than the vehemence of the speaker, or the measure of her own age, warranted; nor were they words, but thunders: for suddenly that most capacious mind at once conceived an immense horror of hell, at once apprehended the vastness of eternity, at once, revering the divine majesty more attentively, weighed within herself the foul unhappiness of every sin.

[11] Hence, suddenly recalled into herself, she began to hate her own hair, having received a singular knowledge of the divinity, to strengthen her mind against all offenses of God, to detest occasions of whatever sort might serve hell; and finally, in ordered column, there then migrated into her a high esteem of God, a filial fear of the Godhead, care for her salvation, abhorrence of sin. Who would have expected so many and so serious things out of play and mud? But under the same ray Rose, proceeding further, clearly recognized that God's help would be both necessary to her and to be continually implored. Hence at once there blazed up in her an effort of prayer, which also dictated an ejaculatory formula, namely this: "May Jesus be blessed. May Jesus be with me. Amen." This manner of praying grew sweet thereafter in the Virgin's little heart, so that not even sleeping did she cease to frequent it — so far, doubtless, had the presence of God already occupied Rose's interior senses on every side.

[12] At last, under this knowledge of God so premature and so sublime, Rose at five years felt perpetual virginity that she was more openly drawn and prepared for the lofty first campaigns of S. Catherine of Siena: since indeed after her example she too straightway made a vow of virginity amid these earliest twilights of her tender age, namely in the fifth year of her age; nay more, afterward, in imitation of the same Seraphic virgin, she cut off her own hair down to the very living skin, her mother not knowing, lest there should remain any of those cords by which, against her sworn purpose of virginity, she might either draw or be drawn to marriage: for she had already learned enough from those sports that the defilements of mud could sometimes lie in wait for her hair in earnest also. This therefore was the outcome of her childish play and rattles, as wonderful, so most happy: for rare is this drawing of grace, which led Rose from innocent jests by one sudden step into that maturity of judgment whereby she might at once know how to esteem the loftiness of God, the price of eternity, and the hidden prerogative of the virginal flower.

[13] One thing here must not be passed over: that those who afterward directed the Virgin's conscience she vowed to God. prudently conjectured that these heavenly allurements of grace befell her under that first dawn of the use of reason, in which, according to the truer theology, everyone is bound to turn himself to God as his last end according to the measure of his capacity. However that may be, for Rose it was not so much a dawn as a noonday, when, thus illuminated, she glowed and chose the way that she ought; yet far greater was it that from the way which she had chosen she never afterward strayed through the whole of her life by the commission of any graver fault — which, as her own confessors likewise unanimously asserted, so will become plain from what follows.

ANNOTATIONS.

CHAPTER II.

The holy Girl's great reverence toward her parents, her wonderful zeal for obedience, and her laborious solicitude for them.

While her mother, against S. Rose's will, In the concurrence of two precepts, whereby it is at once just and commanded both to honor father and mother and to obey God rather than men, Rose frequently had need of wit and skill, that she might offend neither. The heavenly Spouse was drawing the Virgin whom he had chosen for himself through hidden

paths of holiness and perfection: on the opposite side her rude and unrefined mother was drawing the compliant Daughter to the pomps and trifles of the world, to vain adornments of the body, to the commerce of the world. At these crossroads it was more than human art, with obedience unharmed on both sides, neither to have swerved a nail's breadth from the leading of her Spouse, nor yet ever to have departed from her mother's precepts in following her Spouse.

[15] It happened that in the presence of respectable matrons Rose, to adorn her body her mother being present, was rather importunately asked to place about her head a woven garland of flowers, which chanced to be set there in the midst for the sake of its scent and was pleasing to all. The modest Virgin bashfully refused: the troublesome women pressed her, and the mother, wishing to please them, commanded her daughter to obey the injunction. How, do you think, did a chaste horror of vain adornment here struggle with obedience! Nevertheless Rose's ingenuity conquered: for she secretly fixed beneath the garland, at its lowest part, a long pin, and thus the little crown, secretly barbed, she not so much placed upon her head as pressed and drove upon it violently, so that what seemed to others an ornament was to her nothing but a torment. Doubtless she obeyed her mother; but at the same time she was running in the odor of her Spouse crowned with thorns. This noble stratagem would have lain hidden forever, had not the pin afterward had to be drawn out by another's hand with much labor, since it had raged deeply beneath a flowery blandishment. It is uncertain, however, whether the pin or the hated circle of ornament pricked more cruelly Rose, who was friendlier to thorns than to garlands.

[16] Another instance. With womanly zeal the mother sought that her Daughter's hands should be vainly polished and to imitate the vain manners of the world commands her, to the elegance and brightness of a delicate whiteness. For this use she had bought a singular kind of sweet-smelling gloves, that with these, after the fashion of women, Rose might, at least by wearing them at night, force her hands into an adventitious comeliness. You would have said that not gloves were being prepared for a Virgin, but pans and fire for a victim, so terrified did she grow stiff, groan, and hesitate; until, compelled more fiercely by her mother's command, she complied, and admitted the hated gift. She wished that night might never come, lest she should have to approach her little bed with such a wrapping of her hands. Yet the necessary hour of sleep crept on, the light was put out, and the frightened Virgin, scarcely tasting her first slumber, began to feel that what she had put on were not gloves but ^a fire-boxes. They seemed stuffed by Vulcan: nor did they seem so only, but in very deed they burned, roasted, scorched both hands. Rose, inexperienced, was astounded at this new frying-pan, and rejoiced that she had leave whereby to free her hands from a torment so hurtful. She freed them, and saw flames dart forth from the shining gloves; then the whole chamber gleaming with these, and a conflagration openly threatening: but when these had been flung far off, presently the burning, the flame, the torment vanished, and Rose, bathed from heaven with a refreshment of wonderful sweetness, most sweetly took her rest. When morning came, most placidly restoring the cruel gloves to her mother, she set forth the whole course of the matter with simple candor, showed her hands burned fiber by fiber, and earnestly begged that she might not thereafter be recalled to punishments of this kind. But the mother, unbelieving, while she suspects here a pious invention of her Daughter's, inspected both hands rather curiously; and when she found them in very truth blistered, scorched, and parched, and when she had handled them, at last she trembled, and ceased thereafter to invite her most obedient Daughter more harshly to the same burnings.

[17] her daughter subtly devised a way, Nevertheless these were a truce, not a sincere peace: for the mother, turning shortly to other arts, now tried her Daughter, that she should deck herself after girlish usage, that she should admit necklaces at her throat, bracelets on her arms, white lead upon her face, after the custom of the country; now pressed her more severely, that she should at least raise with curling-irons her beautiful hair (with which she then still glowed ruddy), that with fine linen, with fringes, and with the rest of adornment she should somewhat set herself off, that with paint and ointments she should gracefully kindle the rosy beauty of her face, that by gesture, bearing, and allurements she should assist the seemliness of her native comeliness; and finally she would chide, strike, and beat the innocent girl, because, rough, unkempt, and unadorned, by a supine and excessive neglect of the woman's world she was departing from the genius of the age; because by a most vile singularity she was descending below the lot of her equals; because she was of her own accord corrupting by a most abject hypocrisy, and sordidly stifling, the hope of an opulent and splendid marriage to which nature and the excellence of her form were calling her. But the Virgin, mindful of her purpose, and more solicitous to blunt her own beauty than to sharpen it, received all these things with eyes fixed upon the ground in unconquered silence, and by use and by deaf dissimulation was becoming accustomed to digest this daily cabbage, so long as the ultimate violence of a maternal precept was lacking, which to resist or to obey too slowly she thought an equal sin.

[18] whereby she might obey her mother, This seemed to her mother an opportune short-cut for extorting whatever she wished; accordingly, when on a certain occasion she had thrust upon her Daughter a headdress to be worn, gleaming with a golden and silken net, she added at once a command, that she might lay the obligation of obedience upon one who would resist. Here the Virgin, destitute of any sudden counsel, obtained a very brief delay, while she went to her confessor, to whom she anxiously protested that, unless the command were revoked, she could not but comply with her mother enjoining this wearing: that she would rather bind her own head with this fillet of an ornament however hateful, than by resisting dissolve the right by which she was bound to her mother's command. The prudent confessor therefore came to the aid of the wise Virgin's piety and of the knot at once, and, meeting the mother forthwith, gravely dissuaded her: let her cease at last to try with the useless annoyance of costly vanity her perplexed Daughter, whom from infancy the divine Spirit had prepared by most secret promptings for the ratified sublimity of a higher holiness. The mother was afraid; and thus this billow also, lest obedience should waver, of its own accord subsided.

[19] At length the ingenious Virgin devised a fitting means and yet not offend God. whereby she might thereafter both stand under her mother's command and nevertheless buy off the remaining vexation about the adornment of her body. And so she besieged her mother with the tenderest blandishments until she drew from her a permission by which she should take for her clothing a discolored and rough sack of common and cheap material — a kind of garment which is neither immodest nor unusual for women who, being strangers to pomps and to marriage, strive under a most simple dress to follow a solitary devotion. With this most chaste garb therefore Rose armed herself, that by its protection she might drive far from herself all secular vanity of womanly adornment. Nor did the outcome deceive her: for beneath such a muddy covering of her body, dyed with no tincture, Rose lay hidden most safely until the twentieth year of her age, in which at last, being raised to the whiteness of the Dominican robe, she easily went on to elude the remaining snares of pompous luxury. Once therefore the woman's world had been thus renounced and shut out, it did not seem hard to Rose to obey her parent in the rest, however arduous. I shall give a single example of this, whence conjecture may be made about the rest.

[20] But in other matters Canta ^b is a place in the kingdom of Peru most celebrated for its mines of metal, but exceedingly unhealthy from the exhalations of the rotten soil and from a foul cold. Hither Rose, being bidden, had withdrawn with her parents, and not long after, being unequal to those noxious colds, she began to suffer in hands and feet from a dire contraction of the sinews. Her mother, to drive off the force of the disease with a remedy most efficacious (as she thought), placed tightly about her suffering Daughter the shaggy skins of certain animals frequent in that place; but with the added command that she should not without orders tear them from her, or in any way remove them. Four days had passed, when the mother, recalling the treatment she had applied, asked her silent Daughter how she fared, and what she had done about the wrappings of skins. The sick girl replied that she indeed fared nothing better than before, but that the skins, just as her mother had bound them, still clung to her unmoved. The parent, wondering at her simplicity, while she removes the little skins, sees the Virgin's flesh, by their biting burning, blistered pustule by pustule, inflamed, and everywhere ulcerated with swollen little tumors. Then indeed, astounded, she said: "Why have you passed so many days and nights under these torments, and not thrown off the skins which were thus tearing your flesh?" The compliant Daughter answered: "And had you not expressly forbidden, mother, that I should lay them aside without your nod? I obeyed."

[21] At one time her mother, to test the readiness of an obedience so exact, with wonderful simplicity and reverence ordered her Daughter to form the silken flowers, which she then chanced to be embroidering with the needle, by a preposterous leading of the threads, against every idea of the art and against right order. Rose obeyed; she made the work awry, she finished the flowers. Then her mother, as if in a temper, said: "Ho! not flowers, but monsters of flowers. What have you done? Have you gaped so drowsily, while your unskilled sloth miscarried into these deformed absurdities?" To whom she answered most gently that to her likewise, though unlearned, such a manner of embroidering had seemed exceedingly strange and wide of the mark, and yet that she had not dared to lead needle and thread otherwise than her mother had prescribed, or by her own judgment to attempt the contrary; that she was nonetheless most ready to sew and unsew whatever her mother might command. As often as during the day she had to return to the labors of spinning, sewing, or weaving, never from the chest but always from her parent's hand did she humbly ask for needle, threads, distaff, and the rest necessary for the work, believing that this was owed to filial reverence for her mother. But she, reckoning it importunity, sometimes with bile and disgust sent her daughter back to the household cupboard of the woman's workroom, crying out that there was no need of so many interruptions, that the instruments of household duty lay open of themselves to women about to work. To whom Rose said: "I preferred to be obedient, to add to what is owed the gain of explicit obedience, and to pay out the humble tribute of respect toward my mother together with my task." So highly, doubtless, did she value even the slighter occasions of obeying.

[22] she obeyed her mother About three years before Rose's happy death it came to pass that she was invited from her father's dwelling by the illustrious matron Lady Maria de Usategui, consort of the royal treasurer Lord Gonzalo de la Massa, to a free lodging in her house. The Virgin complied, because her parents bade it — nay, they commanded that she should show herself compliant to Gonzalo and his wife in all things. Here therefore the occasion of obeying was not changed but doubled: since indeed the humble Rose, reckoning herself exempted from her father's roof but not from subjection, obeyed the strange house with the same promptness as her own, and not only the commands of Gonzalo or his wife, but at the nod also of the daughters and of the household family, down to the lowest slaves of the house. Of this you have a notable specimen below in chapter 5, § Testabatur ^c. Where you will read of Rose compliant to Gonzalo in the very article of death.

[23] and other superiors But far more wonderful was her obedience beyond death. After the Virgin's death a little maidservant in the monastery of S. Catherine at Lima had through carelessness lost a silver spoon. The foundress, who was also then prefect of the convent, had ordered that all corners be searched, chests shaken out, every single thing examined, if anywhere the lost pledge might be found; when it had been sought everywhere and long, anxiety is doubled along with the search, all things are thrown into confusion, nothing is found. And now solicitude was tormented not about the silver but about reputation: for there was danger lest some innocent person should rashly come under suspicion of theft. And so the prefect, Lucia of the Most Holy Trinity, turning to an image of the now deceased Rose hanging there, amid a vast tumult of thoughts broke out into these words: "Hear, blessed Rose, I command you under that obedience which is owed me in this convent by all, that you cause the silver which we have lost to be found; in holy truth I protest to you, O Rose, it shall be yours to undertake this care, that the spoon may be at hand when I return from vespers." She returned, sought, looked about; and behold the spoon openly upon the table of the little cell, where it had been sought ten times. Doubtless concerning the obedience of Rose, now dead before, there had remained among all so celebrated a notion,

so lofty a presumption, that it was believed she would obey even after death a superior to whom she had never in life been subject; and it seemed enough for the command that her image was lodged there.

[24] and to her confessors. From these things anyone will most easily estimate how exactly Rose, while still mortal, complied with her confessors: for from the time she had taken the habit of the holy Father Dominic, she hung wholly upon the mouth of her spiritual fathers, and whatever these had hinted even in passing seemed to the Virgin not a command but a heavenly oracle. Once, after long deluges of tears, she was languishing from an emptying of the head, not without danger, and yet was not moderating her accustomed vigils; her confessor, being informed, ordered that from midnight at least she should give a full four hours to sleep. The Virgin strove to obey to a hair's breadth; but, being otherwise accustomed, she could not attain the prescribed point of the hour either by sleeping or by waking, and this was enough for her to be tormented with a vehement scruple, as though guilty of violated obedience. The members of the household noted this spirit of Rose, and whenever she had to be asked to allow fomentations for her little body, or to snatch some rest, or in any other way to let herself be more indulgently treated, they would add that her confessor had so commanded, and at once Rose without reply obeyed altogether as a child.

[25] But let us return to her mother. That Rose was accustomed to put off the times of drinking for three or four days appeared from this, that she had laid a law upon herself, while she dwelt with her parents, never to drink except as often as her mother, being asked leave, had expressly consented; Moreover, observing the least nods of her mother, and if the permission was denied as a trial of her virtue, she generally cheated her thirst for another three days, not about to drink before her mother consented: nay, she even complained that this leave was not more often denied her. Further, no history sufficiently comprehends the rest of her observance, love, and piety toward her parents: how solicitously she continually busied herself to provide for the want of her parents from the labor of her own hands; how dutifully, to minister to them when they lay sick, to attend them, to procure medicines and other necessaries; how attentively at last and sedulously to forestall their domestic offenses, to appease their minds, to mitigate their afflictions — almost every single page in the sworn Process testifies.

[26] The treasurer Gonzalo (of whom above, and more frequently below) silently wondered that Rose, drained of strength with unwearied labor of her hands, and utterly weary from her daily works, nevertheless kept at the labor of her hands until the middle of the night. The treasurer's wife, when once she saw her sick and failing, and weak and stupefied in her whole side scarcely sufficing for the drawing of breath, gravely exhorted her that she would then at least indulge her sinking little body some little vacation from those labors. The industrious Virgin replied that she could not without scruple be wanting to her parents' necessities.

[27] More wonderful is what Ludovica Urtado de Bustamante, and with skillful industry widow of the standard-bearer Bartholomew Alphonsus de Lombrera, asserts in the Process: that Rose, so occupied day and night with holy exercises, so hindered by abundant diseases, so often absorbed by heavenly raptures, was nevertheless wont in a single day to finish as many tasks of labor as any other woman, however swift and however skilled, would scarcely have finished in four whole days: and lest we should think that on account of so great a swiftness of the hastening Rose the works came forth (as happens) gaping, defective, imperfect, the sixty-eighth witness affirms beyond the rest that each of them was of so consummate a perfection, elegance, and care that they generally seemed to exceed the bounds of human art and industry.

[28] Nor did the anxious love and solicitude of the daughter stop here, she strove to relieve the poverty of her parents, as she strove with all ingenuity to relieve her parents' poverty. In the household garden she had set apart small beds to be cultivated by her own care and hand with cultivated violets, which, as soon as they had come to their season, she gathered in little bundles and gave to a maid to be exposed for sale; whatever little gain there was she brought to her mother. Being asked once by a religious man (the twenty-first witness) how much profit accrued to her parents from that slender traffic in little flowers, she answered that it was indeed very small, unless her heavenly Spouse supplied from elsewhere by wonderful but hidden ways.

[29] she helped them when sick by her service, If ever a bodily sickness had cast down her father or mother, nothing was to the Daughter more important, nothing more holy, nothing more solemn than, all else laid aside, to serve the one lying abed, to seek out medicines, to prepare them with her own hands, to bring them in, and to hold out food morsel by morsel, to fit refreshments, to apply soothing remedies. Then she passed sleepless nights, sat by the little bed, arranged the bedding, did all things, passed over nothing that could bring solace. Meanwhile with prayers, groans, and sighs she knocked at the gates of heaven; nor in vain. But let this be more conveniently reserved for the history of the miracles. This one specimen of her most singular piety toward her mother and of her utmost compassion ought by no means to be kept silent here. In the last article of her life now fleeing away, Rose, beholding her grieving mother beside her, and not ignorant how savagely the imminent grief from her Daughter's death would deprive her of life, asked her Spouse (and this was the last panting breath of her praying) that he would strengthen with a robust solace her mother, unequal to immoderate mourning and likely easily to sink beneath it, and would harden the wretched woman against this fatal stroke with his sweet and powerful hand.

[30] and consoled the afflicted. It was done, and indeed more abundantly than the solicitous piety of the dying Daughter had demanded: for as soon as the Virgin gave up her spirit, such deluges of consolations flooded the mother from above that she confessed under oath that for a long time her heart labored, too narrow to receive this sweetness, under a certain tempest of joys, and, as though about to burst the enclosures of her breast, leapt up with panting dances, so that she had to seek in the very chamber of the dying Rose a more secret corner, in which she might more freely breathe, throbbing under the sweetest tearing-apart of so great a gladness. But when she was called thence into the neighboring chamber, whether to be removed from the sad spectacle of the corpse, or that she might see with the others Aloysia, then by chance rigid in ecstasy, she deferred to go, lest she should prematurely forsake her corner, the confidant of so great a jubilee. Truly never did the most dutiful piety of Rose refresh her mother either more solicitously or more richly.

ANNOTATIONS.

CHAPTER III.

The imitation of blessed Catherine of Siena, and her entrance into the third Order of St. Dominic.

While S. Rose refuses to enter marriage, Various and beyond number are the ways, windings, and journeys by which the eternal Wisdom makes chosen souls struggle up to the sublime summit of perfection. But it pleased the same to lead the chosen Rose of S. Mary peculiarly by the short paths of the seraphic Catherine, ^a at the very time when human prudence (generally an unfit weigher of spirits) was importunately striving to turn the Virgin aside into other paths of vocation. First of all, her mother, swollen with a hope not absurd, had from her tender years destined her little daughter for a noble and most honorable marriage: nor were her outstanding beauty of form, her keen judgment, the sweetness of her lofty disposition, and her manners exceedingly formed and trained to every grace of civility out of tune with that purpose.

[32] On the other hand, innocent Rose believed that by the timely cutting off of her hair (concerning which above), to which her mother was destining her, as once S. Catherine of Siena, she had cut away her mother's hope and the snares of marriage; nor meanwhile did she proceed less briskly to wear away the rosy comeliness of her face by fasts, to disfigure the excellent habit of her body with a ragged sack, to flee public sights, and, that she might not please the gaze of men, to lie hidden at home; so that in all that four years during which she stayed with her parents at Canta she neither set foot beyond the threshold of the dwelling nor deigned to see the neighboring garden of delights, save that once only there she was bidden by matrons to accompany their daughters to visit the mills of the Indian workers; where, when she arrived, she always sat unmoved in a single corner, carried away by no spectacle of famous curiosity. But not even thus could she sufficiently escape from unwillingly kindling in very many, both by the celebrated repute of her virtue and by the majesty of her modest countenance, an admiration of her, and presently a striving after an honorable marriage-bed.

[33] Among these, a certain matron, distinguished by birth and wealth, she is sharply upbraided, vehemently wished Rose as wife for her only son and as daughter-in-law for herself, being assuredly about to gain by the happy exchange more of goods than she would give with her son and heir. So rich a match pleased both sides, especially because Rose's parents, as they were slender in means, so were they burdened with a multitude of children: for eleven were counted. The consent of the Virgin alone was lacking, whom, mindful of her vow, every mention of marriage deprived of life; nor yet did she dare to disclose to her austere mother the impediment by which willing and glad she was held. Thence what and how great insults, what domestic battles, reproaches, revilings she endured from her parent, her brothers, her kinsfolk — even-tempered but unarmed Daughter — no one would either comprehend or estimate more closely to the life than whoever shall look back to the history of St. Catherine of Siena, where her mother Lapa unmercifully upbraids, presses, and harasses the virgin tenacious of her purpose; save that against Rose there raged beyond words also blows, kicks, and slaps. Yet with the most constant girl there prevailed the idea of her Seraphic mistress (so she had been accustomed to call the virgin of Siena), whom from her tender years she had chosen to be imitated in state, habit, and manners, as the sixty-eighth witness expressly asserts in the Process.

[34] and to her, in the new convent of S. Clare All things seemed to have conspired to this one end, that Rose should not obtain the habit of the Tertiaries, which she sought with so many prayers, bid for with so many sighs and so great an expenditure of tears: for behold, another way of religious institute was offered, which indeed could by no means have displeased Rose, had she not been divinely destined solely for the lofty footsteps of S. Catherine of Siena. In those days there was rising at Lima a new monastery of S. Clare, a sanctuary of all sanctity, rigor, and observance, under the auspices of the most illustrious Lady Maria de Quiñones, whose uncle was that very most renowned servant of God, then still surviving as archbishop of Lima, Lord Turibius Alphonsus Mogrovejo, of whom above. Nor are the admirable sanctity, pastoral zeal, and numerous miracles of this incomparable man unknown at Rome in the Sacred Senate of Rites,

where his apotheosis has long and strenuously been treated. ^b

[35] a place is offered; Under these auspices, I say, the new monastery was being formed, and Rose was of their own accord invited as to a nursery-garden most worthy of such a flower, being already by name chosen, reckoned, and approved among its first foundresses. When she learned this more certainly, before all things she busied herself to explore the good pleasure of the divine will, and with bowed head commended the mystery of her vocation to the supreme Arbiter, not refusing, for the sake of a refuge for her virginity and for the desire of a stricter life coeval with herself, to embrace the most narrow enclosure of the convent offered and its arduous manner of living; especially because she had already learned by experience that scarcely otherwise could she escape the importunate annoyances of suitors, the assault of parents, brothers, and household, and the sight of the unclean world. But behold, a hidden obstacle of heavenly providence came from her mother. She was thought to be the first of all who would consent, whether out of reverence for so great an archbishop, or because, burdened with children, she could most fittingly place her Daughter without a dowry. Yet she stood in the way, pleading the poverty of the house, which Rose was sustaining by the labor of her hands. At the same time there stood in the way the grandmother, failing with age and diseases, who as she lay abed had her alone for fomentations and constant service. And finally other things stood in the way, the Godhead providing, which through so many windings was reserving this incomparable Rose for the flowering pleasure-garden of the holy Father Dominic.

[36] but by the divine will, That this might become more manifest, there was need of two prodigies from heaven; the first fell out in this order. Those who had seen Rose so eager for heavenly things, so given to spiritual exercises, to solitude, to the mortification of the body, and so weary of the world, again and again urged her entrance into some monastery, where she might more freely be at leisure for God. Her confessors at last approved the same, grave men pressed it, men notable for their mastery of spirits, to whose concordant judgment, that Rose might humbly submit her own, with her grandmother knowing and consenting, she attempted the issue through her brother by blood, meanwhile (as above) referring herself to the divine judgment. Already in the monastery of the Most Holy Incarnation (which serves under the rule of the holy Father Augustine), from the nuns who greatly desired Rose, she had obtained admission and a place by her brother's industry as go-between, and nothing was lacking save that, leaving her father's house, she should go secretly without pomp or noise straight to the convent, to be admitted with the doors open and there set among the white lilies. Therefore, the next Lord's day having been chosen for this pious theft of herself, she casts herself upon the road, taking her brother alone as companion of her most joyful journey, and passing close beside the neighboring church of S. Dominic, she turns aside into it with her brother, that there in the chapel of the holy Virgin (which has its name and cult from the Rosary) she might take beforehand the maternal blessing of the most august Mother of God as a timely viaticum for her setting out, and thence more briskly run over the remainder of her way.

[37] But scarcely had she fixed her knees upon the ground for prayer, which is said to have been declared when she felt herself immovably nailed to the pavement. Her brother interrupted her thus sticking fast and lingering more tediously than had been agreed, saying it was time to go, that there would be more convenient space for longer prayer in the monastery. But Rose, blushing that she could by no means move herself from the place, and at the same time dissembling, tried again and again whether by any means she might extricate herself from the most secret bond of so great a prodigy. Meanwhile her brother, returning twice and thrice from the church door, rebuked her for delaying, exaggerated the danger of delay, and put his arm under her as she strove to rise: both strain together, but in vain. You would have said it was a rock grown to the ground, or a huge mass of lead, to be lifted by no force of pulleys. Rose understood the mystery — namely, that it was not by the decree of her heavenly Spouse that she should hide herself by stealth in the longed-for receptacle of that most populous monastery, that something else concerning the kind of her institute had been provided in the secret counsel of eternity: in short, the sum of the matter was that the footsteps of Catherine of Siena alone awaited Rose, who was to be hedged about with thorns. Therefore, being as she was immovable, turning to the most clement Queen of the Holy Rosary, she said: "I promise you that I will return hence straight to my mother, and will hold my father's house, as long as you shall bid, for my hermitage." Wonderful to tell! suddenly what had been lead felt itself a feather; with no one supporting her she rose, made her way home, frankly disclosed to her mother the matter as it was, and with her parent's consent found out, in place of the monastic, another kind of enclosure (which will be related in chapter X).

[38] The second prodigy. The territory of Lima, as it produces parrots, so also butterflies, by a double miracle plainly wonderful for the variety and elegance of their colors, so that these seem almost to vie with those for the glory of both. By chance Rose, fixed rather attentively upon the two-colored habit of her Seraphic mistress, was deliberating with herself, in doubt, about taking up the garb of the Dominican Order; when one of those butterflies, most beautifully striped with black and white color alone, with a gentle but by no means fortuitous gliding flew festively about the Virgin; she, straightway carried away into an excess of mind, clearly understood what she had long been turning over in her mind, namely that this was the divine answer about at last taking up the third habit of the Order of Preachers.

[39] Nor did the outcome deceive her, now secure: for a little afterward, she resolved to imitate S. Catherine of Siena, all obstacles being everywhere removed, she became mistress of her wish, and in the Rosary chapel of the Mother of God, where once she had stuck fast immovable, with solemn ceremony, from the hands of Father Master Brother Alphonsus Velasquez of the Order of Preachers, then her confessor (to whom the Father Provincial had committed this), she was clothed with the two-colored garment which she had loved in her mistress of Siena. This happened in the year of salvation 1606, on the very festal day of S. Lawrence the martyr, to which you would not absurdly adapt that verse of Tibullus, book 2, elegy 6: But the laurel has given good signs; rejoice. … Truly Rose rejoiced when she saw herself clothed about with variety; and with Lawrence she burned with new fires; she melted in sweet jubilation, and the new Tertiary reckoned herself more than in name blessed. ^c

[40] Doubtless this desire had grown with the child: since indeed from the fifth year of her age she had already made herself over to S. Catherine of Siena, by whose example, which the second and twenty-second witnesses in the Process so often cited affirm they perceived from Rose's own mouth. But when she heard the Seraphic history of her life read at home chapter by chapter, most attentive, as though it were being read to her alone, she felt herself inflamed to the marrow to follow, not about to rest until both outwardly in habit and inwardly in golden fringes she should be conformed as a disciple to so great a heroine and mistress. But if it was exceedingly arduous for Rose, only in the twentieth year of her age, to struggle through so many obstacles to the sacred habit, it cost her scarcely a lesser struggle to retain the same until death. Yet she retained it, although variously tempted to take another: for human prudence, ignorant of the divine counsel, did not cease to urge, to offer, to press different things, as though better and more worthy. Of these I shall relate two which pressed more strongly upon her victorious constancy.

[41] after various difficulties overcome, The treasurer Gonzalo, a most excellent man, and one who had weight with the Virgin entrusted to him by authority, nay even by domestic command, whether of his own accord or induced from elsewhere, was suggesting the reformed rule of sacred Carmel, which he believed suited more aptly to Rose's genius; he pressed that assuredly she would more fittingly serve God, be at leisure for the spirit, and cleave to contemplation in the celebrated convent of the Discalced virgins than outside among the lowest Tertiaries. But as to her lacking a suitable dowry, the treasurer replied that he demanded this whole care for himself, and would do all things that she might be admitted without difficulty by that most religious monastery. This was a stout battering-ram for striking Rose's heart, especially because her mother herself, whose means at home were narrow, was already content, and the judgments of several servants of God conspired to it. Rose, although tenacious and certain of her vocation, nevertheless did not wish either to seem headstrong or openly to spurn with immodest haughtiness the benevolent judgments of so many most skilled men. And so, using her wit as at other times, she committed the matter to the examination of four most excellent theologians chosen from the Order of Preachers, promising to embrace what their weightier votes should determine; as being secure that God would not permit that by their concordant ballots she should be called away from the chosen path of a humbler institute, which the Seraphic mistress of Siena had most happily trodden before her.

[42] and mature deliberation, The outcome answered her wish: for by the working of the Godhead the quaternion of the above-said theologians hung always immovable with equal votes on either side, and was astonished that no weight presented itself to either party whereby they might at last extricate themselves from so constant an equilibrium. The Virgin's constancy therefore conquered; and she thereafter, more confident, interrupted Gonzalo and the other persuaders with a modest and grave answer: that she indeed was wonderfully taken and moved by the reflowering deserts of the Carmel offered her, but nevertheless that this work and office was proper to divine, not to human, inspiration alone; that the Spirit breathes where he wills; that a fit choice, and likewise a change, of the regular state is not of him that wills nor of him that runs, but of God that shows mercy; that finally no other impulses from above had befallen her hitherto beyond those which she professed by her habit; that she must live and die under the dear garb and mastership of S. Catherine of Siena; that nevertheless a time would one day come in which a new monastery of this name and institute should arise at Lima; but that she did not yet know whether perchance she were divinely reserved for it. Certainly Carmel was worthy of this Rose, and Rose worthy of Carmel, had not a loftier zephyr commended her to the gardener Order of the Rosary.

[43] This battering-ram therefore being shattered, another remained; but the most importunate of all, because subtler: for, driven from beneath through the very mines of humility, it shook Rose by the stirring of a single scruple, whereby a way lay open to a most fearful thought: the third Order of S. Dominic namely, that she, a filthy sinner, was too unworthy of that snowy veil of Catherine of Siena; that more was promised outwardly by that whiteness of dress than lay hidden within; that to her alone were lacking all things that should correspond to the outward brightness: accordingly that the habit, which to her Seraphic mistress had been a declaratory symbol of virtue and religion, was in her nothing but a mask and a public lie of usurped holiness. It doubled her anguish that the white garment seemed of its own accord to grant a handle and an approach to human applause; for the Virgin, shrinking from the swelling celebrity of her own name, grieved that by her white clothing she was distinguished in public from other women, that she was pointed at with fingers from afar as she came, marked with eyes, praised by passers-by, and sometimes compared by those she met to S. Catherine of Siena herself. These were torments which could render the sacred garment hateful to her, and suggested that it should first be modestly hidden, and at last laid aside — so much so that she went in haste to her familiar refuge (I mean the chapel of the Most Holy Rosary, in which Rose had taken the habit), as though she were there again to be rooted with immovable firmness and by the accustomed protection of the great Mother of God to drive away a most troublesome temptation.

[44] It fell out as she had hoped; for at the foot of the altar, with knees fixed upon the ground, at last she embraces. amid her praying she gradually grew rigid in a most placid swoon of mind. The Sisters of the same third habit standing about noted the countenance of her as she prayed, and saw Rose, long hanging in suppliant gaze upon the sacred image, at first indeed grow white with a snowy pallor, after an interval redden with a comely suffusion, and at length shine in her whole face and radiate in sparkles. They conjectured at once what was the fact, that something very great was being transacted, as it were under the rainbow of the Rosary, whose mysteries are distinguished by this threefold dye. And truly so it was: for Rose, restored at last to herself and to the natural color of her face, broke out into a jubilee of victory: "Come, Sisters," she said, "God is to be praised by us, who has willed us, Tertiaries, by the common

bond of solid charity, to be bound to himself and joined to him forever." The obscure riddle was very easily grasped by all who had been privy to the preceding conflict. But to the Virgin these were a Paean ^d of a temptation vanquished, which she so broke that it never returned. So much did it cost the victorious Rose both to obtain and most constantly to retain the white habit of the seraphic Catherine. Further, how fully she put on with it the virtues of her mistress (although we lay that up for the following chapters), let this be the one argument for the coping-stone of this chapter: that once, to her confessor silently watching and wondering, Rose seemed so transformed in appearance, countenance, and lineaments that with a living likeness she reproduced the very effigy of S. Catherine of Siena.

ANNOTATIONS.

CHAPTER IV.

True submission of mind, kindness, affability, and other virtues.

The Virgin out of humility How deeply and continually Rose remained taken up with recognizing her own nothingness closely and most inwardly, every action of her most humble life proclaims. We shall here compress a few out of very many. It seemed to her too little that at home, forgetting that she was a Daughter, she busied herself with all the meanest services of a household maid, unless she also cast herself below a maidservant. A certain Mariana served in Rose's father's house, an Indian by race, of rustic condition. Her Rose very often in a secret part of the house begged, entreated, and compelled to trample with her feet upon her as she cast herself on the ground, now prone, now supine, and studiously to wear her away with her soles like a contemptible offscouring; nay, she demanded that there be added spittings, kicks, and blows, and that nothing be omitted which savored of the vileness of extreme contempt. And if Mariana tried to spare her, or to execute what was commanded only perfunctorily, Rose the suppliant pressed her more sharply; nor did she raise herself from the ground until she had gained her wish. Whenever on account of the singularity of her life she was cut to pieces with insults by her brothers or her mother, she believed herself so worthy of them, nay of tenfold heavier ones, that she was even wont of her own accord to magnify what was imputed to her as a fault, and to amplify her own guilt, lest she should seem to be afflicted and despised beside or beyond her desert, who so greatly sought everywhere to succumb and be trampled on.

[46] imputed her diseases to her sins, She had grown accustomed to conceal the greatness of her diseases (which she endured, frequent and most savage, in her sick and exhausted little body), lest anyone should come to her help. But when, by reason of the excessive tearing of convulsions or through the dangerous violence of the symptoms, they could not be dissembled, she frankly confessed with what great torments she was wasting away, in order that from the savagery of her pains men might estimate how monstrous a sinner Rose was before God, who namely had deserved to be continually scourged by an angered Godhead in the most just punishments of so many crimes. This she believed of herself, and this she most anxiously desired to be believed also by others. Hence it is that rather often before her intimates and familiars she timidly repeated utterances of this kind: that she wondered why God had not yet plunged into a horrible abyss the unhappy world, which bore so great a sinner. Likewise, that to her demerits was owed that place among the infernal regions which is the lowest of all and supremely infamous: that she was a most vile burden of the earth, an abominable cancer of the human race, a purulent bilge and dregs, unworthy that the heavens should shine upon her, that the air should breathe upon her, that the earth should spread its back beneath her: that by her contagion the elements were defiled, by her expiations the soil was weighed down and the ocean grew bitter. As often as anything unfortunate happened either at home or abroad, she did not hesitate to impute it to her own faults; and since she both felt and said these things so seriously, she could not bear that those who knew her innocence should refuse to believe such things; she grieved more heavily if they replied that such things were said out of mere humility; to these she retorted that credit assuredly should be given to her, who alone knew herself.

[47] But if they proceeded so far as to oppose to reproaches of this kind encomiums and praises of Rose, she shrank from her own praises, the wretched girl was terrified, and trembled as though struck by a thunderbolt, most mournfully protesting by her pallor, silence, and groaning that she was being tormented. It happened that the canon Michael Garzes visited the treasurer Gonzalo familiarly at his house; here he, amid friendly conversation, as happens, slipping into various matters, began to relate cursorily the things which commended the wonderful holiness of life, chastisement of the body, and excellence of works and manners of Rose (then dwelling in the same house). By chance Rose from the neighboring chamber unwillingly caught this conversation, but, not bearing the nausea of her own praises, she leapt up for grief, and rushed into an inner chamber where Michaela, the treasurer's little daughter, was; there presently with most unrestrained wailing and tears, most bitterly accusing her lot, she beat her guiltless breast, spat out the cabbage of her own laudation, and grew dim with shame of herself; and that she might at once drive off and avenge torment by torment, she struck her fist repeatedly upon her head, where with rather thick points a crown of thorns (concerning which below, chapter VIII) had secretly beset her temples. She who was thus wounded by the annoyance of praises — with what gladness of mind, do you think, did she receive contempt, reproaches, revilings? But let us go on.

[48] A certain most arduous work of heroic virtue, in imitation of S. Catherine of Siena, Rose had attempted when innocent and reproved, she begged pardon, and had accomplished: which, since the lady Isabella Mexia believed it supremely harmful and deadly to her health, being goaded by a pious horror, she admonished Father Master Brother Alphonsus Velasquez, the Virgin's confessor, that he should with sharp reproof condemn the deed as a rash excess, and should frighten Rose from attempting like things beyond her strength. He rebuked the Virgin, as not yet perceiving from the circumstances what praise she rather had deserved. But humble Rose, as though she recognized a fault in a most holy work, begged pardon and promised amendment, glad to be rebuked there where she had most greatly feared applause and vain glory.

[49] Whenever she fell down at her confessors' feet to accuse herself, before her confessors she magnified her least defects, she was straightway so overwhelmed with tears, so broken off by sobs, so torn asunder with deep sighs from the bottom of her heart, that you would have believed that she who thus lamented was guilty of nothing but monstrous crimes. She appeared like a second sinful woman in the city, she was abashed, she beat her breast, she trembled as though about to be swallowed at once by the gaping maw of Erebus; nor yet, amid so great an apparatus of most humble contrition, was there always sufficient matter present upon which the sentence of sacramental absolution could safely be pronounced. Certainly her confessors afterward confessed this with one mouth, that they had several times to labor in order that, amid so great a purity of a most innocent life, they might by searching find something that certainly belonged to the tribunal of penance. On the contrary, Rose labored no less busily to magnify beyond measure each of her least defects, and with serious weeping and groaning to demand the remedy. Nor content with these, besides her frequent confessions in the week, she had moreover enjoined upon herself a daily confession before her holy Father Dominic, in which, as in a Chapter of correction, she set forth to him her faults in detail, and humbly asked pardon and remedy from his intercession.

[50] and reckoned herself lower than slaves. Lady Maria Usatigui, wife of the treasurer Gonzalo, testified that, while Rose lived three years in her house, she so reckoned herself the lowest of all that, subject at a nod not only to the master of the house and his wife, but also to their tender daughters, nay to the servants, maids, and household slaves, she received the pleasure of each alike as commands, thinking it a favor if anything was enjoined upon her in a master's fashion, as upon one received into the house on sufferance; whence even for a small draught of water she would, on bended knees, beg from Gonzalo (if he chanced to be present) the faculty of tasting it. Great and lengthy are the things which Gonzalo's household noted and declared concerning Rose's most gentle humility; let this last one suffice. She was lying near her death-agony, when in the last quarter-hour of her life a precious liquor is offered her to be sipped from a cup for the strengthening of her heart; the sick girl said she could not: but, hearing that the master of the house himself had ordered it, remembering that she was subject, she obeyed, took it, drained it, adding in a slender voice: Go, announce to Gonzalo my lord that what in truth I could not do, at his command I have been able to do; and that not even at the very gate of death shall I be forgetful of what a subject owes to her master. But with what lowliness of mind she then turned to those standing by and asked that there be forgiven her whatever she had perhaps offended against that house or family, whether by bad example or by austere and unobliging manners, would require a longer period, were it not that we must hasten on to the rest.

[51] Besides the endowments of the body, For a long time Rose did not know that there was anything even the least remaining in her which lay open to praise or could be reckoned beautiful, until a certain woman, casually catching sight of the Virgin's hands (such is the female wit, lynx-eyed and remarkably sharp-sighted in such matters), commended in them their whiteness, seemliness, and proportion. The Virgin shuddered at the unforeseen vanity of so tiny a commendation, and, snatching up quicklime, torturingly disfigured both her hands, until by the most biting burning the skin was everywhere split into wrinkles and swelled here and there with little blisters — and this indeed with such pain and injury that for thirty days and more Rose could not dress herself; whence the maid Mariana had to be called to her aid: and she after the Virgin's death made known the whole matter as it had been done, which Rose's humility (like other and greater and very many things) had after her custom concealed.

[52] the austerity of her fastings, Long before, the humble Virgin had striven by every art to abolish the native grace of her most beautiful face, that she might not be able to please mortal eyes — and that not only by continual abstinence and dire mortifications, but also by very frequently pouring cold water over her whole body; she seemed now to have attained it, when in her bloodless face nothing conspicuous appeared beyond an obscure pallor and a hollow leanness. But when she found that by these signs the whole austerity of her fastings was little by little detected, estimated, and extolled by the curious, judging that she had more to fear from the moth of vainglory and of praises than from the excellence of an exceptional beauty, she fled to her accustomed protection of prayer, and by anxious petitions obtained from God that such a countenance should be fitted to her as at least the rigors of her abstinence, and of so many fastings

should not advertise their outward signs to mortal eyes. Wonderful to tell! Presently there returned to her worn cheeks a lively color, there was restored to her face a fuller plumpness, brightness to her brow, vigor to her eyes, so that it could almost have been sworn that Rose was utterly ignorant of what fasting is.

[53] Thence an amusing thing befell certain Arguses ^a curious in their idleness, so that after a long fast she was believed to have dined richly, who on the sixth day of the week, Good Friday, chatting by chance in the porch of the church, had observed Rose returning home with her mother from the church. The Virgin had passed that whole Lent on bread and water alone, but especially in those last days of Holy Week she had scarcely admitted a crumb of food; moreover from early morning of the preceding fifth day (which has its name from the Lord's Supper) continuously until noon of that sixth day she had remained unmoved in the same church of S. Dominic, keeping vigil before the most holy Host, then according to custom solemnly borne into the little coffer of the Holy Sepulchre, nor had she taken a morsel or a drop of water in all that interval of about thirty hours. While therefore the above-said jesters see her returning thence to her own house with her mother, somewhat glowing with a rosy face like the dawn, and in appearance vigorous, pleasant, and by no means discolored, they rashly suspected that the Virgin was coming from feasting and dainties; and jesting loudly and freely at her as she passed, they said: "Behold a nun sumptuously kept! behold how splendidly she declares by her face that she has been today lavishly refreshed by someone with delicacies! Is this how the Beatas fast?" The rash sharpness of a most absurd censure displeased her mother; but it wonderfully pleased humble Rose that her fastings should thus lie hidden, even to so ridiculous a slander of fattening and gluttony. It was a sting which did not wound Rose but delighted her.

[54] Equal was her solicitude and care to hide the remaining treasures of her graces, and her other virtues lest they should lie open as prey to human praises. Hence it came about that most of her illustrious works, visions, and hidden delights of the Spirit so lay hidden under the abstruse shade of a silent humility, that the constant sagacity of her mother, her companions, and her confessors could scarcely ever penetrate to the knowledge of a few of them. A certain person exceedingly celebrated for spirit and religion burned with a longstanding desire to explore more inwardly the great works of divine grace which now could not wholly be concealed in Rose's meadow. And so, despairing of any other scout, ^b she induced the Virgin's confessor by the authority in which she was strong to elicit, by the oblique windings of a tortuous questioning, whatever he could, even from one unwilling.

[55] Long did the confessor refuse, long did he hesitate, not ignorant she solicitously concealed, how arduous this would be for him. At last, an opportunity being either made or seized, with veiled interrogations he circled the Virgin from a distance; but she, most swiftly anticipating whither they tended, forestalled the inquiry, and broke off the annoyance with these most gentle words: "Know, my Father," she said, "that from my tender years I have ardently prayed God not to allow it to be made known to any mortal, if perchance his most deep mercy has begun to work anything condescendingly within the inner chambers of my poor little soul. The Inspector of hearts has granted my prayer; therefore cease to search, and do not weary me and yourself with a useless effort; let not the minister take away the benefit of this secrecy, since the Lord has granted it." Nevertheless, when once or twice, under the grave burden of conscience, she was subjected to an examination of her spirit both by her confessors and by the doctor John de Castillo (as below, chapter XII), she disclosed great and wonderful things, because she had to; yet she weighed in the balance caution and parsimony in her words, that she might answer nothing beyond what was asked. Whence I should believe that what she then modestly and unwillingly opened were very few things and almost commonplace, if they be compared with those which Rose kept sealed under the divine benefit of secrecy and the seal of humility.

[56] and she had the Mother of God as helper of this humility, The Mother of God, the very idea of the humble, wonderfully favored this virtue; since indeed she herself helped Rose as she humbly concealed the instruments of her mortification. The matter was thus. She had gone to the church of S. Dominic to pray according to custom, when, as she was there, a sudden recollection dismayed her of one of the various instruments fitted to the taming of her little body, which she had by chance left at home in an open place, where it could easily be seen by any of the household who might enter the chamber of the absent girl. The Virgin grew pale in confusion, fearing that by this evidence it would be discovered how greatly she was wont to devote herself to exercises of penance. Straightway therefore, turning in supplication to the Virgin Mother, she asked anxiously that she would come to the aid of her peril, and would hide that instrument in one of the places which she herself designated in her mind. At once the fear vanished, the dread departed, and Rose, returning home from prayer, found her instrument, not where she had left it, but where she had begged that it be hidden by the Mother of grace.

[57] which she joined with winning affability. So great a humility was inseparably accompanied by a most sweet gentleness, a placid affability, a mild brow: all who knew her wondered that never had a somewhat harsh, noisy, or censorious word fallen from her mouth; that never was speech of boasting, pride, or ostentation heard; that nothing sour or gloomy appeared in her manners or movements which savored of a sharp austerity. Wholly serene, courteous, kindly, she knew not how to be high-minded about herself, but only how to be subject to every human creature. You would have denied that she was a Rose, who so lacked thorns; but wait: for against herself she was wholly thorny, as the next four chapters will teach at length from the various chastisement of her body.

ANNOTATIONS.

CHAPTER V.

The Saint's prodigious abstinence, and her long fastings.

After the example of S. Catherine of Siena Upon a foundation so deep, broad, and solid it was fitting and safe that vast, lofty, and weighty pinnacles should be built. Truly the things which have become known — meagerly enough — concerning Rose's fastings transcend the power of narration: for (as we have said) very many lie hidden. This is established in summary: that the Virgin, along the footsteps of S. Catherine of Siena, wonderfully carried her practice of abstaining and fasting by degrees almost to the very summit of starvation. Let us examine each in its order.

[59] The little girl had not yet passed beyond the swaddling-clothes and years of infancy, from her tender years she had so accustomed herself to abstinence, when she forbade herself (a thing strange and hard at that little age) all eating of fruits. Often her attentive mother was astounded that her little one was taken by no sweetness or varied beauty of such dainties: for the fruits given her she presently gave to others, and never brought them even to her lips. At six years old, on the fourth, sixth, and sabbath days (unless her mother or the physician compelled otherwise), she abstained utterly from all cooked food, tasting nothing but bread and water. In the fifteenth year of her age she made a vow to abstain from flesh through the whole course of her life, so far as those to whom she was bound to obey should permit. This was in a tender girl a governance of hoary prudence, whereby she willed so to withdraw from her little body that at the same time she should withdraw nothing from another's right and command over her. Meanwhile ingenious stratagems were not wanting to the cautious little daughter, by which she long concealed from her mother this severe tenor of abstinence, lest by her she should be compelled to eat stronger food.

[60] Sometimes noble matrons, for devotion's sake, so that she could not digest flesh or broth, invited her mother with her Daughter into their houses, and, a banquet being soberly furnished, would ask both to recline with them together. This was most hard for the frugal Rose, whom even the smell of flesh offended. But her parent, more studious of pleasing the matrons than her Daughter, ordered her to eat flesh by all means, lest by the uncivil singularity of a stricter frugality she should seem to profane the honor of the table. The sorrowful Daughter obeyed, but with the greatest punishment of her unaccustomed stomach: for whatever of flesh she had forced upon herself, reluctant, had a little afterward, when she had gained a more secret corner, to be wholly given back upward, not without pitiable torment. And if at any time her sick stomach could by no force struggle out the hated morsel, a paroxysm ^a was at the doors, and a most burning fever invaded her as she sickened. Nor did she obey physicians with a milder outcome, if ever they attempted, when she was languishing or convalescing too slowly, to recall her to her former strength by the eating of flesh: for so far was it from the sick girl's being helped by that kind of nourishment, that even by a morsel, as by a poison, she was weakened by a relapse still more, and, the disease being renewed, not the sick girl but the sickness received strength.

[61] Once she had emerged from a rather doubtful illness, and, that she might be more quickly restored, and after these things, tasted at command, by the physician's prescription they had forced a very little flesh upon her fearful stomach; when behold, a sudden weariness of the whole body, then trembling and a swoon prostrated the wretched girl, and a sudden asthma settled upon her breast and lungs, pressed her, and shut off the faculty of breathing. Scarcely in several hours did the Virgin extricate herself from this distress, and for some days she could neither advance a step nor stand upon her feet, until, the power of her accustomed abstinence being restored to her, she too was gradually restored to herself. She had now almost recovered, and again they compelled her unwilling to a dish of flesh: again likewise the aforesaid symptoms returned, nor was there any remedy left save from her accustomed food of bread and water.

[62] she again and again relapsed into disease, She suffered from a frequent sciatica, ^b and generally with such vehemence of pains as overturned the bottom of her stomach. Under this torment she sometimes passed whole days together with the nights without food: but when the torment had somewhat abated, presently the piety of the household would press her to admit a broth made from flesh. She, most courteously refusing this, rather demanded that her familiar feast be brought her, bread and water: and when these had been brought, as though about to revel sumptuously, she dipped the crumb of the bread in cold water, and, when this had been taken, after a little while rose from her bed as if refreshed and richly enough restored. The treasurer Gonzalo saw Rose in his house recover twice or thrice by this medicine, not anaretic ^c but plainly anchoretic, protesting that he by no means grasped whence this fasting had in it the power of nourishing.

[63] as frequent experience taught. In the same place, on another occasion, when excessive signs of manifest weakness had been observed in the Virgin, the same master of the house wished her to take some little thing from the wing of a cooked bird, whereby she might somewhat raise her sinking stomach. Rose, though already taught by so many ills, nevertheless tried to comply with him as he urged. Scarcely had she swallowed the morsel when, foreboding the danger, she courteously left the table, rushed into the oratory next to the chamber, and drew the doors to; and when after her custom she had come forth thence somewhat pale toward late night, she confessed with some trepidation to the treasurer and his wife that it had lacked very little but that she should pay with death for that scanty portion which she had tasted of the bird, because of a dire obstruction of the chest which had almost suffocated the poor girl.

[64] Whence it had to be left to her own judgment These raw experiences impelled the compassionate treasurer to beseech the Virgin's confessors, physicians, and parents, one by one and almost with an adjuration, that they should not thereafter, by commanding the eating of flesh, wish Rose brought into danger of her life; that so many tragic specimens of the outcome sufficed as testimony of an obedience prompt beyond her strength;

that whatever should further be attempted to assail Rose's abstinence, upon which her life so plainly depended, would be cruel and openly displeasing to God. Rose too, under such an advocate, dared more freely to forestall the physicians, lest they should butcher, by thrusting flesh upon her to eat, the very woman whom they wished well; nay, she also refused to admit any other foods whatsoever of a more vigorous juice, saying that so it had seemed good to the Godhead, to whom the very laws of nature are servants at a nod. She was alluding perhaps to that heavenly vision (which she recalled) in which Christ, midway between rebuking and caressing, had taught Rose that he willed to be constantly honored by her with exercises of abstinence so rigid; that her life and health would be his care and at his heart; and that it must not be doubted that he who had lavished his own life on the cross for her, who had bought her so dearly with the last drop of his most precious blood poured out, who had heaped up in her soul so many treasures of grace and so great a wealth of heavenly gifts, would at last also grant to her earthly little body — nay, had already granted — that whereby it could do without the food of flesh. Let Aesculapius therefore yield; ^d be still, O physicians; for this that you behold is a divine mystery.

[65] More slowly was her mother persuaded to allow her Daughter with equanimity so severe a rule and form of the slenderest diet. As often as she noted either an excessive leanness in her bloodless face that cheap and moderate food should be taken, or her strength cast down below moderation, she arraigned this one rigid regimen of a most chastened frugality as though it were an atrocious crime, cried out impatiently, and thundered almost in those very words with which Lapa the mother once thundered against S. Catherine of Siena, proclaiming her singular, stubborn, and her own executioner. And when not even so did she prevail, imperiously she commanded that she should thereafter recline with her daily at the common table with the family, that she might at last see what and how much she ate. In turn the Daughter as suppliant obtained from her parent that at least those dishes should be permitted and prepared for her which she could not only take in but also digest. These things being settled to and fro as by a mutual pact, the prudent Daughter made the kitchen maid Mariana a party to her own side. From her she skillfully, and under a pledge of silence, extorted that she should prepare for her at each meal only a mess of pieces of bread and a handful of herbs, but without salt or seasoning, boiled in plain water, with only a very few raisins sprinkled in now and then, so that to her mother, attentive to every mouthful, she might seem to be dining pleasantly and sweetly, when a rare berry enriched the morsel. But utterly different was what was really being done: for the herbs which the Virgin had chosen for herself as food with singular care were most bitter, and tormented the palate with the malignity of a wild savor. With these dainties she soothed her taste, to which, lest a like seasoning should be lacking, she very often mixed ashes.

[66] She had heard that in a neighboring wood there grew an herb remarkably bitter beyond the rest: which she seasoned with the bitterest herbs she ordered this to be brought her secretly, and from it thereafter an insipid pottage to be prepared for her; and lest the supply of so exquisite a provision should fail, she planted that same herb in her little garden and cultivated it solicitously with her own hands, persuading her mother that it was useful for medicinal purposes. Once her curious parent found in the garden hedge a little vessel full of mutton gall; and at once suspecting what was the fact, she asked her Daughter why she had hidden it in that place, or to what good end. Rose, seeing herself detected, simply answered that she used it to sprinkle upon her mess. A distinguished provocative, truly, for stimulating the appetite. It afterward became known (the maid Mariana revealing it) that Rose was accustomed, almost every dawn on which she was not to be refreshed by the sacred Communion, to steep her whole mouth in this austere first course of gall in memory of the Lord's Passion. Especially, however, on the sixth days of the week, as though about to dine with Christ upon the cross from the vinegary sponge, she made herself from the same gall and a little crust of bread an electuary, with biting vinegar and copious tears poured over drop by drop; in her own tongue she used to call this kind of sauce GASPACHOS, ^e because it was taken cold. When the supply of gall failed, there succeeded in its stead certain leaves of a most bitter shrub, by the sucking and chewing of which she recalled with wounded thought the ill-flavored hyssop of Christ thirsting in death.

[67] There grows as a shrub in that fertile tract of the western Indies a wonderful plant, she secretly seasoned. which is called by the natives GRANADILLA; ^f I should have believed that the Latins still lacked a proper name for a thing seen so late, save that, by way of a supplying periphrasis, faithful Europe is wont to call it the flower of the Passion. Here, by a marvelous sport of nature, most of the instruments of the Lord's death and of our redemption unfold themselves conspicuously, as it were into the compendium of a small stage: for among the little leaves, prettily dotted with bloody spots, there rises a little column, the support of the scourged God; beneath this a crown of thorns lies round about, above three fixed nails stand out, hanging scourges as it were thread by thread mark off the circuit of the leaves, and grains of exquisite flavor fill the middle hollow in heaps. And so it was not the seeds of this blessed flower that pleased Rose for food, because they are sweet, but the tendrils, because they are most bitter: on these, boiled, she fed the more gladly, because both by the bitterness of the juice and by their kinship with the flower they represented Good Friday more aptly than a dinner.

[68] Her fastings were so frequent We must now pass to her fastings, although it might not undeservedly be doubted whether the torment could have been harsher from hunger itself or from such foods. Those who solemnly testified concerning Rose's virtues after her death have noted that she had two kinds of fastings: one common, in which once in the day she tasted a very slender little refection of bread and water, but only toward night; the other she called her own, in which through the whole day and night she tasted absolutely nothing. The first, although it was almost daily, especially in the last years of her life, which she completed in the house of the treasurer Gonzalo, she nevertheless observed in a peculiar manner every year, after the rule of the Dominican institute, during those seven continuous months which flow between the feast of the exalted Holy Cross and the Pasch of the Resurrection, consecrated to the fasting of the Order. In these months therefore she mortified herself more exactly by a diminution even of herbs and bread, until, when Lent began, she withdrew from herself all bread whatever, living most sparingly on the seeds of oranges alone; for of these she took not more than five on the sixth days of the week, with only a draught of mutton gall added, that by this daintiness she might more vividly ruminate on the bitterness of Christ's five wounds.

[69] and so long-lasting, For the remaining time of the year she had enjoined upon herself so short a measure of bread that what was believed to be enough for a single day she scarcely consumed entirely in a whole week. While Rose was still in her own home, inhabiting her cell, concerning which below, the wife of the treasurer Gonzalo used to send her weekly eight little cakes of coarser bread, that at least one whole one might daily be spent upon necessary food. But when the week had rolled by, and an allowance of as many fresh loaves came in, it was found that Rose out of the eight very small loaves had eaten only one and a half in all that week, six and a half namely being given back, which had remained over in the store.

[70] and her food so sparing, I know not whether I should call what follows a fast or plain starvation. It was observed that the Virgin, with a single loaf, and that a small enough one, and a little vessel of water, passed a whole fifty days without any other food or drink — namely from the Pasch of the Resurrection until Pentecost. Likewise in another year she ran through the whole interval of the same fifty days utterly without drink, not swallowing even a drop of water. But when the treasurer's house received her as a lodger, it was nothing new if she passed several continuous days without any food at all: generally too on the fifth day of the week she was accustomed to shut herself there in the household oratory, and not to move thence until the Sabbath: so that within this space of three days, altogether sleepless, she not only lacked all bodily food and drink, but also (which most carried away the treasurer Gonzalo into admiration) remained during all that time fixed to a single corner, so that she did not depart from it even for a moment for any necessity whatever. Doubtless her little body, empty from starvation, was sustained by the fatness of the spirit, whose fattening was the meditation of heavenly things.

[71] At one time, when she had communicated, the sacramental species alone conferred so much strength upon her so that it might rightly be called starvation. that in the strength of that food she admitted no other nourishment for a whole eight days. Once, being compelled outside the accustomed time to take some little thing, when she could not retain it in her stomach, she gave it back, and, as though guilty of intemperance, condemned herself to a rigid starvation of ten days.

Finally, even in the drinking of plain water she found a way whereby, whether she drank or abstained, she might defraud her taste: for that she might withdraw relief and refreshment from the burning of her throat, she passed whole weeks without drink; and when she was about to drink, she sipped water not cold but warm, fearing to find so much as a little delight in chilled water. Being asked the reason, she gave another, namely that by this means she was remedying the drowsiness which a draught especially of cold water provokes. Let it be permitted here to pass over other lesser things, since I think these suffice for nothing commonplace to be conjectured about the inimitable frugality of this Virgin and the parsimony of her diet.

Far more wonderful was what the household noted, that Rose always drew more strength from fastings and long starvation than from bodily food: but (as we shall relate below) this too she had in common with her mistress S. Catherine of Siena, that she applied her hungry mouth to the wounded side of Christ: since indeed outside this favor and honeycomb neither the Disciple nor the mistress knew anything else whereby they could be satisfied.

ANNOTATIONS.

it is placed. It is elegant, laden with its fruit on account of its size: it bears a flower like a white rose, in whose petals certain marks as it were of the Passion of Christ (says Monardes) are seen delineated, which you would suppose to have been painted there with great diligence, etc.

CHAPTER VI.

The hairshirts, scourges, and chains with which the holy little Virgin afflicted her tender body.

The Saint, to appease the divine anger It is a wonder that in a little body dry and attenuated by so many fastings there remained room to receive scourges, and blood to follow the blows. Nevertheless there was in Rose so great an ardor and zeal for chastising her body that a limit had to be set to her by her confessors. In the beginning, when she had begun to wear the habit of S. Catherine of Siena, not content with common cords, she had fitted for herself two iron chains for a scourge, and with these, in imitation of her holy Father Dominic, every night she made her back and shoulders so hardly and dreadfully bloody that streams of blood were noted upon the walls, upon the pavement, upon her undergarments. The innocent Virgin believed that she owed these punishments to her own sins. But besides, pitying public calamities, she busied herself by these means, after the pattern of her mistress, to appease the anger of the Godhead and to mitigate its justice: whence, now for the distresses of the whole holy Mother Church, now for the straits of the endangered commonwealth, she cut herself down as a bloody victim most unmercifully, that she might obtain clemency, and by wounds avert wounds.

[73] for the public need of the kingdom of Peru If any scourges were divinely threatening either the kingdom of Peru or the city of Lima, her native place, she strove to turn them aside by her own scourges: nor, unmindful of the souls boiling in the flames of purgatory, she doubled the blows of the chains into new streams of gore, which might quench part of the pyre. At like cost she strove to obtain aid for the dying for that supreme moment of so great moment, upon which eternity hangs. For the rest, for others' faults, for making compensation for the injuries of sinners against the majesty of God, for their conversion to better fruit, it cannot be told with how many furrows of scourges, with how many bruises of weals she ploughed herself day by day: the daily labor and pain of striking knew no holidays, and she so distributed it among the different parts of the body that, while the wounds of one part were given their turn to subside and knit together, she passed to another, and from this on the next day a return was made to the former, scarcely yet knit: further, this alternate but raw vicissitude of blows tormented the more cruelly the sharper the feeling was in the parts injured the day before.

[74] or of the city of Lima The household had become accustomed (though the Virgin knew it not) to hear these blows of the disciplines every night from the most secret part of the house; but once they shuddered beyond what was usual, when Rose, with no distinction now between the injured and the uninjured parts, raged more vehemently and longer against her whole self, with a widely resounding noise of blows. The occasion had been given by a certain popular disturbance in the city of Lima, arisen (as usually happens) from slight beginnings. An apostolic man, and an exceptional radiance of the Seraphic Order, the venerable Father Brother Francis Solanus, famous in life and after death by a constant repute of sanctity and a glory of prodigies, ^a had by chance in a sermon brought forth certain things somewhat obscurely, which the common people of Lima, having wrongly understood, had wrested into a sense altogether foreign. Hence a sudden dread pervaded the whole city, as though, by a public prophecy of Father Solanus, it was shortly to be swallowed by a gaping of the earth; which nevertheless he had neither said nor dreamed. ^b Rose, being warned of the danger in which both the celebrated name of the holy Man and the tranquility of drooping Lima were tottering, grieved sorrowfully, and empurpled that night with dread-sounding scourges upon her own flesh, that by the price of her own blood she might lull the common disturbance of her people, which to the wise seemed more dangerous than any earthquake.

[75] Master Brother John de Lorenzana, the Virgin's confessor, with an iron scourge and in other ways, when he judged that this rigor of the disciplines ought to be tempered a little more fairly to the weakness of her body, Rose extorted from him with the greatest entreaties that at least it might be permitted her within a certain space of days to inflict five thousand blows upon herself — which is piously believed to be the number of strokes which Christ received in his cruel scourging. This permission having been obtained, Rose was as solicitous not to exceed that number as to fulfill it. Since indeed, that she might not exceed it, she begged a new permission from her confessor as often as either some need of her neighbors or a public cause seemed to demand a special succor from her. But that she might fulfill it, she observed most attentively on how many days, lying sick from time to time from infirmity, she had been hindered from the practice of the daily discipline; and, a diligent reckoning having been made, when she had recovered, she so divided into the next period of days the portions of the omitted blows that, compensation being made, she exactly equaled the permitted number of five thousand, and no less briskly completed at the same time the number corresponding to the present period of days. With like obedience she acquiesced in her confessor when he commanded that the excessive atrocity of the iron chain be exchanged for another scourge, twisted of cords but knotted and rough, that she might more humbly conform herself to the more common usage of her Order. Accordingly, whether Rose laid aside or took up this iron ploughshare of her shoulders more holily, I leave undecided.

[76] Further, how eagerly Rose's genius inclined to the exercises of penance to which she had been accustomed from very childhood, she had already abundantly shown almost from infancy by serious preludes. She was four years old when she began to vex her tender shoulders (for the scourging of which the untrained girl still then lacked cords), now with the weights of raw bricks, now with the burden of a heavy log, as though from then on she attempted to carry the cross after Christ laboring under the trouble of the infamous wood. Mariana, the household maid, for a while the only one privy to these secrets, was alone the Virgin's confidante. Her, therefore, called aside now into a more remote corner of the garden, now into the upper room of the house, she besought on bended knees that she would (what she herself, being tender, could not yet do with her own hands) load her little shoulders with the weight of the bricks scattered there: under that mass and heavy crushing the little one continued in long and laborious prayer; at last she would nod to the maid to take away the weight without noise, lest perhaps her mother, coming upon them, should disturb the scene of her furtive devotion and shut off the approach to repeating the like.

[77] At other times, under the same silence, she asked that her shoulder be weighed down with a shapeless beam, she afflicted her tender body, and, her scanty strength being gathered, she strove with straining to bear the most hard burden until she should finish her prayers, which were good and long. She burned, unequal to the load, she groaned, she struggled, until sometimes, conquered, she was pressed down to the ground. These were the rudiments of a severer warfare, which her riper age, as it promised to her spirit, so it threatened to her body. She had not yet passed her fourteenth year when it began to be noted among her other works of penance that at night she walked about the garden barefoot with a long cross laid upon her, which while she carried on her bruised shoulders she dashed herself upon the ground with frequent genuflections, measuring the most bitter way of Calvary with equal steps and sighs; nor was any inclemency of a malign air, no dreadful darkness, no colds, no whirlwinds of winds unpleasing to the Virgin, who summoned from every quarter to her little body whatever of discomforts she could.

[78] and being forbidden to scourge herself with the iron chain, It had been forbidden her (as we have touched upon above) to employ the iron chain any longer for a scourge. She interpreted the matter thus: not that she should spare the chain altogether, but only that she should not strike with it. And so she bound it most tightly about her loins with a threefold winding, put a lock into the outermost little rings of the joining, and hid away the little key where not even she herself could recover it. This was a most secret kind of torment, and one which would have lain hidden from all either long or perhaps forever: for Rose wished even Mariana herself, the secretary of her works, to be ignorant of it; but God did not so wish; whence at last it came to light thus. In the dead of night a most acute pain of the hips had invaded Rose on her bed; the afflicted girl felt that the whole evil was from the chain, as one which through the worn-away skin lay deep here and there upon flesh and sinews; whence the chill of the iron had drawn her reins and sides into a sympathy of most atrocious pain. Rose was distressed, because she alone could neither break the harmful chain nor unfasten the lock without the key.

[79] she girt her little body so tightly with it that it penetrated the flesh, Meanwhile there grew, under the indissoluble bond, the atrocious torment of the sciatica, which at last, after long groans, extorted even pitiable wailings from the unwilling Rose. Mariana, waking, sprang up, came to lift the sick girl, offered whatever service should be to the purpose, and at the same time asked perplexedly about the disease and the cause of the disease. Here the wretched Virgin had to betray her secret, that she might seek from the maid counsel and a means whereby the chain might be loosed before her mother, awakened, should run to the help of both. They both tried what they could; struggle and consultation took turns: but to neither did the firm obstinacy of the stubborn lock yield. The maid remembered that locks of this kind are sometimes opened by a strong blow: while therefore she goes off to seek a stone, the anxious Rose, fearing that her mother would either be called or would presently come of her own accord, fled to prayer, which like a key penetrated both heaven and the lock. Wonderful thing! Mariana, returning with the stone, hears the lock springing apart of itself with a resounding crack; the chain is gradually loosened, drawn down, wholly pulled away; but here and there a tearing away was needed, which skin and gore followed. Rose, having discharged this contest, sought rest again, that the maid might seek the same; and when morning came, as though she had suffered nothing grievous, she hastened to her accustomed labors.

[80] and therefore her confessor even ordered it to be taken away. Scarcely had the wounds of the torn skin closed when Rose returned to her chain, and again girt herself with the former torment of the iron; until at last (it is uncertain by what indications) her confessor learned of it, who straightway commanded the Virgin to send the chain to him without delay, just as it was. She obeyed, tore away from her loins the chain again grown to her flesh, and, having carefully wrapped it in a cloth together with the lock, handed it to the sacristan Brother Blasius Martinez, to be carried straight to the confessor. The sacristan, suspecting from the weight that there were golden collars within, or precious necklaces, when he had left the Virgin, unfolded the wrapping, and found a treasure unlike gold: a chain steeped in fresh blood, which the flesh and skin clinging to it bit by bit had conspicuously enough dotted in various places. Some of its little rings or links, preserved for a while after Rose's death with Lady Maria de Usategui, breathed a wonderful but to all a strange sweet fragrance — witnesses, doubtless, of the painful sweat which they had drunk in from Rose's little body.

[81] Nor were the fleshy parts of her arms free from bonds of this kind: Then she bound her arms with bands, for about these Rose had placed, for torment, certain tight ligatures, which perpetually tortured the folded muscles; but they vexed her upper arms then most of all, as often as either something had to be lifted from the ground or the arms had to be stretched upward. Meditating in these secretly painful knots, she accompanied her Spouse, bound in the garden of Gethsemane, to the houses of Caiaphas, Annas, and Pilate. Nor had the skin so covered these bindings, tight though they were, but that Mariana could see them when she tended Rose's torn shoulders: for this kind of service was often required, because in Rose's back there continually lay open gashes, upon which Mariana, when bidden, at intervals sprinkled unknown powders, lest they should gather corrupt matter, and covered them with blotting-paper, to be renewed the next day when the beatings were repeated. Further, while bands and cords constricted her arms and loins, handfuls of nettles and tiny briars

vexed with most frequent biting her breast, armpits, and sides, that no part might be free from torment, while by chance a hairshirt was still lacking through poverty. Thus, doubtless, Rose amid briars conformed herself to the lily among thorns.

[82] But when she saw herself enriched, as with a vast gift, by a short hairshirt, she wore a shaggy hairshirt, as though she had obtained purple, fine linen, or a robe of state, she congratulated herself and her trembling flesh upon the new belt of penance, the war-cloak of rigor. In the beginning, indeed, though rough, it nevertheless seemed less broad and ample than the Virgin had wished, inasmuch as it scarcely exceeded the measure of two palms. But a little afterward another succeeded, from the generous gift of a religious person, which rendered Rose contented in every respect. This was sleeved, and hung down from neck and shoulders below the knees; shaggy, most thickly woven of the coarser bristles of horses, it almost equaled the weight of a cuirass. This ponderous roughness, as by its own thickness scarcely to be folded, so by its hardness not to be untangled, could have sufficed for the highest austerity to any more robust nursling of penance, and yet it was not enough for Rose: for by fixing very short needles everywhere in it, she more diligently armed the hairy inner garment against herself. You would have believed her a hedgehog, not a rose. To the Virgin, nevertheless, this most coarse shag seemed not so much a hairshirt as a mantle, and she used it through several years, until, on account of frequent vomiting of blood, she was compelled by another's command to put off this harmful coat of mail.

[83] Yet she herself devised another way of chastising her little body, and tormented each of the members of her body which she secretly substituted for the former — with less damage perhaps to her health, but with no lighter distress. She had fitted for herself, in the form of a shift, a sack heavy with the coarsest shag, and, lest the hairy coarseness could be detected, she had drawn linen coverings over the ends of the sleeves. Under this weight Rose burned, grew stiff, and was wearied, drained of strength; in walking she advanced her step only with the greatest difficulty, and whether she had sat down or had fixed her knees on the ground, she raised herself with pain upon her feet; every motion was a punishment; her limbs languished as under a burden; and she seemed to herself to be clad in an undergarment of lead rather than of hemp. Only the lowest soles of her feet remained, which neither the hairshirt nor the blows of the discipline reached; nevertheless the solicitous tamer of her flesh found a way whereby to dispense to these too their own portion of torments. Therefore, as often as at home the oven was kindled for baking bread, Rose seized the occasion, and with bared soles trod unmoved upon the topmost mouth of the furnace, where the force of the heat burst forth more vehemently. There with a most keen sense she meditated on the dire burnings of Gehenna, which she affirmed more than seriously were owed to her. Thus at last from the sole of her foot to the crown of her head there was nothing left over in her to receive voluntary torments.

[84] with a peculiar torment. With these blandishments Rose soothed that slender little body, which otherwise had punishments enough from frequent infirmities, as will be seen below in its place; nor was courage lacking to her to attempt even greater things than these, had not her prudent confessors forbidden, who again and again, interposing a precept of moderation, cried out that a discreet account must be taken of her strength. Truly, how little a friend Rose was to her own body, let this be the supreme example: that the most cautious Virgin did not allow even the delights of the spirit to overflow to the solace of the body. Very few friends of God are read to have had this care; of one alone, Gregory Lopez the Mexican, ^c had Rose read it, and straightway she took it upon herself to be imitated. Therefore, even to this most subtle division of flesh and spirit, she had chosen to be conformed to her crucified Spouse, inasmuch as he allowed neither the glory of his soul to be derived into his body still mortal, nor the joys of the higher part into the lower, lest he should hinder his passion. Rose too felt her spirit growing sweet, her mind made drunk, her soul fattened from the wonderful savor and foretaste of heavenly things; but meanwhile she took heed, and (so far as she could) stood in the way, lest her wretched body, which she had destined for suffering and torment alone, should be admitted to any communion or sympathy, however small, in such banquets: and, if the King brought her into his storerooms, she herself bade her body stand outside. I judge that this rare divorce may be reckoned among Rose's more sublime works.

ANNOTATIONS.

CHAPTER VII.

The spiked crown with which she girt her head.

She placed upon her head a crown It was fitting that the dear Disciple of B. Catherine of Siena should be crowned with laurel in the school of patience after the prototype of her mistress. Wonderful is this ambition of the Saints, whereby they prefer to carry about in the exile of this life Christ's crown of thorns rather than one of gold. But for roses especially it is neither safe nor seemly to lack a thorny hedge. But to the matter. On the very border between adolescence and childhood, a devout and most tender compassion had most bitterly pricked Rose's little heart, from her most eager gaze upon a pious image which with mute proclamation cried out, Behold the Man. She lingered upon that plaited thicket which had bloodily settled upon Christ's crown; she was ashamed to be seen a delicate member under a thorny Head. And so she then folded for herself a first crown (of the second there will be treatment a little below) out of malleable tin, which represented a coil, whether of cords or of little rods twisted in a mutual interweaving. To this at fixed intervals she had put certain little nails sharpened toward the inside, and with this diadem she secretly girt her head, not without wounding — a victim crowned beneath her fillets.

[86] For several years the pious Virgin endured and hardened under this burdensome thorn-brake of the head; armed with ninety-nine points, but that was only the childish first campaign of the more robust torment which threatened from a second crown, armed with ninety and nine points. This latter she placed upon herself about the tenth year before her death, that is, a little after she had taken the robe of the Dominican Order, and laid it aside only with her life: namely, when she had begun to contemplate more attentively the thorny crown of her Redeemer, wonderfully transferred to the head of S. Catherine of Siena, she judged that she must by no means rest until she should summon the same thence likewise to her own crown, with the most religious emulation she could; nor did she seem to herself to have put on the whole habit of her seraphic mistress, unless she had also put on her crown of thorns.

[87] With new ardor therefore, and with a desire of suffering, she bent a silver plate for herself into a circle, whose form is described, and to this from within she fixed three ranks of points of the same metal, in such a way that each row contained thirty and three points, namely for the number of the years of Christ which he, mortal for mortals, completed on earth. Certainly nothing could have been devised either more pious for the pious mother of the head (as the physicians call it), or harder for the dura mater, ^a had not piety itself suggested this hardness. Further, lest her hairs, which after their cutting had grown shorter, should stand in the way of a deeper impression of the points, she had removed all her hair with a razor down to the living skin, yet some unkempt lock was left upon her forehead, by which the crown might be covered during the day, so as to lie hidden from her mother. Although this very slight remainder of hair upon the top of her head had also another use, for new increases of pains. But of this in the following chapter, where the concise narrative will pass to Rose's vigils.

[88] and which the Virgin studiously used, How dreadfully this toothed garland bit, how torturingly it pricked on every side the veiled head of the holy girl — for whose torture a single little needle would have been enough — it is right to conjecture from this: that the thorns did not all invade the bared skin at once, but one after another, two, three, or more, in a most troublesome succession, and, according to the occasion and variety of her movements, each was bent aslant within the narrow spaces of each wound. It has been ascertained that under this most dense thicket of piercing metal speech itself was painful to the Virgin: what if her breast was shaken by a cough? if her wretched head was relieved by a sneeze, or if another importunate necessity of coughing more strongly moved her face and the set of her mouth more violently?

[89] that she might daily But these things seemed to Rose mere play, and worthy of the aid of art, whereby they might rage more unmercifully. And so, where the ends of the crown or plate came together, she wove in ribbons crosswise, by drawing which she not only held in this pointed circle, lest it should either stray from its place or of itself grow loose, but also, as often as it pleased her to increase the pain, by drawing the ends of the ribbons more tightly she did violence to her own torment; but especially on the sixth days of the week did this makeweight of punishments please the Virgin, in memory of her Spouse crowned with briars. She would have preferred, for a more conformable likeness, to wear a crown of wild thorns, and had treated seriously of that matter with her confessor; but he dissuaded her, because he feared that under a rotting thorn a grave purulence could easily grow in Rose's head. She too acquiesced, considering that a crown of that kind could not conveniently enough be hidden beneath a veil, since the points would project without order, and that too much would be lost to her torment if not all the points down to the last inclined inward. Therefore a plate had to be used, and that of silver, so that it might both lie more solidly against the skin to be wounded and hold the fixed little thorns more tenaciously. Nor did the outcome deceive her: for after the Virgin's death a goldsmith, who had been enjoined to pluck out some of the thorns of the little plate (perhaps that they might pass into the home or use of devout persons demanding them), applying pincers, found each so firm that not one could be drawn out, although at the pull of the iron they were bent this way and that. So that you may understand that Rose's thorns yielded no more to her in her suffering than she yielded to them.

[90] torture herself more and more; Nor yet content with this daily torment, she found a way whereby she might open new wounds day by day: for when in the morning she was about to place the crown upon her head, she never fixed it in the same place in which the day before

it had stood, but, the position being a little changed, she shifted the band to one part and another, that by an alternating variation it might prick more harshly and might renew the pain in an untouched place. Further, on every sixth day of the week she added this to the heap, that she let the crown down as far as the cartilages of her ears and the bottom of her occiput, so that the very dense siege of goads might both more troublesomely gird her temples (where the flesh is softer and the feeling more delicate) and wound them more deeply. The same she repeated on the Sabbath, to suffer with the Virgin Mother, whose soul the sword of grief had pierced in the death of her Son.

[91] Long did this thicket of so bloody a comb lie hidden from her familiars, her household, and her mother herself: until this torment, which long lay hidden from the household, for who, beneath the fillet and veil of a most cautious Virgin, would either have noticed or sought so deadly a punishment? Her confessor himself, who had permitted Rose this secret kind of penance (for without his nod the compliant Virgin undertook nothing even the least), being only cursorily aware of the spiked wearing, had neither seen the crown nor even touched with a slender suspicion the strange contrivances by which Rose was wont to provoke it more atrociously against herself. But at length the providence of the Godhead did not allow the matter to be concealed longer, and brought it about that an example of so great a virtue should flow forth into the timely knowledge of many. It was an accident: her father was seeking Rose's brother by blood for a whipping on account of a boyish offense; Rose interposed herself somewhat coaxingly, to appease her father's anger; but he, while he impetuously pushes aside his Daughter standing in his way, by a chance error of his hand struck lightly upon the Virgin's head, in that part where the covered crown was raging: presently three streams of blood followed the unforeseen blow and empurpled in their course the forehead of the innocent Daughter, with sufficiently manifest indication of what a hedgehog was secretly nesting beneath her white covering.

[92] Here Rose, grieving that she was betrayed rather than struck, and at last was discovered by accident, blushed doubly; yet, trying to dissemble what was the case, she cautiously withdrew into a more secret chamber, hastily laid aside the crown, wiped away the gore as if in sport, and, having placed on little cloths to drink up the dripping of the wounded place, she straightway covered her head with the accustomed veils. But by this clever flight she neither deceived nor escaped her alarmed mother; when Mariana the maid, following the Daughter at once, asks about the wound; inquires the cause why blood should have burst forth from a light touch; and finally, though Rose excused herself and vainly begged off, the more suspicious mother orders the fillet to be loosed and the head bared: which when she saw dreadfully dotted all round in a circle, she easily conjectured whence these signs were in so bloody a zodiac. Nevertheless she kept silent, not ignorant that her Daughter, if she were compelled to betray or cast away her thorn-brake, would easily and soon devise others, and indeed far more savage, with which she would go on to torment her head. And so then, as though ignorant of the mystery, she gently washed her daughter's head with warm wine, as much as she either believed, or feigned to believe, would suffice for a cure to the injured parts, intending meanwhile to devise another remedy against the crown itself.

[93] Nor was there delay: the course of the matter was reported to one who might more surely forbid the Virgin the use of the crown; our John de Villalobos somewhat mitigated it. namely, to one of the spiritual Fathers to whose guidance Rose was obedient. This was the Reverend Father John de Villalobos, ^b Rector of the college of the Society of Jesus at Lima, a Man most celebrated for holiness and religion, and a most skilled charioteer for leading souls by the safer short paths of perfection. As soon as what had been done became known to him, he at once commanded Rose to bring him whatever that was with which she had hitherto thornily tortured her head. She brought her crown, not even allowing herself the little space in which to wipe away sufficiently the marks of blood between the points of the spikes. The prudent and pious Father, beholding it when it was brought, not without horror and compassion, judged it more rigid than befitted that sex and the tenderness of her age. Accordingly he assailed the Virgin with reasons, in order to dissuade her utterly from the most severe use of the cruel instrument. She, noticing that he dealt with her by reason, not by command, in turn humbly opposed her own reasons; at last it was agreed on both sides that her crown should be restored to her as she asked, but mitigated. And thus the provident and discreet Father, seizing a file, blunted, dulled, and rubbed down here and there the more prominent points of the crown, thinking that by this tempering he had gained, if not enough, yet not a little.

[94] This spiked crown But Rose, valuing the crown more than a kingdom, rejoiced that she had recovered it with the number of the thorns unimpaired, and at least disarmed by that chastening only moderately. Therefore she looked again to her former supplements of pains, and now to the painful drawing of the ribbons she added this also, that sometimes with her fist she struck the crown, that it might penetrate more deeply into her head: for the diligent file had not so worn down the points that they did not discharge their office of drawing blood. This appeared on a certain occasion, when Rose, by a chance fall to the ground, struck her head lightly against a nearby desk, whereupon at once, because of the crown driven more forcibly into her crown of the head, copious blood ran down upon her shoulder. Of Christ's thorny garland the Church sings: "Happy thorn, whose points break the strength of the king of Tartarus." Our Rose deserved to experience the very same in her own also: for as often as the Tartarean enemy drew near the Virgin to suggest foul and sordid things, no other artillery was needed to drive him far off than that the watchful Rose should strike her crown three times with her finger, in reverence of the Most Holy Trinity. It was a drum, by whose light touch the demon, struck, declined the contest by a most shameful flight. Sweeter, and perhaps more wonderful, is what has been ascertained about the power of this crown after the Virgin's death.

[95] filled him who touched it with spiritual joy A certain most religious servant of God, a little after Rose's obsequies had been carried out, had gone to the house of the treasurer Gonzalo with this intention only, that he might devoutly handle the instruments with which Rose while living had tamed her virginal flesh. There was offered him, along with the ring, the crown bristling with thorns, and scarcely had he laid his hands upon these when suddenly he began to glow with a certain unwonted conflagration of divine love, to melt in the inmost depth of his spirit, to grow sweet with an admirable taste of heavenly delights, as though from those very thorns he had gathered the grapes of paradise, and from the briars figs, into the palate of his soul. But of this prodigy a more convenient treatment will return below in chapter XI, when Rose's nuptial ring must be treated: here let it suffice to have hinted how seriously and festively heaven itself applauded this crown, when in honor of so rigid a piercing it distilled an unction so sweet and precious.

[96] after the holy Virgin's death, Let it not weary us to turn our eyes here again to the thorn-bearing prototype of S. Catherine of Siena, which our Rose, crowned with thorns, so seemed to imitate that she did not so much fully express it as transfer it into herself. Receive in a few words a notable argument of this matter, which was observed at Rose's funeral. While the corpse of the dead woman lay exposed on the bier, that heavenly providence (to which nothing is fortuitous) had disposed that there should be lacking the flowery garland which should according to custom encircle the virginal head. The hour was pressing for carrying out the funeral to burial; but the earthly flowers seemed to have fled, as unworthy to crown a Rose now heavenly. Therefore, in that confused and anxious perplexity of some urging on this side, others delaying on that, recourse had at last to be had (not without the prompting of the Godhead) to the crowned image of S. Catherine of Siena, which Rose while she lived had been accustomed to adorn: her own garland, therefore, known publicly to all, is for the time transferred to the Disciple; under this Rose is carried out from Gonzalo's house to the tomb, so that she who living had expressed her seraphic mistress to the life by her thorny wearing might also dead represent her more evidently under a crown common to both. All who had recognized the mystery approved the deed, certain that this singular testimony of virtue had befallen the Virgin not from human contrivance, but by a counsel of necessity fortunate rather than fortuitous.

[97] Hither at last this also seems to pertain, and she herself was seen to be crowned in heaven on account of it. that, while the funeral pomp thus crowned Rose on earth, by a not dissimilar portent the court of the Blessed crowned her in heaven, so that from both sides it may be perceived that she succeeded to the very crown of S. Catherine of Siena. The matter became known thus: soon after Rose's happy passing, a certain person of exceptional sanctity and name beheld in an imaginary vision, among myriads of angels, a glorious throng of holy Virgins walking straight to the throne of the Most Holy Trinity: in the midst of the column Rose shone, bearing a palm in her hand, and white in a snowy garment, but not yet crowned like the rest: since indeed at the base of that divine throne stood the Virgin Mother of God, holding in her right hand a gleaming crown, with which she herself, about to invest Rose with her own hands, was awaiting this solemn procession of Virgins. Doubtless by a most similar rite S. Catherine of Siena had once been received in heaven when she left the earth, so that thus between mistress and Disciple, from the thorny crown to the golden one, there should remain no unlikeness. Happy thorns, to which from such a hand such a diadem succeeded in heaven!

ANNOTATIONS.

CHAPTER VIII.

S. Rose's hard little bed, and her nightly vigils.

The ingenious Virgin devised various means, So great was her care of mortifying her body that she did not allow even the few hours of nightly rest to be free from torment: hence she wished her bedding to have such hardness as would drive sleep away rather than call it; nay, art and industry at last proceeded so far that the little bed on which she was to sleep should be also a rack. Thus indeed nothing was indulged to her afflicted body, and there was taken from sleep what should accrue to prayer. Her attentive mother early smelled out whither her Daughter was tending: for almost from infancy she had noted in the girl both zeals, that of lying harder and that of dissembling her austerity; whence for some time she ordered her to lie with her in the same little bed through the night, that she might elude art by art. Rose obeyed, but with such ingenuity that she nonetheless most dexterously joined in that very maternal bed the merits of obedience and of penance: for scarcely had sleep crept upon her mother when the Virgin gradually removed the part of the mattress upon which she had lain, until the boards beneath received her little body, and for her head a piece of wood, or a brick hidden close by, took the place of the pillow which she had drawn away. The same was S. Catherine of Siena's contest with her mother Lapa, the same her stratagem.

[99] by which she might lie most hard, Rose, glad at her success, went on more securely not only to bare for herself the boards on which she might sleep, but also to look about for a rougher stone which she might put under her neck: but after long roundabout courses, her mother, waking, at length interrupted her Daughter's cleverness, and, as though a monstrous crime had been detected, rebuked the girl, adding the reproach of crafty obstinacy: if it was so determined by her that her mother

should be deceived, let her go on, and let her thereafter by her own judgment board up for herself whatever bed she pleased, provided nevertheless that she allow her head at least a more humane pillow, and lay upon the very boards a single covering of a simple blanket. At this word Rose's spirit danced; she snatched the maternal permission, though sour with quarrel and bile, as a sweet caress, seized the condition with eager hand, and gave her mother the tenderest thanks for so liberal an indulgence. Thereupon presently, having sought out boards and joined them together in a roomy corner of her chamber, she threw a rough blanket over them; she placed on it besides two little cushions for appearance; and with little labor she completed a pallet, as her mother had permitted. But as often as night drew on, the little cushions being removed, there succeeded a log rough on every side, and pebbles hidden by day beneath the bed for this use were arranged under the blanket, that by that unevenness the body might be hurt, for which the exceedingly hard flatness of the boards was feared to be a delight. How greatly these scattered whetstones of sharp pebbles projecting beneath the blanket dotted Rose as she lay, is easy to conjecture: indeed in the very solid planks the pitted traces of the pebbles conspicuously appeared, and the boards themselves, worn away here and there into little hollows, testified sufficiently how softly the emaciated Rose had lain upon them.

[100] and her mother observing these things For the rest, the pebbles, being disposed here and there and loosely, easily gave way to the mass whenever her little body had to be turned to the other side. Therefore things both harder and more stable seemed to be added as a supplement of the rack; namely, she laid three twisted, unhewn, knotty pieces of wood upon the boards, and fastened them between the joints with slender pegs beneath the blanket, lest they should give way. Yet by day she hid these removable logs separately beneath the couch, lest her mother should either detect them from the unevenness of the blanket, or, seeing them openly exposed, draw them into an argument of legitimate suspicion. Finally the maid Mariana alone was privy to the secret, whom Rose compelled by strong adjurations not to betray it; and if the chamber had to be swept, either to leave these logs unmoved in their place or immediately to put them back. Long did this cruel scaffold of supine torture please the fervent Rose, and would have pleased her longer had it been more atrocious — that is, if it had raged more sharply and on every side: for among the empty spaces between the logs there was nothing to torment her sufficiently as she lay upon it.

[101] she piously deceived; There came therefore a new and final thought of making her little bed most dreadfully rough. Upon boards closely joined she laid seven pieces of wood in all at even intervals, which, lest they should be loosened, she fitly bound with oxhide thongs. Further, she so filled the several spaces between the separated logs with very sharp fragments of tiles, with bits of earthen dishes, and with the three-cornered pieces of broken potsherds, that the pointed part of each was turned toward the body, and that indeed with so crowded a density that none could waver or give way; since below the underlying planks sufficiently prevented any from falling out, and the logs beset their sides, lest the phalanx should be loosened. Who will believe that a meadow of this kind could at last seem worthy for Rose to rest in? Nor was a worthy pillow lacking to so noble a bed; but of this below. Coverlets were fitted to it, but of hair-cloth, bristly, and like a sieve or riddle, so that they might both prick of themselves and not hinder the prickings of the potsherds, but only cursorily conceal them. Moreover, at the head of this little bed she had secretly hung a flask full of gall, nor did she compose herself for sleep before she had embittered her throat with that sip, in memory of her Spouse given gall and myrrh to drink.

[102] At one time Rose confessed that this gall-libation at the entrance upon her little bed was not so troublesome to her when she took it which hardness of the bed as when she awoke rather early: for then she felt that her palate had utterly dried up as far as the tonsils ^a and the epiglottis, ^b her tongue almost immovable from dryness, the bronchi ^c of her throat inflamed on every side, so that with her throat parched breathing itself was a punishment. Accordingly it is no wonder that (as afterward became known) horror and dread often pervaded to the marrow Rose, otherwise undaunted, at the mere thought of her so pitiless bed: the poor girl trembled, burned, sweated before she even touched the bedstead, remembering what feathers awaited her there, how many threatening crests were raised there for her butchery, with what torment she must waste away as often as her weary little body had to be rolled onto the other side; finally, she knew that she would by no means rise thence without a chill numbness of all her limbs, and, as it were from a breaking of bones, with hips, shoulders, legs, and arms most wretchedly wrenched apart; whence, when a certain matron after several years familiarly asked how she could endure even for one night a bed so horrible and hard, she answered with the charm (as she was wont) and grace, that she took from that lying such pain as could assuredly suffice to be offered to God in satisfaction for any most beloved person.

[103] It happened from time to time that Rose, as though scarcely equal to a just dread, Christ appearing to her approved. hesitated rather long in doubt whether she should climb into the bed so fertile in punishments. But Christ came to her aid as she doubted and was almost lifeless, presenting himself to the Virgin in a visible and gentle form, and addressing her most placidly in these words: "Remember, Daughter, that far harder, narrower, more horrible was the little bed of Calvary, in which I took the sleep of death for you. You know what gall I drained there for love of you: you know what points, not of clay but of iron, bored through my hands and feet there, until they beat out from me my very beloved soul. Recall these things, set them in the balance against your penal bed, and under the dictate of charity our little bed will seem to you flowery." It is wonderful how deeply these words penetrated the Virgin's mind, how much strength and constancy they poured into her, that she should not shrink back from that dreadful exercise of patience. Truly for sixteen whole years she persevered unconquered in the most bitter torment of this contest, and (what you may wonder at the more) with her mother at last aware and unwilling, but nevertheless conniving. She indeed attempted once and again to turn her Daughter aside from an excess of so great austerity, and to scatter the monstrous bed piecemeal, but, a goad of conscience being divinely sent upon her, she dared apply neither hand nor command. She preferred therefore to try the issue through the confessors; but these too seemed to tremble as in a business of great perplexity, nor did they resolve anything certain; and this was a clear enough indication that it was so pleasing to God that the chosen Rose should be crucified together with her beloved Spouse in the endurance of a most harsh bed.

[104] Whence the pillow which she had been ordered to place under her head We must now speak of the pillow. Rose was trying, by gradually casting away softer things after the example of S. Catherine of Siena, to reach the point of at last putting a shapeless stone under her head to sleep on, her mother not knowing; whence in the beginning she used for a pillow an uncomfortable roll of coarser cloth, then by degrees an unbaked brick, and finally a many-cornered ^d and everywhere rugged stone. But this her mother, when she noticed it, took away; and thrust upon her daughter a cushion empty of wool, but with the order that she should stuff it. Rose was silent, took the cushion, and stuffed it — but not with wool, as her mother believed: she gathered a quantity of the shavings which fall from the carpenter's adze; with these she filled the cushion, and slept upon it when filled. Nor yet did her cleverness long lie hidden from her mother, who laid hold of the stuffing, and expressly and with shouting commanded that the wooden refuse be thrown out thence, wool substituted, wool put in. Rose obeyed, but not beyond the letter; she stuffed the pillow with wool, but not with wool alone; because between the wool and the outermost cloth, where the face of her lying down had to be received, she secretly hid twisted rushes, which she had pulled out from a fragment of an old basket for this use. By these the face of the sleeping Rose was excessively pricked, so much so that her mother very often noted on her Daughter's cheeks and forehead these sudden stigmata, and yet could not divine the origin, being now secure about the wool which had filled the pillow; until by a chance accident, laying her hand carelessly upon the pillow, she felt the enemy in his lurking-place, detected the rushes, and drew them out. You would have seen here again the mother Lapa heaping upon her daughter Catherine reproaches, revilings, accusations; scarcely was there abstinence from blows. Thus Rose, because she sought hard things for herself, had to endure the hardest.

[105] she by new industry again and again made harder, Thereafter her mother in virtue of holy obedience commanded her Daughter that she should again empty her pillow and put back wool, but wool alone. Again Rose obeyed, but beyond the letter; namely, she doubled the wool, and, seizing a rod, so much of it she did not so much put in as press into the pillow, that it at last equaled the hardness of cork. Thus she seemed to herself to have returned to that wooden pillow which her mother had long before taken from her. That log had been from a tree which the natives there call pacay, ^e hollowed out in the middle so as to receive the Virgin's head and neck. To this, proscribed by her mother's edict, had succeeded a bundle of knotty stumps, gathered at the end with cords. But this too her mother had driven away. At length, when she fell upon this last purely woolen pillow, being destitute of further counsel, she addressed her Daughter thus: "Truly you have obeyed, my Rose, you have obeyed: since here I now find nothing but wool. It is enough, nay more than enough: for you have known how to turn even wool into butchery for yourself; what more shall I command? Lest your mother's precept should be reckoned a mere flock of wool, you have condensed these flocks into the hardness of solid rock. Do as you will, and even if you bring death upon yourself, I shall interrupt you no more."

[106] so that her mother threw down her whole little bed, At last there came to her mother the most longed-for time, when it was permitted her, by the leave of the Father confessors, to scatter Rose's painful little bed with most eager hands. Those who presided over the Virgin's conscience had considered, about three years before her death, that she was too much drained of strength; that her little body, exhausted by so many scourgings, fastings, and diseases, would no longer be equal to the arduous punishment of so harsh a bed; and that, if comforts could not be urged upon her, at least torments should be withdrawn from the weak girl or moderated. And so they hand over Rose's little bed, heavy with the distresses of fifteen years, to her eager mother for plundering and prey. With what mind the Daughter, more zealous for penance than for life, received this, I could not easily say; but the mother, all eagerness, as though the signal for assault had been given, invaded that most savage scaffold no otherwise than a hostile citadel; she cast down the logs, the timbers, the beams, dislodged the planks, and, not without headlong hurt to her hands, gathered up the earthen fragments, scattered them, and finally threw them into the river near the city, lest they should return to use; yet first she wished to reckon their number, and found that the sharpened bits fell little short of three hundred.

[107] Therefore after these things Rose had to lie and sleep otherwise; and compelled her to sleep less uncomfortably. yet scarcely more softly or more comfortably: for she took back her boards and planks; upon these, without mattress or straw, she spread a simple and worn covering; and thus, having called sleep, she thereafter composed her bloodless limbs for slumber. Yet even this poor bedchamber seemed to her to savor of delights; whence in the last years of her life, which she spent in the house of the treasurer Gonzalo, gathering her little body upon a low seat, she passed her nights sitting, with her head slightly reclined against the post of the couch in which Gonzalo's underage little daughters rested. Thus Rose tasted rather than took a very brief sleep, especially in winter time, when generally from the nightly colds she so trembled, grew stiff, and was numbed that on rising she could scarcely stand upon her feet. Sometimes

roused by excessive chill, she strove, by kindling little twigs of rosemary at the lamp-wick, to catch in passing from this smoke a little of fugitive warmth with which to cherish herself. With a stepmother's hatred of her body, she would not even while waking sit anywhere upon a cushion, but either standing she performed her labors as long as she could, or, when she necessarily had to sit, she used a hard stake for a stool.

[108] Meanwhile, mindful of and longing for her former little bed, she constantly beat upon the ears of her confessors, But she, returning to her accustomed hardness of lying, complaining that she was idly wasting her life while she was forced to keep holiday in life from her former exercises of penance; that she remained void of all merit of patience through so great an indulgence of the Fathers; that to her holy Father Dominic the title Rose of patience was daily chanted, but that she herself, patience being taken from her, was neither a Rose nor the Daughter of so great a Father; and finally, that they should let her, who did nothing good, at least suffer evils and afflict her body. She so far prevailed that one of the confessors granted the Virgin that through the whole Lent of that and of the next year (which was Rose's last) she might again build for herself a little bed after the form of her former rigor, packed with wood, potsherds, and tiles. Rose did so straightway, as had been permitted her, and joined the greatest secrecy to the greatest care, so much so that not even after her death (for then the matter first became known) could that second little bed of punishments be found anywhere. It is credible that she herself, as soon as the faculty of using it expired with Lent, of her own accord unmade the scaffold, scattered the fragments of potsherds, threw away the pegs and logs, lest anything should become known; although diligent search in both houses, both her mother's and the treasurer's, was not wanting.

[109] But neither had this desire of lying most hard, almost coeval with her, deserted Rose now near to death. Half alive on that last bed of her last pain, she grieved and wishing to persevere in it until death, that she lacked that other bed most extremely painful. But who would have prepared so cruel a rack for an innocent girl now about to die? At least she wished to be laid on the ground from that more humane bedding on which she lay, and to die upon the bare pavement. But when she understood that she would not obtain even this from the household, addressing her brother by blood standing by, she asked in her last words that he would remove the pillows; and when these had been drawn aside, the dying girl rejoiced that she felt herself leaning with her back and shoulders upon the boards of the couch; and wonderfully content that in whatever fashion she was dying together with her crucified Spouse upon hard wood, she a little afterward most placidly breathed her happy spirit into the hands of her Creator. Nor were there wanting those who noted in the pale face of the dying woman the very likeness of Christ expiring on the cross — which in another place and time had been observed in S. Catherine of Siena, likewise lying upon her bed.

[110] she protracted long vigils, Further, anyone from so great a hardness of her usual bedding will not with difficulty understand how much Rose gave to vigils, from whom her very bed took away slumber. The seraphic Catherine once confessed to blessed Raymond, ^f her confessor, that with none of her enemies had she to contend so laboriously as with sleep; which at length she reduced to this, that it was content with two hours in all. The same contest exercised Rose, Catherine's disciple, and the same victory honored her: for she too confined her sleep within the narrow bounds of two hours, and sometimes granted even less space to that importunate exactor. Whence she so distributed the time of day and night that out of both she set aside twelve hours altogether for prayer, spent another ten upon the labor of her hands by which she supported her parents, and assigned the rest to the necessities of the body and to a brief rest. This facility of keeping vigil was helped by long fastings, by the hairshirt, by the thistle-bed, by long abstinence from cold water and from all drink, by profound meditation, and by the tenacious fixing of her applied mind upon heavenly things.

[111] and to the demon sending drowsiness Nor yet did the crafty enemy omit his arts or his part, but strove most troublesomely to recall the Virgin to sleep, then most of all when she had risen for nightly prayer. These battles cost Rose very dear: for whether with knees fixed on the ground she began her prayers, there seemed to be lead in her weighed-down eyelids; or whether she stood upright, a most ponderous dizziness rang in her head the languid ditty of drowsiness; or whether with outspread arms she had fallen prostrate on the earth, the sweet blandishment of a sleep-bringing body crept upon her. Rose was ashamed to succumb to so cowardly an adversary; she fought even in falling, dashed her neck against the wall, beat her own sides, if by any means she might beat out the creeping lethargy: she conquered at last, but not without a contest; she triumphed, but upon the cross: for there stood in the Virgin's chamber a wooden cross the height of a human being, from whose arms there projected on either side strong and solid nails, such as would suffice to sustain a body. To these therefore she applied both hands when about to fight against sleep, and from their tenacious grasp balanced her hanging little body while she finished the Office of the Virgin Mother of God; with these little wedges she split the onset of sleep, was trained for watches, crucified the enemy, and only as victor drew back the stiffened sinews of her arms from the dear handles of victory: thus she obtained the palm, but with callused palms.

[112] she sharply resisted. She found also another manner of fighting. In the wall of her little cell she had fixed a long nail somewhat high, and which surpassed Rose's crown by about the space of a palm; to this, against the snares of sleep, she most tightly plaited that little bit of hair which had remained over on her forehead for covering the crown, and by that torment she summoned wakefulness, recited her prayers, and strangled drowsiness. Yet, lest thus hanging she should commit the whole mass of her little body to a few hairs, standing somehow on the tips of her toes she touched the ground, but with difficulty enough, and by alternate successions upon a slippery, wavering support. Gather, reader, from so atrocious a remedy how importunate was the harassment of sleep to the young girl: in bed she had to fight with spikes and caltrops, but outside with nails; and whether Rose wished to sleep or to wake, torments had to be undergone.

ANNOTATIONS.

CHAPTER IX.

Love of solitude, flight from conversations, and her very narrow chamber.

The Saint, hating girlish games As once the love of solitude carried off S. Catherine of Siena while still a little girl, even to the seeking of a cave, so it taught Rose from her earliest infancy to seek solitary corners at home and to shun the commerce of the world. Little girls used to gather to her from neighboring houses, but for the sake of play, which is the first pursuit of that age: each brought her own dolls, to the dressing, combing, and adorning of which the childhood of little females is given by the most common genius of the sex. These with innocent rivalry they displayed to the silent Rose, urging her to bring out or fashion her own. She refused, saying that she neither had a doll nor even wished to handle one, because she had heard that a malignant spirit had once uttered a chattering through a doll (perhaps it may have been an idol). Presently, leaving the play of dolls to her equals, she hid herself in a secret corner, as though about to be more quietly at leisure for hidden thoughts: being sometimes found there by her brother, and asked why she did not prefer to play with the little boys merrily trifling rather than to sit in a dusty corner full of fleas, she answered with words wise beyond her age: "Let me hide here alone with God: for there among the dolls, whether God is likewise present, who knows?"

[114] from her tender years loved solitude, With her years grew her zeal for hiding; whence, having caught sight in the garden of shady plane trees close to the wall, she chose a place where, with the help of her brother Ferdinand, she might form a little oratory removed from all view of the household. There, with a plaited encircling of branches, vine-shoots, and twigs, she enclosed a modest space, and skillfully vaulted it above with leafy arches. Inside she set a low little altar against the wall. She placed upon it a cross of thicker paper, of many colors with little flowers and feathers, and whatever of sacred images she could procure she solicitously carried into this her basilica. Little Rose seemed to have enclosed in this little nook all her delights, so wholly did she remain in it whole days in solitude: thither, as to a retreat for praying and meditating, she hastened from dinner, from her little bed, from supper; there she withdrew herself from the household tumults, jests, and stories, being at leisure for herself and heaven alone; outside this paradise she could nowhere be well, so much so that at home it passed into a proverb: "Go to the garden, if you seek little Rose." But because this solace could be enjoyed only by day, when she had grown a little bigger she obtained from her mother another chamber within the house, in which apart from her other children she might pass the night in solitude. These were timely preludes in a tender disposition, so that what she would attempt when riper might be conjectured from these preambles.

[115] to obtain which By degrees stature and age had brought Rose so far that she was fit to attend her mother with an honorable retinue when she went abroad, especially when the worthier matrons had to be visited. But to the Daughter, loving her hermitage alone, it was most troublesome both to see and to be seen in public; whence now with prayer, now with tears, she besought her mother, entreating that she would not take her out with her. The mother was astounded, not yet perceiving why that very thing which other young girls are wont to seek beyond measure was so hateful to Rose alone. And so several times, unwilling,

she compelled her by command, certain that she would obey an injunction without reply. Once, when she was invited by her mother to go about with her the duties of city greetings abroad, the Virgin, passing by the household oven, deliberately drew a stone from the mouth of the furnace onto her foot, and by that wound and bruise obtained that, limping unfeignedly, she might be allowed to stay at home. Both more truly and more gracefully did our Peruvian Rose blush from this wound of the foot than what antiquity fabled about the Cyprian Roses — namely, that these did not blush before the chance blood from the wounded heel of the Cyprian goddess had sprinkled them. ^a

[116] Further, the Virgin devised another stratagem, so that, loving solitude, she rather often used a shrewd stratagem, she might buy off the vexation of going forth into public. As often as she perceived beforehand from her mother that she would be invited to the duties of visitation, she secretly smeared her eyelashes and eyelids with Indian pepper, which is most biting, by which rubbing her eyes presently burned, reddened, and ran, as if a sharp defluxion from the head had suffused them. Thus, when her mother, about to go out, called her Daughter into her company, it was enough to have shown eyes running and swollen with a harmful itching, as though then by no means able to bear the open light. Whence her parent, pitying her, lest the freer air outside should injure her affected eyes, granted her daughter the most longed-for faculty of solitude and of hiding. A hard escape, truly; but to Rose her anchorite life was dearer than the very pupil of her eye, and for a long time this cleverness availed her, until at last its suspicious frequency betrayed the matter to her mother, which happened thus.

[117] By mutual agreement the lady Ludovica Vargas Carvajal and Maria de Oliva had determined which at last her mother discovered, to ride, taking their daughters on both sides, to the celebrated station of the holy Virgin which has its name from Montserrat; ^b the appointed day came, and the carriage with Lady Ludovica and her daughter Isabella Alexia stopped before the doors. The mother, being ready, calls Rose; but she comes forth with eyes again swollen, and eyelids inflamed with a somewhat sullen redness, so that it was easily plain that her sight, inflamed by that defluxion and blinking with excessive pain, would by no means bear the dangers of air and sun. Here at last the mother, reflecting upon herself, after she had courteously excused herself to Ludovica, began to weigh more attentively what it might mean that this importunate defluxion should beset Rose's eyes chiefly at those times when a visitation of respectable matrons, either to be received at home or to be performed abroad, was at hand. Hence, fixing her gaze more curiously upon her Daughter's face, she saw that what appeared was not feigned; for both the burning of the redness and the sharpness of the pain the frequent drippings silently affirmed. Finally, by a mother's license, she applied her mouth and nostrils nearer, perceived a smell, and, putting out her tongue, by licking detected the biting quality of the most savage eye-salve.

[118] Who could recount the taunts, shouts, and gibes which the mother then thundered against her Daughter? whose anger she softened with a mild answer. "To what end," she said, "these frauds? to what good such foolish tricks? If it has pleased you to delude your mother's eyes, yet to play with your own eyes — what wickedness is that, how great a danger? Have you so soon forgotten that very lately the slave of Ferdinand Perez, by a most similar abuse of garlic and pepper, wholly lost the sight and use of his eyes?" Briefly and modestly the Virgin answered: "It would be better, O mother, that I should be blind, than see abundantly things vain and secular." Her parent, struck by the answer, permitted her Daughter to lie hidden at home as much as she wished, only that she should no longer pepper her eyes with this dangerous rubbing. So dear did the tardy license of the longed-for retirement cost Rose, as very few would wish to have bought it (most, to have it taken away) at that price.

[119] When she desired to live alone at home in a narrow hut, So greatly did the desert please Rose, and the public displease her, that not only did she tooth and nail shun private palaces and the common spectacles of the city, but she also fled from curiously watching the general circuits of celebrated processions and populous supplications. She confessed that it was very troublesome and heavy to her, amid the conversations of women, to behold pompous garments, cloaks, and costly bands, to take part in idle stories, and to be detained by so many reciprocal rites of empty civilities: but she especially grieved that not even in the household refuge of her retirement was she safe and free from visitations. She had now ceased to accompany her mother abroad to duties of that kind, but she desired, and could not, escape being visited at home herself. The gentleness, courtesy, and modesty of the Virgin drew well-known women, so that under the appearance of honor, while they approached her mother, they would demand to see the Daughter also, whom the sweet odor of virtue, the seemliness of her disposition, and the admiration of her sanctity had commended, unwilling as she was, to very many even illustrious persons. Nor could access easily be denied to these, however much Rose hid herself, deploring the loss of precious time. And although the talk was of nothing but God, she protested that it would always be more useful and more pleasant for her to speak with God than about God.

[120] her mother refusing it, Therefore, at the inspiration of the Godhead, she looked out for a loftier way by which she might manfully extricate herself from these hindrances: modestly as a suppliant she begged her parents that a solitary place in the farthest corner of the garden might be allowed her for building a little cell, which she desired to be capacious only of her single stature, with a tiny little window to receive the light, and whose door-key her mother alone (if she wished) should keep: there she would most usefully be at leisure for the labor of her hands, for the pursuit of praying and meditating, and for recollection of spirit, without any waste of the least time. She added reasons solid and weighty, which heaven and zeal for the divine service had dictated. But her mother refused, saying that she would not permit her Daughter to hide herself alive in such a sepulchre. After vain prayers and obstinate rebuffs, the Virgin after her custom fled to the help of the heavenly ones, invoking constantly above all God and the Mother of God, that they might draw forth for her, by a powerful breathing, her mother's consent: nor did she doubt that she was heard; nevertheless, being moved more deeply, as a proof of certainty she awaited and obtained from heaven a pledge as it were given in earnest, which was of this kind. She had in her poor treasury a rosary of corals; this she brought out, that in the chapel of the Most Holy Rosary this handsome necklace might adorn the image of the holy Virgin. Therefore she went to a Religious whom she knew, and held out the rosary, to be placed as quickly as possible about the neck of the image. He neglected it, because he lacked a ladder by which he might reach the image high up on the altar.

[121] she took refuge in the intercession of the Mother of God, On the next day the Virgin returned to the chapel to hear Mass, and, when she had noted that her rosary was lacking to the image, she besought with great entreaties the chief (as they call him) sacristan, that at last he himself would place the rosary about the image's neck; that it concerned her greatly that this be done; that she wished by this precious bond sweetly to make captive the Virgin Mother, so that thus the little Son might interpose himself as surety or guarantor. These last words were a riddle, which the sacristan indeed did not then sufficiently grasp; yet he did what Rose asked, and, a ladder being applied, not without labor he placed the rosary about the image's neck and removed the ladder. At length the appointed day came on which Rose, to behold the guarantor of the grace obtained, hastened to the church of S. Dominic: and behold, having entered the chapel of the Most Holy Rosary, she saw her rosary, loosed from the neck of the holy Virgin, hanging openly from the hand of the little Jesus. The same thing all who were indiscriminately present in the chapel saw; but they did not know the mystery, for they supposed that the rosary had been transferred by the sacristan himself from the neck of the Mother of God to the fingers of her little Son. The sacristan, being informed of the prodigy, came, saw, was astounded, certain that neither he nor any of his had touched the rosary from the day on which it had been placed about the neck of the holy Virgin. Rose alone, privy to the miracle and the silent interpreter of the sign, exulted in secret jubilation, understanding well enough whither these things tended: namely, the Queen of the Most Holy Rosary had promised to the suppliant Rose the grace which she desired; the Son at last was giving surety for his Mother; and so he had transferred to himself that coral bond of the promise from the Mother now discharged of it.

[122] Rose, from this wonderful portent now secure of her wish, and by friends sent to her mother she obtains her wish, and almost in possession of it, arranged a weighty and honorable embassy to her mother: this was undertaken by the master and professor Father Brother John de Lorenzana, Gonzalo de la Massa the royal treasurer, and the treasurer's wife Maria de Usatigui. It was the feast day of the most blessed Virgin purified in the temple, when this trio of intermediaries set forth to Maria de Oliva (congratulating rather than demanding) the constant desire of her Rose to build for herself a narrow and solitary little cell, into which without her confessor's permission she would admit the sight or speech of no one. The mother, who until that hour had been harder than Apennine crags at utterances of this kind, at once yielded like melted wax, not demanding even a moment of time either for deliberation or for delay in a matter so arduous. Doubtless thus did God the guarantor discharge his promises, who held no less the parent's heart than the Daughter's coral in his hand.

[123] Further, this permission being obtained, with what festive and sweet joy do you think Rose passed that day? and there, cleaving to pious exercises, That seemed to fit her which was sung of the just Old Man: Simeon received an answer. She dared to chant with him that pleasant boat-song, Now dismiss, as one who had almost reached the harbor of her desires, and would thereafter enjoy the secret embraces of her infant little Spouse, who leads into the wilderness to speak to the heart. Finally Rose felt herself addressed by the first Responsory of that day: Adorn your bridal chamber, O Sion. Certainly the cell which Rose was designing for herself promised nothing but a bridal chamber, and she thought it long to await the dawn of the following day, on which she should begin the work. Nor was there delay: the next day she adorned her bridal chamber, carried boards into the garden, and within a very few days there stood complete the short, narrow, low sanctuary of solitary devotion. It was a little hut five feet long, four feet wide; you would have called it rather an ark or a somewhat large chest, had not a modest little window at the side proclaimed it a little house. One of the Virgin's confessors touched in passing upon the narrowness of the dwelling, to whom Rose charmingly replied that there was as much room in it as would abundantly suffice for herself and her heavenly Spouse.

[124] Namely, as I was saying, it was a bridal chamber which the Virgin daughter of Sion had adorned. she received from heaven a double privilege; Happy Rose, having obtained this hermitage, busied herself that no point of time should there flow away from her without fruit; here she remained whole days, with the greater part of the night added; here she most fitly dispensed her hours among various exercises of piety; here by a most free use of contemplation she disposed ascents in her heart, almost unaware whether she dwelt in the body or out of the body. After she had shut herself up here, she was seen in a rapture by a certain matron of approved sanctity under the appearance and figure of a most brilliant star, whose rays and everywhere-sparkling brightness the dark narrowness of the walls could by no means confine. Lima, called by another name the City of the Kings, had to have its own star also, silently inviting to the narrow cradle of the Savior. Let me touch upon in passing here what very many observed in Rose while she lived: that she was wonderfully delighted by the sight of a clear sky, so much so that the girl, utterly ignorant of all astrology, sometimes clung sweetly and unmoved a great part of the night to the sole spectacle of the stars: doubtless the new star of the Kings loved her own sphere; thither she panted, for this alone her starry nature pined, nor could a mind born for heaven easily be torn from the nightly gaze upon the little heavenly flames: she confessed

that she was renewed and refreshed by the long contemplation of the sky and the stars; nay, she also urged upon others that the clear sight of a serene firmament might be numbered among the more powerful allurements which raise the spirit. So far did that religious matron not err, who recognized Rose, the friend of stars, in the figure of a star, for whom then the tiny hiding-place of her cell served as a firmament.

[125] namely, that she should be present at Masses celebrated far off, Those who knew the Virgin's ardent affection for churches and sacred things wondered that she clung so continually to her little enclosure that on ferial days she scarcely ever went to church; accordingly she was asked by someone how her most pious heart could bear that she should not at least, in order to be present at the sacrifice of the Mass, leave her little hut for a while every morning, to return to it presently. Hear the answer of a most candid simplicity, and be astounded. Rose replied that this was by no means to be imputed to her enclosure, but that because her mother (with whom alone her confessors had bidden her go to church in the first years) was hindered by household cares from going out to Mass every day, it had nevertheless been provided for her by the divine goodness that, sitting in her little cell, she should see and hear not one but several Masses daily. The manner was inquired into, and it was ascertained that it had been given her from above that in spirit (no otherwise than if she had been bodily present) she was daily present at each of the Masses, as many as were read in the neighboring hospital of the Holy Spirit; nor only at these, but also at those which were celebrated far off in the distant church of S. Augustine, which was distant from Rose's dwelling by an interval or intervening space of not less than four or five streets. That this was a great and prodigious solace to the most strict solitude of the enclosed Virgin, no one will deny.

[126] and that the gnats, Another privilege of Rose, now solitary, came from the gnats — nay, rather a service. Where the anchoretic cell of the Virgin had been set up, the moisture of the soil and the abundance of little trees either bred or drew an infinite multitude of gnats into a shady spot friendly to their kind. A creature troublesome to men, if any is: for with its single proboscis it plays both trumpeter and soldier, since it strikes with its tube no less than it infests the sleeping with its trumpeting and buzzing; swarms and columns of these migrated into Rose's hut, especially when either by day the drying rays of the sun, or toward evening the chills of a clear night, threatened their most delicate little bodies. And yet among so many legions of gnats there was not one which ever touched Rose in her little cell. The walls swarmed with them everywhere, the little door resounded, the window was filled with a perpetual ebb and flow of those coming and going; but each took heed not to settle upon Rose, and as if by agreement they spared their hostess.

[127] It happened that either her mother, or, by permission of her confessor, certain more religious persons, although hostile to others coming, visited Rose in her narrow dwelling to converse about divine things: but these, as soon as they had sat down at the door or the little window, the army of gnats invaded in hostile fashion; the importunate company hastened to besiege their faces and hands: one was driven off, four succeeded, and generally from ambush they drew even the blood of the unwary, leaving a trace of itching and a small swelling. They wondered that under this Egyptian plague Rose remained unmoved whole days; but they were more astounded after they had observed that in her face and hands not the least sign of this bloody annoyance appeared. The Virgin smiled, and answered her mother and the rest: "When I entered here, I entered into a friendship and pact with the gnats, that they should never disturb or afflict me, and that in turn I would in nothing harm them. We have both stood by the compact, and not only do we enjoy this common roof without hostility; but moreover the same strenuously help me, after their measure, in singing the praises of God."

[128] It was plainly so. For as often as Rose at the first dawn unbarred the door of her little cell should not sting her, and opened the shutters of the little window, she commanded the gnats (as many as had passed the night thickly upon the walls within): "Come, friends, to the praises of almighty God"; straightway they broke out with a most gentle concert into their humming, and, scattered into circles, mingled their shrill murmurs in various ways, with a phalanx so ordered, and turned back upon itself in most apt windings, that you would have believed it either a choir or a dance over which reason presided as leader. Having discharged this office, they flew out to feed: likewise, when at the setting of the sun they sought again the hospitable little house, Rose again pressed them that, before they gave themselves to rest, they should for a while sing with her the evening praises to their common Creator. Presently cheerful whisperings vied in filling the corners, and the winged harmony strove to rival the measures of an organ, until, at Rose's bidding, all at once fell silent as under one law of nocturnal silence. So great a command over the meanest little creatures had been reserved for the state of innocence — which indeed Rose so nearly attained that she dwelt in the solitude of her cell as in paradise.

[129] Sister Catherine of S. Mary, of the third Order of the holy Father Dominic, as experience proved, and for many years the housemate of Lady Eleanor de Castro, was visiting Rose in her hermitage; but, not enduring the insolence of the gnats, she killed with her hand one which was already swollen with blood. Rose, like one wondering, said: "What are you doing, dearest sister? Are you slaughtering my guests for me?" But Catherine: "Say rather enemies, not guests; for see how full that gnat is of my blood." She replied: "But what great matter is it that so tiny a little creature should have fed on our blood, when its Maker so often feeds us with his own gore? Therefore do not go on to kill my gnats, and I in turn promise you that they will keep peace with you as with me." It was done; for thereafter no gnat there stung or sucked Catherine. It is established that the same happened to her mother, to the treasurer Gonzalo, to his consort, and to others, so that there could be no doubt of innocent Rose's admirable command over the gnats domesticated to her. A little differently did sister Francisca de Montoya, likewise a Tertiary nursling of the holy Father Dominic, experience it. She, amid sacred conversations with Rose, on seeing the hungry assault of so many flies, was somewhat afraid. When Rose noticed this, she said: "Do not fear, sister; in honor of the Most Holy Trinity only three gnats shall sting you today; thereafter you will be (like me) immune." It happened just as the Virgin had foretold: a gnat bit Francisca three times, and from then on that day and always afterward she was free from them in Rose's presence. That that solitary retreat possessed from heaven this privilege of wonderful immunity is well; but that Rose could there communicate it to others also was singular.

[130] while she persevered in a similar manner of life until death. In the last three years of her life, in the house of the treasurer Gonzalo, the Virgin marked out for herself a desert of almost equal solitude, and whole days with their nights she either lay hidden in the household oratory, or in the farthest chamber of the house continually confined herself within narrow barriers, contriving all things, interposing all things, so as to avoid useless visitations. Sometimes, by the permission of her confessors and of Gonzalo himself, she went to her mother's house, that she might for some days enjoy the sweet hermitage of her former little cell; and often before her intimates she complained most gravely that she was afflicted with a continual grief because the condition of her sex and of the age did not permit her to withdraw far off into the harshest mountains, and there to seek out a hollow rock where, remote from all human commerce, she might pass her life. She constantly praised the most happy times of the ancient hermits, and sighed at every mention of Nitria and the Thebaid; ^c and, to finish in a word, there had migrated into Rose the fiery desires of S. Catherine of Siena, with which she once had demanded the caverns of the desert in no perfunctory fashion.

ANNOTATIONS.

CHAPTER X.

Her wonderful espousal with Christ, after the example of S. Catherine of Siena.

This Virgin, imitating S. Catherine of Siena From the History of the life of B. Catherine of Siena, Rose had learned that the seraphic virgin, while still mortal, had been wonderfully betrothed to Christ her Spouse. She too was running along the footsteps of this bride in the odor of the Spouse, but among the maidens, as it seemed to her; for that profound lowliness of her mind did not allow her to dare of her own accord to aspire to the singular dignity of a bride and to a title of such loftiness. And yet among Rose's treasures there shone virginal purity and abyssal humility, which prepare the proper disposition for these nuptials and constitute the dowry: whence it comes that over such rare marriage-songs there presides by a peculiar right the most august Empress of the angels, as a Virgin singular in the privilege of supreme purity and humility alike; who, as in the rest, so more famously in these two, was seen neither to have a first like her nor to have any following her.

[132] Rose's humility we have already in some fashion treated in chapter V; by humility and modesty so pleased God, her purity would have to be treated here before the heavenly nuptials; but concerning this let the concordant deposition of her confessors, as many as received the Virgin's general confession, suffice us by way of compendium; these were eleven, namely six of the Order of Preachers and five of the Society of Jesus, and each severally testified (as with one mouth, and under the pledge of an oath) that the virginal whiteness of Rose always shone with such purity that it was never stained even by a venial blot of any wantonness; nor in her whole life did any foul thought once creep upon her. Doubtless the beetle ^b does not touch the Hyblaean ^a rose. And so a gift of chastity so rare, a virginity so humble and pure, consecrated to Christ by vow already from the first five years of her tender age, was at once flower and dowry for the future wedlock of her Nazarene Spouse: as much as Rose loved the lily among thorns, so abjectly did she think of herself; whence there was need of prodigies by which she might be prepared from afar for the mystery and raised up to consent.

[133] The first (of those which have become known) was this: so that, after certain obscure preludes, when that two-colored butterfly (of which above, chapter IV), flying down from above, settled upon Rose, it was noted that for some time it wandered, creeping along the Virgin's left side, until it came to rest directly in the region of the heart; there it seemed to be occupied more lingeringly and more lovingly: for like a bee intent upon building a honeycomb, it turned in short circles, as though tracing something with a brush. The work completed, it disappeared, and behold the figure of a heart fully and most skillfully formed upon Rose's dress, which the girls, as many as were working in the same room, conspicuously observed to have been painted and left there by the butterfly; but these did not know the hidden symbol of the heart, ploughed into a virginal heart; Rose alone perceived (but still more obscurely)

her Spouse crying out from afar: Give me your heart. She conjectured that by the many-colored butterfly she was marked not only for the habit of Catherine of Siena of like coloring, but also with the same emblem of a heart which once the eternal Spouse had exchanged with his bride of Siena. Nevertheless these things were too remote to incline her to a certain hope of so great a bridal chamber, and yet (as afterward became clear) they were preluding from afar to that happy espousal.

[134] A little more openly the second, which follows. After she had taken the white garment of the third Order, and another on a certain night there was shown to Rose in sleep the most beautiful and most seemly appearance of a Man: her mind almost suggested that it was some inhabitant of heaven, nay the very One beautiful in form beyond the sons of men, save that his dress presented a stonecutter, or a noble craftsman of marbles to be hewn. And in truth he was such; but then he had come in haste and in love, as though about to seek there the Virgin as a bride for himself. Rose, to whom not even in a dream had any thought of marriage ever been pleasing, felt within that nothing happier could befall her in her whole life than this one wedlock. This was a sympathy of grace, which taught Rose to love secrets which she did not know. The most chaste turtledove therefore consented to the covenant offered, and, marital faith being given on both sides, that gracious Spouse departed as though about to accomplish a necessary journey, yet first he entrusted to his new Consort certain marbles there, a fixed number, to be cut, shaped, and polished, until he should return from abroad. And because it belongs to spouses to leave father and mother that they may be two in one flesh, the Bridegroom warned his Rose that she should hereafter lay aside the care of feeding her parents, and that he would provide for them from elsewhere, so that they should lack nothing.

[135] a wonderful Then the Spouse seemed to have returned from his journey; but Rose, who meanwhile had not yet wholly finished her work in stone, being suffused with shame, tried in many words to excuse herself: that she had been hindered by the necessities of her parents; that she was still unskilled in that art, which was so unwonted for female hands, accustomed only to flax and wool. Here the Spouse, smiling, said: "Do not believe, my beloved, that you are the only one of women whom I have occupied with these hard labors": and straightway, the door of the next chamber being flung very wide, he showed Rose a most ample and handsome workshop of stone, which virgins alone filled, diligently intent upon the arduous labor; for these there was a hammer and chisel instead of a needle, hardest stones and rocks instead of wool; upon beating, leveling, and skillfully squaring these to the rule they were wholly bent; they cut, hollowed, smoothed, rubbed down, and, that the harder stone might the sooner admit the iron tools, they abundantly softened it with the frequent dripping of their tears. And what seemed wonderful enough, amid these unpolished heaps of rock and dusty labors each of the virgins had a garment not plebeian after the manner of the workshop, but precious, gleaming, festal, which savored of a nuptial banquet or of the public pomp of a theatre rather than of a sweat-producing workshop.

[136] and mystical vision, The Virgin wondered at virgins engaged in a work so unaccustomed, but virtue occupied in arduous things was signified; she looked round upon the marbles of each craftswoman already wrought, finished, and set aside, to none of which was anything lacking of the most exact perfection. At length Rose, by a chance glance turned back upon herself, saw that she too had shone forth clothed about with the same most splendid garment as the other virgins there; and she who until then had simply been white in her Dominican habit alone, suddenly found herself in a robe adorned with gems and gold, so that she might know that she too was enlisted there for the same labors. How many and how great mysteries Rose learned from this single vision will appear in detail in what follows: here the history hastens to the outcome of the espousal alone contracted with the Stonecutter.

[137] which in the chapel of the Rosary And now, after preambles of this kind, there remained the last, in which at length this Spouse should manifestly and openly insinuate himself to Rose awake, and, putting off the guise of a stonecutter, should more openly invite the Virgin to the marriage chamber. So it happened, and indeed in this order: On Palm Sunday, the blessing having been performed by the annual rite, the sacristans were distributing branches through choir and church, while the solemn procession is being arranged. Meanwhile Rose, with the other tertiary sisters, was likewise awaiting there her palm, kneeling in the Rosary chapel of the holy Virgin. But whether by the carelessness and error of the hurrying sacristan, or (as I should rather believe) by a singular counsel of the Godhead, it came about that on this occasion Rose was without a branch, quite contrary to custom; for in former years, in the distribution of palms (as a Daughter of the Order), she had never been passed over.

[138] Confused therefore by this novelty, the Virgin, as more tender consciences are wont, before the image of the Mother of God feared lest perhaps by some crooked motion of mind she had rendered herself unworthy of fellowship in that branch-bearing procession. Yet she went round with the rest of the faithful people; but sorrowful and abashed; and, the circuit finished, she sought again straightway the Rosary chapel (her harbor): there at the feet of the Virgin Mother of God she poured out her heart in flowing tears, reproaching herself if perhaps she had either too ambitiously coveted the blessed palm or through slothfulness had not sought it. Then, gazing upon the face of the most august Parent of God, when she saw it serene toward her and caressing her more sweetly than usual, she took heart again, and now took pleasure in that very thing by which she had been saddened; and she said: "Far be it that I should receive a palm from a mortal hand; you, Lady, you, the palm exalted in Cades, will enrich me with an unfading branch."

[139] At these words she presently saw the Queen of heaven, with countenance open and cheerful, was unfolded, turn to the little Son whom she bore in her arms, and thence, as from a favorable oracle, look back more sweetly upon Rose; and she, struck by an unknown joy, turned her eyes upon the little One, and beheld him likewise smiling upon her. Between these two honey-sweet faces Rose wandered in a reciprocal tide, hastened from one to the other, took delight in the alternating spectacle, and the more often she returned to either, the sweeter she found the face. Many times in the same holy image (as will be related below) had a sweet nod of this kind soothed Rose at prayer; but never with that excess of sweetness which was then, with that breath and grace of familiarity, with that most singular lightning-flash of hidden favor; so that she felt now in the depth of her soul that something great was being transacted with her, and that her Stonecutter was not far off. These were affections for which the destitute rudeness of mortals has not yet found names.

[140] Why say more? At length the little boy Jesus broke out into this song of the drama; Christ betrothed her to himself, "Rose of my heart! be you my bride." These words penetrated Rose's marrow, and, as by an unforeseen stroke, she fell back lifeless into herself, and in a brief struggle of confused affections she at once both gaped trembling into the abyss of her own nothingness and floated aloft with the swelling of gladness; nor yet could her mind, sinking under the miracle of so great a condescension, find what to answer, had not the words of a most pure humility come to her aid: Behold the handmaid of the Lord. "Behold," she said, "the handmaid, behold your bondservant, O King of eternal majesty; I am yours, I profess myself yours, yours I shall be." She was preparing to say more; but continually the sober drunkenness of her melting little soul rolled back into the same refrain; and infant love strove to stammer what it could not utter. Certainly he did not err, whoever he was, who painted love as a boy.

[141] But she who once interposed her word at the wedding of Cana in Galilee, the virgin Mother, and gave her great treasures of grace. here by no means kept silence, and that most of all because she alone was present as bridesmaid of this espousal, she alone had advanced Rose and as matchmaker had entreated her Son. And so she too, addressing the new bride, said: "See, O Rose, the exceptional favor with which my Son has honored you." This was an epithalamium which the Mother of the Spouse sang, not with David's plectrum, but with her own mouth. Rose labored under the mass of her joys, and could not contain herself, having experienced how most truly it is said: "Though love be fire, it has no light weight." She burned, she was straitened, the Virgin now forgetful of the palm, in whose place had succeeded the Lily of the valleys, so beautiful, so precious. Finally it was most pleasant to her that on the same day and in the same place she had lost both the palm and Rose, as being after this wedlock no longer her own. There followed then the nuptial gifts of a most opulent Spouse: for (as she was compelled to confess in the examination, concerning which below, chapter XIV) from the inmost treasures of grace certain rare conflagrations of seraphic love came down upon Rose, and drew with them in a long train the inestimable riches of various graces, with which the lavish magnificence of so noble a Spouse enriched, illuminated, and adorned the soul of his Bride: they were pledges and necklaces, and precious earnest-money of the faith given, inexpressible in human words: whence the Virgin also, being more closely questioned about these by her examiner, and not daring to deny them, most simply excused herself by mere poverty of vocabulary.

[142] Rose, in memory of so great a benefit Further, that a memorial of so great a benefit might continually be before her eyes, when she had returned home she began at once to think of forging a marriage ring, which upon the finger of her heart she should wear perpetually and openly in grateful memory of her nuptials; and, calling into counsel her brother by blood alone, she explained her desire in few words and concealed the mystery. He, seizing a compass, drew the exact form of the ring upon paper, and added the figure of the circle of the bezel in due proportion, upon which the Virgin had wished the little Jesus to be engraved. It remained that they should agree about the motto which should be inscribed round about upon the convex part of the ring. Here Rose, gazing at her brother, awaited what he would determine. He, without delay, as though he had been present as witness at Rose's hidden nuptials, wrote these very same words around the ring: "Rose of my heart, be you my bride." Rose fell silent and was astounded with a sudden joy, when she saw that her brother had lighted, not by deliberation but by an impulse, hastily, upon the symbol which was the one and proper summary of the whole affair; upon the motto which Christ himself had dictated and had graciously expressed with his own mouth: she knew that it could not by human means have become known either to her brother or to any mortal, that this had been the dictate of a higher prompting; and accordingly, leaping up with new jubilation, she silently adored in the most sweet prodigy the playing hand of her Spouse.

[143] ordered a marriage ring to be made Then, on the fifth day of the same Holy Week, she carried into the church the ring now dearer for this reason, and by great entreaties obtained for it from the father sacristan a place in the little coffer which during those three days is the repository of the Most Holy Eucharist and the monument of the buried Redeemer. There she wished this pledge of her love to be for a while entombed with her dead Spouse, that with the same rising again it might likewise return to the light: thus she protested to her lovable Spouse that not even by his death was she loosed from the law of her husband, with whom she desired also to share a common bridal chamber of death. At length on the solemn day of the Pasch this ring, now more sacred and more welcome from its three days' company in the Lord's sepulchre, returned to Rose; and before that very Rosary image of the holy Virgin, where the holy covenant of wedlock had been contracted, it enclosed the heart-finger of Rose, not without a new prodigy: for the ceremony was so secret that not even her mother, kneeling next to the Virgin, noticed anything, even the least, although she was most intent upon all her Daughter's doings.

[144] After the Virgin's death, along with the rest of her very slender furniture, the ring remained in the keeping of

the wife of the treasurer Gonzalo, whose touch after the Virgin's death and this memorable thing happened in the year 1618, in the month of February, in the house of the said treasurer. That man conspicuous for his repute of sanctity (of whom above at the end of chapter 8), when he had handled for devotion's sake the crown of thorns of the dead Rose, ^c lingered rather long over the ring; which, as it had been held out to him by Lady Maria de Usategui, wrapped in a small paper, he clasped within his fist. And behold, whatever he had begun to feel from the touch of the crown, far more strongly did he feel from the ring: heavenly touches most powerful, sweet, delicate; lights unwonted, lofty, precious; ardors of the Spirit efficacious, caressing, subtle, even to the melting of the soul. They seemed to be gleanings of the nuptial banquet which Rose was enjoying with her Spouse in heaven.

[145] A little afterward this servant of God, as though from inward goads, broke out into these words: so affected a certain servant of God, "Blessed be God, who is so wonderful in his Rose. Praised be the Most Holy Trinity, before whom on the lofty summit of glory Rose stands among the chief citizens of paradise. Beloved Rose! chosen Rose! Bride of the most white Lamb! great you are, sublime you are, glorious, most resplendent, incomparable you are in the triumphal host of the holy women." Very many like things he uttered again and again with a full heart and a most sweet affection, but with his body altogether motionless: for that inward jubilation, as it had loosed the tongue and mouth of the seated man, so had it bound his other members, so much so that he could neither rise from his chair nor move his arms or legs, stiffened with numbness. His right hand, which had folded about the ring, was leaning upon the side rail of the seat, but fixedly, as though nailed. His left he had laid upon his heart, against the immoderate palpitation of overflowing gladness; but that too seemed insolubly glued: the fortunate man tried once and again to shake himself from the seat, to unbend his legs, or at least to draw in his arms, and could do none of these things. Meanwhile his tongue, which alone was mobile, went on and continued the encomiums now of God, now of Rose, while at the same time his whole person struggled with the excessive vehemence of its inward joy.

[146] The treasurer's wife, having long delighted in the devout spectacle, so that he could not contain himself for spiritual joy, calls her husband, as though to the due office of a perfunctory greeting: for the guest who had sat down was most well known and dear in that house. The treasurer Gonzalo, approaching and courteously greeting the man, saw that he by no means rose, and presently saw that he could not. He tried to utter the formulas both of returning the greeting and of excusing himself, but in vain: for he kept relapsing into the same praises of God and of Rose; then with a plaintive sweetness of sighs he accused the violence of the joys which the ring of the happy Rose was thrusting upon him: "O," he said, "what loves! O what little flames! what fervors! how sweetly they scorch, how tenderly they creep through the marrow! O fires! O delights! O most tenacious bonds of a burning soul, most pleasant knots, embraces not to be struggled against!" Gonzalo, midway between pity and congratulation, asked whether it would please him to let go the ring (whence these torments of gladness came), that he might free himself from that prison of the seat and of joy. The man was silent, and at last assented; but to unfold his hand and stretch out his interlocked fingers he could by no means. The treasurer offered help: he admitted it.

[147] Wonderful to tell! Gonzalo found the man's arm stiff and inflexible, and remained motionless. his right hand wet with a chill sweat, as is usual in the dead, and his fingers so twisted, interlocked, and knottily bent about the ring that force and time were needed for them to be gradually unfolded. Thence they went to the left, and to tear it from his breast they had to labor with equal panting. But, the ring being laid down, the joys ceased, the bonds ceased, and he rose free from the chair who a little before was held in the captivity of nuptial gladness. He seemed, when the ring was restored, to have put off manacles and fetters at once, although he confessed that it had been far better with him in that shackle of delights than in the over-hasty release by a pitying friend. Finally he begged a pledge of silence, and departed. But if in another's hand the nuptial ring of Rose could do so much, what could the nuptials themselves not do in the soul of the Bride?

ANNOTATIONS.

CHAPTER XI.

Her constant zeal for prayer, and her intimate union with God.

Holy Rose was at leisure If he who cleaves to the Lord is one spirit with him, 1 Cor. 6, it will be permissible thence to conjecture how sublime a degree of divine union Rose attained, who by the familiarity of prayer clung continually to God alone. While still an infant the inward unction of the Spirit had taught her to pray, and had implanted a fervor which generally not even her nightly dreams could draw off to other objects. Hence very often she was heard through the night, while sleeping, to render, numbered and in as many words, the little prayers upon which she had watched at greater length during the day. Religion grew with her age, and with the stature of her body the raising of her mind to God: for a serious frequency of meditation exercised even her childhood years; and by sudden and precocious increases her lofty skill in contemplation so ripened and advanced that about the twelfth year of her age she was found already to have climbed that degree of prayer which mystical theology calls the unitive. So it was ascertained in the examination, concerning which below, chapter XIV.

[149] Further, she had accustomed herself to a twofold manner of praying: the first, and that the chief, was when, being disengaged at once in body and in mind, she most quietly gathered her whole self to speak with God; the second, when amid the labors of her hands and outward occupations she fixed her mind immovably upon God. to two kinds of prayer, For the former (as we have touched upon above) she had set aside not less than twelve hours of every natural day. The latter was continuous with her, and, so far as the way of our mortality permits, subject to no interruption, save while for an hour she underwent visions, of which in the following chapter.

[150] This was a rare gift of the almighty right hand, and singularly to be admired in the Virgin, of which one was constant that, whether Rose slept or waked, never and nowhere did the presence of her heavenly Spouse slip from the eye of her mind; while she spun, wove, while she embroidered silken flowers with the needle, while she conversed with others, while she ate, read, walked, in church, in the garden, at home, abroad, in the street, in her little cell, everywhere there was present to her inward gaze, close at hand (and as in a mirror), that lovable Majesty whom the angels serve, whose beauty the sun and moon admire. And, what surpasses both all reason and all admiration, this divine presence occupied the interior powers of Rose without notable abstraction from her senses, so that, while she spoke with God within, she at the same time without hindrance transacted all other necessary matters with the household outside; she answered questions in order, aptly, methodically; she conversed readily, disposed what was to be done, did what was disposed, with the ease, attention, and promptness with which those are wont who attend to outward business alone.

[151] Doubtless in S. Catherine of Siena a most similar pattern of grace had preceded, by which she was thus joined to God, when, condemned to the noisy duties of the kitchen, she built in the inmost recess of her soul that most happy chamber of imperturbable quiet, into which no importunity of outward tumults penetrated. So Rose, wholly outside and wholly within, while outwardly she busied herself about frequent service, at the same time took her delight with her Spouse in the most secret chamber of her heart. Hence the treasurer's little daughters several times observed in her that, when in sewing Rose drew thread and needle upward, together with her arm her spirit seemed also to be raised into ecstasy, and after a brief delay her hand, suspended on high, returned to the work, and the needle did not stray from the point where it had left off.

[152] Another thing equally wonderful was added to this gift as a heaping up, so that outward objects did not distract her, that amid prayer she was not easily moved by objects which less concerned her, as though for these alone Rose's outward senses had grown numb. Hence religious women often noted in her that if anywhere in a most crowded church she had taken a corner opposite the high altar, in order to pray more attentively, she sat unmoved for hours with her eyes fixed upon the altar, and neither saw those passing by nor turned her gaze aside at sudden noises about her; nay, if anything seemed to run straight into her eyes, she did not draw her lashes together in a blink, did not close her eyelids, did not turn away her face; so that you would have thought her blind, when she was most of all an eagle, admiring her own sun with unaverted gaze.

[153] Hence also that rocklike immobility of her virginal little body, and she clung to it long as though motionless. while in church, in the chapel of the Rosary, in the household oratory, she was at leisure for pouring forth prayers: for in whatever place and posture she had at the beginning composed herself for prayer, in the same she was found after hours, after a whole day, after two full nights with a day, altogether unchanged. Thus Gonzalo's wife once found Rose kneeling in the same corner which she had occupied at the point of noon for the exercise of meditation. Thus in churches, where either for the Forty Hours' devotion or otherwise the Sacrament of the Most Holy Eucharist stood exposed for adoration, Rose, as though turned to stone in the place where she had sat down in the early morning, endured until evening, without refreshment, without movement. Thus in the treasurer's household oratory, when Rose shut herself up from the morning of the fifth day of the week until the Sabbath (sometimes even until Sunday), she first asked Lady Maria de Usategui that during all that interval of time she should not be called out, whatever might occur, even if Rose's own mother should come to speak with her Daughter: being asked the reason, she candidly answered that during all that space of time she was unable, being motionless, to rise from the pavement upon her feet, not even to open the oratory door, if anyone should happen to knock at the threshold.

[154] Contemplating the divine attributes, She had chosen three hours daily, which severally in the morning, at noon, and in the evening she spent in rendering thanks to God alone. In these with the tenderest affection she recalled God's several benefits toward her, wondered at his condescension toward her, and adored the munificent and prodigal liberality of so many gifts, graces, and charisms: and truly she had daily new things to recite from the writing-tablets of a most attentive gratitude. She also made familiar to herself a certain kind of prayer most lofty, luminous, fiery,

in which, turning over in her mind by name the glorious attributes of God, she rendered to each its proper worship of latria. Nevertheless, that in these she might trust another's judgment rather than her own, she went to a pious and learned theologian of the Society of Jesus, and demanded that a sincere nomenclature of the divine epithets be gathered for her into an epitome out of the sacred Pages. He complied, and gathered a good number; but to the Virgin, in proportion to the greatness of her affection, they seemed few: she had desired a sheaf, not a little bundle. And so from Father Master Brother John de Lorenzana ^a she obtained a larger supplement, until the sum of the number reached a hundred and fifty. These she separated in a most apt order into fifteen decades, and to each decade she subjoined the verse: Glory be to the Father, etc. As it was, etc. Further, she affirmed that this formula of prayer was a terror to demons — she who assuredly would never have affirmed it had she not proved it by her own experience. Finally, in these attributes of God almost the whole systole and diastole of her heart was moved, and she had so far advanced in them that she once modestly confessed that even while spinning, at each prick of the needle, she addressed God with a new encomium.

[155] and always speaking with God or of God, Moreover it was noted that the Virgin so clung to prayer that the familiar conversations which she used toward others generally contained at the same time the force of prayer; and that the answer which she gave to those questioning her was at the same time the language of a mind raised to God: for example, if, when she entered a garden with other women, the pleasantness of the pleasure-ground was elaborately praised, she answered courteously: "The garden is comely and beautiful; may God increase its flowers for it." But she chiefly meant the garden of the soul, for which she prayed to God for flowery increases of virtues: and thus ingeniously enclosing a double sense in one saying, by the one she satisfied the person addressing her, by the other she herself addressed God. This was often observed, and in the most diverse subjects, scarcely any of which escaped this spiritual and holy skill in equivocating, so that nothing should fall from Rose's mouth which was not prayer.

[156] It happened that on a certain day, returning home from church, she is carried into ecstasy by the song of a little bird, when she felt unwell, she had determined to prepare for herself in passing a pottage of water and crumbled bread; and, to kindle a fire, she had borrowed a burning brand from elsewhere. As she is returning, she hears from an arbor a tuneful little bird. Rose stopped, not disdaining to listen to the winged creature for a while, as one chanting the praises of God (as she imagined) in her own measure. The little bird went on singing, varied the trills of her charming voice, doubled her warblings; ^b but Rose, suddenly recalled into herself by shame, upbraided herself: "What," she said, "does that rude little beast praise my Creator and hers, forgetful of her own food; and shall I be busied about preparing food for myself? How very little is that which the Author of nature gave to this little creature, and behold with her whole heart, with all her strength, she pays him the tribute of praise; but I think about food, and am not solicitous what I shall render to the Lord for all the things that he has rendered to me!" Then, turning to the brand which she carried in her hand, she saw it wholly extinguished, and wondered that she had stood there so long that the whole brand could gradually go out. She believed that she had not clung attentive to the little bird's music for half a quarter of an hour, and perhaps whole hours had flowed by. Accordingly, drawn back again into herself, she too began to praise God, with such a fervor as gradually carried Rose away into ecstasy, nor did she extricate herself from it until evening, though it was in the morning, about three hours before noon, that she had begun to listen to the little bird's melody.

[157] It would be a paradox if Rose had not persuaded herself as seriously of what she urged upon others with so great effort. and others both by herself, Whatever she exhorted her neighbors to, whatever she inculcated, was the single pursuit of prayer. To the practice and school of this she strove among others to attract Ferdinand her brother by blood, promising that the labor would be small and the fruit exceptional and inestimable. He, doubting nothing about the fruit, believed the labor and the difficulty greater than his Sister either proclaimed or would have believed; whatever the Virgin urged about the easiness of that most healthful exercise he interpreted as mere hyperboles and tales of feminine simplicity: nor yet did Rose cease to teach her brother by what method and reason, amid the very occupations of the world, he might keep his mind fixed in prayer. With like solicitude she both read herself, and with eloquent efficacy counselled others to read, such pious books as she knew to treat more skillfully of prayer. Among these stood out the learned Works of Luis of Granada ^c on prayer and meditation, for the constant unrolling and re-unrolling of which Rose had divided the week, and had distinguished by various marks of colors what she was to read on each day.

[158] Nor with less care did she admonish, ask, and beseech the Father confessors, as many as she could approach, and by her confessors that they should by every persuasion and art induce their penitents to undergo the exercises of mental prayer; that they should note that this was a great apothecary's shop, most fully furnished with every antidote against sins; that by the practice of prayer the spirit is purged, the wounds of souls bound up; that by this is opened the perfumer's chamber of the Spouse and the storehouse of every unguent. Nor content with these things, Rose also most frequently addressed the heralds of the divine word themselves, that they should inflame their hearers to the exercises of prayer, should bring in among the people the practice of pious meditations, and should commend, privately and publicly, the usefulness, sweetness, and excellence of this discipline with all force of arguments and with the whole effort of their eloquence.

[159] Rose was peculiarly affected by the devout recitation of the Virgin's Rosary; she exhorts to the pursuit of prayer; but under that rite and rule in which the holy Father Dominic ^d had first, by the instruction of the Mother of God, handed it on to the world — that is, with the consideration of the mysteries of our redemption woven in by decades. She loved this formula of praying, because in it mental and vocal prayer had grown together, and each of its parts and affections: petition, the voice of praise, thanksgiving, etc. Hence Rose had bound about her arm as a bracelet a small rosary of the tiniest little beads, whose grains she secretly drew at each Angelic Salutation, even where she found herself entangled in conversation and company. This example, and Rose's ardent exhortation, truly profited very many, so that they might more familiarly grow accustomed to frequenting the praises of God.

[160] nay even plants and trees, Nay more, this affection for prayer was in Rose of such energy that it wonderfully inclined even the insensible plants themselves, the senseless woods, and the mute trunks to render praise, reverence, and adoration to God. I bring forward an unheard-of thing. In the morning twilight, when Rose was about after her custom to return to her anchoretic little cell, as soon as she opened the garden door, she invited the trees, shrubs, and all the little herbs seen from afar to bless the Creator with her: "Bless the Lord, all you things that grow upon the earth." And behold, the little branches suddenly moved into euphony and concert, leaves struck against leaves, the rustling whispers of the foliage applauded on every side, the heads of the lowlier little plants stirred; the very pulses, flowers, shrubs, and clusters were in a manner animated by a varied movement into the placid harmony of a hymn-singing murmur. Nor was this enough: the very shrubs at the same time bent their branches to the earth, as though about to kiss the ground, in reverence of their Maker.

[161] not without a prodigious miracle, It happened that on a certain morning a person of approved good faith had joined herself as companion to Rose going to the garden; they had scarcely entered when, at Rose's accustomed invitatory, she saw the trees bend down in rivalry, so that the tips of their summits touched the earth and slowly swept the ground, as by the most solemn rite of a profound adoration. Her companion was astounded, especially because she saw that this was to Rose neither strange nor new; for from elsewhere also the conspicuous frequency of this prodigy became known, so that the Virgin neither attempted to conceal it nor could deny it; yet she added: "See whether that admirable craftsman of the world is worthy to be loved; see whether that eternal Majesty deserves to be praised, worshiped, and adored by us, to whom this earthly growth, the rude trunks, and all vegetable things whisper a song of praise in the manner they can, and pay the tribute of prostrate veneration."

[162] she rouses to the divine praises, Another like it, and I have done. In the year which was Rose's last, throughout the whole of Lent, at the setting of the sun there flew close over against Rose's chamber a tiny bird, but wonderfully vocal and sonorous; and there she occupied the front of a neighboring tree, as though about to burst into song at a given signal. Rose, having caught sight of this her evening chorister, prepared herself also to sing praises to God. Then, as though a watchword had been given, she invited the little bird with a verse which she had composed for this use, of nearly this sense:

Loosen your fibers, nightingale, Bring forth your sweet song: Let your panting voice compose a hymn, Let us praise the Lord together. Praise your Creator; I my Savior: The God of us both I shall praise. Open your beak, Open your throat in singing: Sounding forth by turns, Let us give a melody with our voices.

[163] Straightway the little bird with a most gentle drawing of her voice began her shrill little song, which she long, with the little bird, and gradually, growing more vocal, rose into a closing flourish; and, finishing with many turns her winding ode, she yielded her turn to the Virgin. To the silent little bird Rose succeeded, and with the voice in which she excelled, ringing and most sweet, she pursued the divine praises, with a wit fertile to a miracle and ready. Presently, when Rose fell silent, abruptly the little bird resumed her song, doubled the minute particles of her breaks, confounded her rolling accents with quivering little pipes, lowered, raised, and twisted the most easy trills of her nimble little voice, and suddenly, as at a signal for a pause, rested. Immediately Rose's rival voice entered in, renewed the jubilee, magnified the ineffable perfections of the most high Godhead, was borne aloft with the urging spirit, grew faint with eloquent sighs, and at length, breaking off her silence, called back her antiphon-singer to the song.

[164] Thus in the praises of God Rose and the little bird alternated: sang alternately. and that not perfunctorily, but for the whole space of a passing hour, with such law and order that, while the little bird sang, Rose did not even murmur, and in turn, while Rose sang, the most attentive little bird did not even chirp. At length at the point of the sixth hour after noon, as though having discharged her office, she flew away, to return the next day to the same. But the Virgin, fertile in pious rhythms extempore, closed the stage of her ode with nearly this epilogue:

Yet that I should praise you, O King, all laws bind me; Since you are Creator, and I a creature.

Then, turning charmingly to the companions standing by, she added:

The little bird deserts me, my Chanter withdraws; But ever abiding with me, blessed be God.

These cannot be sufficiently rendered in Latin, which in Rose's Spanish tongue were more gracefully bound in their proper measures. Let it be enough that Rose had such power of prayer as drew to herself the birds of heaven and the growths of the earth into an alternating fellowship of adoration.

ANNOTATIONS.

enumerates the deeds and writings of the most pious Luis of Granada.

CHAPTER XII.

Spiritual dryness and the various afflictions of mind by which holy Rose is exercised.

Like gold in the furnace, What the furnace is to gold, that tribulation is to the just and elect: especially where a danger must be met, lest the greatness of revelations puff up. This furnace fell divinely to Paul, this to Rose, but with a different fire. Him a sting of the flesh subjected to buffetings; her the coals of desolation cooked in the penal frying-pan of inward abandonment. Each in anguish cried out to heaven, and to each an answer came from heaven: "My grace is sufficient for you: for strength is made perfect in weakness." To the matter. The Virgin had ascended to the degree of perpetual union with God, and at the same time she began to suffer daily most atrocious intervals of mental darkening, which not in passing but generally for whole hours so depressed the poor girl that she often knew not whether she were in Gehenna, or in the dire prison of purgatory, or in what dungeons she lay thrust in darkness. In the twinkling of an eye she found herself there where there was no memory of the most sweet Godhead, no taste of the divine presence, no trace, shadow, or mention of any solace whatever. It was a desert of obscurity, languor, and dullness, a region of death, a night of swooning, a cave of utmost calamity; in it, as far off as God was to the Virgin, so far off was she to herself.

[166] thus the Saint is tried by the fire of inward tribulation, Rose lay groaning under the monstrous weight of darkness, and could raise herself neither to supernatural objects nor even to natural ones. Her intellect strove to seize even the least gleams ^a of the Deity, but all light had fled; her will desired to love, but had grown numb, frozen; her memory labored to bring to mind at least some one image out of many of past favors, and could not. To the heaping up of her punishments she remembered, as in a mist, that she had once known God and loved him; but she felt that she now neither knew nor loved the same, as one whom she glimpsed from afar, hastily, and faintly, as a stranger, absent, alien, foreign, and scarcely known by report. But this was the most troublesome of all, to be exiled so far from knowledge of the Beloved. She tried then at least to seek him by his traces in creatures; but neither those nor these appeared under a lineament by which by the accustomed analogy they might represent the Creator. Meanwhile terror and anguish strenuously performed their parts. Her afflicted heart cried out, God, my God, why have you forsaken me? But in the void of her emptied soul no one answered, not even an echo. She returned to the struggle of her efforts; but all warmth of affections was lulled asleep, all reason blunted, and a most profound lethargy had beset every sense of piety on every side. What could the Virgin do under these torments, as much torn asunder within herself as torn away from her Beloved?

[167] and was distressed with such terrors, But the chief part of her pains was that they bore a face as of things about to last forever, and the vast misery promised no end, nowhere lay open an exit from this labyrinth, and escape seemed blocked as by a wall of adamant: whence Rose, perplexed, could not find how to distinguish this unhappiness of hers from the infernal pain of loss. She tried thence to hunt out a most sorrowful solace, in that she thought that under these torments she would gradually perish: for they did not seem to be such as could long subsist without the total destruction of a fragile creature; but then there occurred to her importunately the immortality of her soul, which no force of punishments could destroy, no hell extinguish. Sometimes she was near to uttering wild cries to implore help; but she repressed the vain impulses, remembering that no one could succor a calamity so inexplicable, and that she herself lacked fit words with which to sketch it even faintly to her neighbors; nay, that in the whole world there was not to be found a teacher so eloquent, profound, and learned as could either attain by speculation or embrace in mind the gravity of this pain.

[168] For fifteen whole continuous years, daily, at least once, so that she, otherwise most ready to suffer, Rose was plunged, fearing and trembling, into this gloom of desolation, and for not less than a whole hour, sometimes longer, she throbbed under this agony; and so far was any habituation from mitigating these terrors that it almost increased them: for when on the next day the Virgin relapsed into the same chaos, again under the same specter of a lurid eternity the dreadful dreads returned, nor did her bound memory suggest to her in her grief that she had emerged from it the day before. Whence again her soul wasted away amid evils, again every solace of escaping fled, again the abysses covered her lifeless, and Rose, now wholly thorny — nay, a thorn — grew rigid in the lowest gulf of tribulations. Yet on certain days there crept in upon the afflicted girl, as through a little chink, the slow twilight of a very small hope, whereby she might somehow suspect that this punishment of mind would not be without an end; and thus she seemed to bear the distress rather of purgatory than of hell. Nevertheless even then the lingering absence of her Spouse burned most savagely, the raw banishment of a most hard exile afflicted her, the long divorce of a most bitter widowhood saddened her; and, what surpassed the remaining trouble, then too she tried both to know and to love, but could do neither; her confused mind was blind, wandered, groped, stumbled, bereft of light; her troubled spirit sought, knocked, groaned, and was not heard; the depth of her heart had grown dry, her vigor had wasted away, and by no vital motion, by no savor of any affection was she moved toward divine things.

[169] Finally so great was the horror of those figures, begged that this cup of bitterness might be taken from her. so great the bitterness of the horror, that Rose, although from her tender years undaunted at enduring anything whatever, earnestly begged that this one cup of bitterness might be taken from her, as being altogether beyond her strength and simply intolerable; whence she asked her Spouse that he would rather deign to lead her by the ordinary ways of his elect, and would not further permit one who so loved to gape open to the depths of the abyss, where there is no substance. And in truth, as it is hard for the soul to be separated from the body, harder to be torn from itself, hardest of all was it to be torn from the Beloved after the experience of union and of most sweet embraces; since indeed, on Augustine's testimony, what the soul is to the body, that God is to a loving soul, and it is a lesser punishment for it to cease from animating than to cease from loving or to be driven from it. Nevertheless Rose, when she recognized that it was so pleasing in God's sight, embracing the torment with a manly and plainly heroic spirit, said: "Not my will be done, but yours." And thus she constantly prepared herself for a like rack on the following day, never secure at what hour it awaited her, fearful as she was.

[170] Such was this affliction of mind, So abstruse, monstrous, and unknown was the shape and nature of these desolations that scarcely at last were there found theologians perspicacious and knowing enough to presume to define anything certain about their constitution. ^b In the beginning Rose went to various confessors, in case they might know how to give any remedy, relief, or at least counsel; but they neither sufficiently grasped what the Virgin was trying to say, nor did they match with a thought capacious enough the strange wrappings of so many riddles. One answered that they were either deliriums or dreams. Another unskillfully referred the matter to ghosts and specters. Nor was there lacking one who suspected trifles, or indeed the illusions of demons and empty bugbears. The more equitable interpreted them as paroxysms of smoking melancholy or of black bile, and that her brain, too much attenuated by fasting and vigils, lay open to the horrid onsets of lurid phantasms from the scorching of a diseased spleen or the corruption of dreggy blood. But Rose, because she knew for certain that this calamity was not from the body, was the more gravely saddened that she could find no one who either understood the disease or pointed out any guiding-star in the Charybdis of so great a perplexity. She groaned then at her own rudeness, that from the poverty of a barren (as she thought) little wit and from her unskillfulness in speaking she could not explain her affliction in fit words. Thus therefore she imputed to herself the whole blame for her incurability.

[171] so that some thought it was a disease of the body, One slender solace remained, that her mother, as she could not help, so was utterly ignorant of these terrible agonies of her Daughter — a woman easily disturbed, and one who would have been disturbed had she learned of them. But this too at length was to the Virgin an addition of fresh vexation: for when the parent had several times noted in her Daughter's face that at fixed hours during the day she grew pale, was distressed, palpitated, and was almost frozen with a deathly sweat, she importunately asked what kind of sudden sickness this was, and why she dissembled it: and the less her Daughter could utter what she suffered, the more vehemently did her mother press the poor girl, urged her, adjured her, as though about to investigate an inward torment by another torment. The girl excused herself, saying that she herself had not sufficiently ascertained what she suffered in her soul; but her mother, suspecting a grave ^c disease (especially because the same was the judgment, or unskilled credulity, of certain confessors), calls in a physician, and commends to his useless care her Rose, so vexed on every side with briars. The innocent Virgin protested that expense, labor, and time of this kind were being wasted in vain; that her evil by no means raged and reigned in the body, but within in the spirit; but she was not heard. Accordingly, seeing that she resisted in vain, and that no credit was given to her words, she fell silent, and submitted herself to a medicine which she knew would profit nothing. Doubtless this one thing had still been lacking to the summit of her so great calamity, that she was moreover compelled, as though of unsound mind, to admit to the point of nausea pills, ^d drugs, and phlebotomies. ^e

[172] which she herself could not explain, Rose strove from time to time, when she had to speak more confidently of this furnace of her desolation, to find likenesses by which she might somehow sketch the matter; but she presently confessed that she was doing what had been done. Of this our elemental fire she said that the comparison was ridiculous, because it is apt to inflict only the pain of sense, as they call it. Augustine seems to have touched upon something of this when he found himself far from God in the region of unlikeness; likewise the harp-playing King to have perceived something of it in himself, Psalm 54, which he called a pusillanimity of spirit and a tempest, or what Paul emphatically calls an anathema from Christ. But Rose felt more in herself than those words express; she said that those terrors and horrid images brought upon her such pain as would a thousand and a thousand times have sufficed to snatch away heart, life, and soul; and that she had never been equal to enduring it, save inasmuch as she was prodigiously preserved in life by the hand of the Almighty.

[173] There was one who thought that the Virgin was being led by God along the rocky ways of S. Antony the hermit, and others thought that she, like S. Antony the hermit, whom the monsters of hell harassed in terrifying forms. But that was a conflict, not an affliction or a flight of strength. It is believed that S. Catherine of Siena once suffered the same as Rose: of B. Henry Suso ^f history relates it as ascertained. There seemed to rise to some likeness or proportion of this pain that which a delicate mind suffers from most biting scruples, when a soul, left a little to itself, suspects that heaven is barred against it, that God is turned away in hostility, that hell is open with monstrous gaping jaws. Finally, this torturing horror of Rose was more vividly figured by the face of Christ at the last judgment

made harsh, wrinkled, terrible to the very demons, while it is imagined as about at that very moment to utter that dreadful sentence: Go, you cursed. These wrinkles, this thunder, this dread the most sorrowful Rose seemed to herself to experience while she labored under the hour of her swooning; so that after various, but never sufficiently apt, comparisons she could utter nothing else than: "The sorrows of hell surrounded me, the snares of death took hold upon me."

[174] Twice the Virgin was compelled to declare the other part of this scene, they suspected that she was visibly terrified by demons. namely, what kind of Phoebus was wont to shine upon her after clouds of this sort: for it could not be but that that most sweet Spouse, after so dire and dark an eclipse, should remarkably refresh and restore a soul humbled by so many sorrows. At these words Rose would have preferred either to be silent, or by art and dissimulation to turn the conversation elsewhere; but when she saw that she could not escape, she frankly and candidly confessed (so far as she could through the poverty of suitable words) the great works of God which befell her after that most sorrowful distress: how in a moment she saw herself restored to the union from which she had fallen, or had thought she had fallen; how suddenly she felt her whole soul at once shine and be inflamed. But of these things more opportunely in the description of the examination in the following chapter. Let it be permitted meanwhile to wonder at the play of the eternal Wisdom, which for a richer fruit thus mortifies and quickens chosen souls, leads them down to hell and brings them back.

ANNOTATIONS.

CHAPTER XIII.

The severe examination by learned men concerning this Virgin's spirit and visions.

Besides other masters of the spiritual life The hidden light of grace, which from infancy led Rose along straight ways, had at the same time by a wonderful reflection implanted a certainty of an attraction truly divine and by no means deceitful, so that she could not be in doubt about the rightness of the path along which she was going, although she had found it little trodden and scarcely marked by true and obscure traces. Nor yet (however certain) did she wish to seem what she was; whence Rose's most humble modesty did not presume to refuse a grave, serious, and at intervals repeated examination of her vocation and spirit. Among others, the chief whom good fortune destined for this most subtle exploration were the doctor John de Castillo and Father Master Brother John de Lorenzana, to whom belonged full command over Rose, even to the last. There were others also; but as substitutes, and such as, only on the occasion of the Sacrament of penance, sometimes investigated more studiously the inmost hiding-places of her soul. Concerning the first two it is necessary to premise a few things here, so that from their sanctity and skill the force, weight, and credit of a most mature examination may more aptly be recognized.

[176] two of the chief The doctor John de Castillo, by profession a physician, in state indeed a layman, but in practice, conversation, and spirit plainly religious, was in those days at Lima reckoned outstanding among the chosen servants of God. Learned to the highest summit in the studies of philosophy and medicine, he had moreover penetrated with the greatest sharpness of intellect into all the sanctuaries of metaphysics: celebrated on this account in the schools, in the lecture halls, in the meetings of the most learned men; especially because with wonderful perspicuity he knew how to explain sublime and most profound conceptions in their proper terms. His life was a pure mirror of piety, so that he was thought to possess each of the virtues in a heroic degree. Mystical theology he had learned exactly, not by bare speculations, but by living and most profound experiences, and he was excellently skilled in it, methodically digested under its own principles, rules, and headings; so much so that that famous mystagogue of our age, Diego Alvarez de Paz ^a of the Society of Jesus, then Provincial in the kingdom of Peru, while he was preparing his most distinguished writings on prayer, meditation, and contemplation, held that this man should be consulted by him on very many points, and in volume 3, on contemplation, book 3, on the point whether the will can be borne toward the unknown, cites him, suppressing his name (since indeed he was still among the living), as a master of prayer and of solid perfection, and only just stops short of pointing him out with an outstretched finger. This Castillo wrote (at the bidding of Diego Alvarez) a noble treatise on those things which occurred to him amid the rays and lights of his contemplations. The archbishop of Myra, most knowing in such matters, saw the book and was astounded, and had it transcribed to be offered in person to the Roman Pontiff. These things concerning the doctor Castillo, then still surviving, Peter de Ortega Sotomayor, from being chief professor at Lima, magistral canon, metropolitan archdeacon, and consultor of the Holy Office, then bishop of Trujillo, ^b afterward of Arequipa, ^c and finally of Cuzco, ^d testified juridically after others. He added that he would bring forth publicly more and greater things about this man, provided it should happen that he outlive him. Now (but more briefly) to the other.

[177] Father Master Brother John de Lorenzana of the Order of Preachers (on the testimony of the same most illustrious prelate) held the same, or at least not a lower, degree of holiness and public repute than Lord Castillo. examined the actions of S. Rose, There stood out in him, and contended for the primacy, a lofty perfection of life and a profundity of scholastic theology; there met together an ardent zeal for contemplating and an active dexterity in governing; a force of perspicacious intellect and a deep maturity of judgment; flight from the world and practice in affairs. Hence so many prefectures, whether of schools or of convents and provinces, had successively flowed together upon him: for he was the morning professor of theology in the royal University of Lima, which he first introduced into the kingdom; and in the Peruvian tribunal of the holy Inquisition a censor, whom they call qualificator; likewise Prior of the Convent of Lima; then Vicar general of the province of S. John the Baptist, and at last provincial and visitor; equally most versed in the affairs both of the Church and of the commonwealth; dear and to be admired by every order of men, the highest, the middling, the lowest; to whom, as to the common oracle of the city, all arduous business was eagerly brought from the councils of prelates, from the royal senate of the audience (as they call it), from consistories, courts, tribunals, from the inward and the outward forum; because all felt that the gift of counsel shone wonderfully in so great a man. Further, how great Lorenzana was in that which you might rightly call the science of the Saints, mystical theosophy; how great in the savor and experience of heavenly things; how practiced in the discipline of the loftiest contemplation; how sharp-eyed and lynx-like in the prudent discernment of spirits, this one thing (if the rest were lacking) I judge sufficient: that divine providence singularly committed to him the governing of Rose's spirit. Here there would have to be commemorated together, with praise not much unequal, Father Diego Martinez of the Society of Jesus, and the Fathers Master Brother Alphonsus Velasquez, Brother Luis de Bilbao, and Brother John Perez: but the examination by the first two embraces so many and so great things that nothing can be added from the rest.

[178] Now more closely to the matter. There sat at the first examination, for propriety's sake, Rose's mother and Lady Maria de Usategui. Before these, Lord Castillo, for a whole space of three hours, held the Virgin in the household garden of her little cell, of whom one, John Castillo, as though hedged about, by various questions; and, having most diligently probed the veins of her soul, he found all sound and safe. First, being asked how long ago she had conceived heavenly promptings and a tranquil spirit of prayer, she answered most simply that she did not indeed remember the time, because from her earliest childhood she had found herself exceedingly given to pouring forth little prayers, and raised with her whole mind to serious efforts of meditating, so that nothing could occur to her sweeter than to speak to God, to think of God, to pant after things above. She was not ashamed to confess these things before her mother, who was only too conscious how truly she spoke. Being asked about her successive advances in this pursuit — whether she had always prayed with equal application of mind, ease, recollection, and serenity of an untroubled mind — she answered that up to about the twelfth year of her age she had perceived amid praying a varied temperature and, from time to time, vicissitudes of difficulties, but brief and moderate; that generally with a free and most quiet mind she had gone forward to God, but that sometimes she had also had to struggle with the weakness of her little body, with drowsiness, and with distractions; but that from that time onward she prayed more freely, because at the outset she felt her whole soul with each of its powers wonderfully drawn inward by God, and that with an unspeakable savor her intellect, will, and memory were so fixed within upon the divine beauty that she could neither of her own accord tear herself away by the intrusion of phantasms, nor be drawn off by the occupations of the outward senses from the embrace and admiration of the most sweet Godhead present in her soul.

[179] questioned her about the manner of contemplation, The doctor pressed on: whether she did not employ some force of her imagination while the other inward powers so clung to the savor of God; whether, and by what and how great a straining, labor, or support, she sustained herself in this most sweet suspension? Rose denied that labor, force, or straining was present on her part; that of their own accord her powers followed the drawing, as it were magnetic, and turned toward their center with a sweetness of which even a single drop would correct and sweeten the bitterness of an infinite Ocean; that thence there notably descended into her heart most pleasant warmths and glowings which she could not explain; that hence there continually radiated in the depth of her soul the presence of a serene, lovable, propitious Divinity, which she certainly found there; and that she could be delighted by nothing else than that by this experimental certainty she felt God within her. The doctor inquired whether perhaps she read books on mystical theology, which either had taught the method and art of this introversion, or at least set forth by discussion its nature, signs, properties, and effects. The destitute Virgin denied that she had any such books

in her possession or use; that in these matters experience and practice alone had been her book; and that therefore she could not fittingly express, as she would wish, the inward feelings of her mind, and that to her rudeness not even the name — if any proper one existed — of this intuitive prayer had become known.

[180] about the prayer of union, Then Castillo, as one most versed in this school, undertook to explain to the Virgin in proper notions the secret sacred science ^e of this lofty illumination: namely, that by the masters of ascetic discipline this kind of contemplating is called the PRAYER OF UNION; that here the intellect is formed by a species not acquired but infused from above; and that it is not turned to bodily phantasms, but, being void of images, is impregnated with the luminous purity of a spiritual form: that here God by an immediate and inward influx fills the sanctuary of the faithful soul; that here the affective part is set on fire and made white-hot by the descending flame of uncreated Love, and that upon the palate of the will a happy foretaste of blessed fruition is begun. He added more from the aphorisms of mystical theology: on the simplification of the heart, on the guiding-star of a purified intention, on the nakedness of the affections, on resigned indifference, on hidden introductions, on the abyss of light, on the savor whereby all discourse is turned into the intuition of heavenly things, on the fountain of life, and on other matters which pleased Rose, capable of such things, beyond measure, and thereafter profited her, so that from this vocabulary she might know how to explain herself to her confessors more clearly and more significantly.

[181] The doctor went on, and studiously falling back upon the purgative way, asked how long, with what industry, with how much sweat she had had to fight against the depraved inclinations of her mind, against the armed lurking-places of vices, against the diseases of untamed and unbridled passions. She answered that she scarcely remembered such conflicts; that from infancy by God's great favor she had felt easy and supremely connatural propensities toward virtue, without any tumult of the passions; that from her first knowledge of God she had been filled with fear and horror of sin, and that if any undeliberate motion strove to rise up against reason, it suddenly vanished without conflict at the apprehension of the divine presence. Being asked what solace she sought from creatures, if it happened that her mind, wearied with the labor of contemplating, should somewhat relax, or for a while unbend by recreation? ^f She answered that she could be refreshed by no created thing; that in this one and only thing consisted all her delight, that with so great certainty she felt God present in her soul, and that if she were to lose him from her sight even for a moment, that would seem to her more bitter than any loss, more dire than any Gehenna. The doctor asked, since to that degree one ascends only through briars and thickets, whether at least she had suffered persecutions and distresses from elsewhere. The Virgin assented; but out of reverence for her mother, who was present there, she did not descend to particulars, being content to say in general terms that she had endured from the household, on account of the singularity of her life, various annoyances, insults, and vexations.

[182] But from these, by an opportune digression, she fell upon those dreadful visions, Then, passing to the aforesaid anguishes of mind, figures, and dreads which have been treated in the preceding chapter, and with great entreaties she begged the doctor to elucidate learnedly for her the nature, origin, critical marks, and proper interpretation of that desolation and punishment. Castillo did not refuse to declare what he thought: "When," he said, "in that darkening you seemed to yourself able to hope for an exit and an end, know that you tasted the most painful delays of souls mourning in the prison of purgatory; but when no hope of escape shone upon you, and a certain smoke of eternity pervaded the gloom of horror, it was the very type of hell. By these punishments the soul is trained to knowledge of itself, while in the vicissitude of light and darkness it learns by the experience of its own nothingness what it has from itself, what from God, and what difference there is between the one and the other. By the most troublesome weight of this counterpoise ^g the spirit is held in its equilibrium, lest it be lifted up amid the gifts of the Most High. This eclipse teaches one to esteem the excellence of divine familiarity and a condescension purely gratuitous; it acts as a brake by the gift of fear. By this furnace gold is tried, charity is made bright, and love, robust with manly virtue, is armored, growing accustomed to love not so much the delights of God as God himself. I remember," he said, "to have read the same things which you relate of yourself concerning certain chief and most holy friends of God (whose names are inscribed in the public records of the Church); nor were there lacking among them those who asked the Lord that he would at last will them immune from the atrocious torment of this terror, saying they would gladly undergo any other kind of punishment whatever." Finally, that David had looked to this when he groaned: "It is said to me daily, Where is your God? My soul is like a solitary sparrow on the housetop; I am brought to nothing, and I knew not, etc."

[183] he ordered her to reveal the divine illuminations, These things being cursorily explained, the doctor in turn asked the Virgin how it had been with her after those darknesses and horrors of hell. Here Rose, terrified as though she had trodden on a snake, shrank back, grew pale, fell silent, well aware that, if she must answer, she would have to labor under so great an abundance of matter and poverty of words. Meanwhile the doctor urged, pressed twice, three times; but drew out nothing. At length, with brow more severely drawn, he said: "Note, O Rose, that this is no place for evading and keeping silence; your own case is at stake: if you dissemble anything, if you conceal anything in the examination, you have denied a benefit of God; unless you tell the whole of what I seek, neither shall I understand you nor you me sufficiently, and you will not fully grasp the riddles and sense of the figures which I have partly explained and partly am about to explain." Humble Rose obeyed, whose face fear and shame had wholly kindled with a modest blush, and, having first begged pardon if any paradox should escape one rude and unwary, she began thus: "While I think and lament that I am swallowed up in the lowest gulf of a gloomy abandonment, behold suddenly, in the very noonday of my former union, I find myself as in the arms of my Spouse; I am restored as though I had never fallen away; I feel the eager onsets of a most free love, as when swift rivers, their barriers broken, roll themselves through a cataract not by flowing but by rushing; presently the placid South wind of graces breathes, and the spices flow; the soul is plunged into the immense sea of the divine goodness, and, departing from itself by an ineffable metamorphosis, is transformed into the Beloved, and becomes one with him."

[184] and the heavenly visions, Being ordered to say more, she stuck fast with new shame, blushed, faltered; yet she added that amid these favors of the closest union she seemed to herself immovably rooted in God, secure in his friendship, confirmed in grace; that she felt a certain inexplicable, fundamental, solid gift, by which she reckoned herself incapable of sinning, like him who confidently said: "Who shall separate us from the charity of Christ? I am certain that neither death, etc." Nevertheless the Virgin here protested that she had never dared to say this to any mortal, and would not even now have said it had not the rigor of the present examination compelled her; and if perchance she had erred in the phrasing of her speech, which the necessity of uttering everything had forced out, she humbly begged the censure of correction. The doctor praised the simple candor of the obedient Rose, and bade her not tremble, saying that nothing had thus far been erroneous, only that she should proceed to the rest. Rose proceeded, and said in a low and broken voice that generally after those dreadful darknesses the humanity of Christ was conspicuously shown to her, now with a manly, now with an infant or boyish face, winning, beautiful, affable; and often also the Virgin Mother, comely, lovable, and sweetly familiar. Being asked about the manner and quality of the vision — whether it were imaginary or intellectual, lasting or momentary, face to face or obliquely through transparencies — she answered that those proper names of differing visions were indeed still unknown to her, but that the glorious humanity of Christ was exhibited to her in a certain near and clear passing, as when some shining star runs across the sky with a lingering course; and that his whole stature was not seen, but only as far as the face and the breast. Yet that the majesty of the Mother of God was wont to be granted to her gaze a little longer.

[185] Whence Castillo inferred that the visions were imaginary; with which she had been refreshed, and he asked further, in what form then she apprehended the presence of the Divinity. Here Rose labored to find fit words, but at last, by terms of removal, of eminence, and of causality alone, she somehow explained herself, hinting that it was a light without figure, measure, or end: whence it was plain from that side that the vision was purely intellectual — incomprehended and comprehending all things, subtle, stable, most pure, supremely manifold and supremely one, supremely distant and supremely near, inmost and encompassing, noble, lofty, and by no means even faintly comparable to any creature; and one which can be perceived by the mind rather in the wonderful and immediate effects of certain vital outflowings than in its own substance. But what are these effects? "A tenderness," she said, "of a robust joy above every imaginable joy; the kinship of divine sonship; an inward renewal of oldness in the very essence of the soul; a filling of the bosom of the will; life and alacrity of all the affections — firm, holy, charming, and finally in every way unspeakable."

[186] The doctor saw himself satisfied in what he was chiefly investigating, and judges that all these came from God, not ignorant that in the matter of union the more things are said, the less is said. Whence, prudently digressing to things easier to utter, he inquired about her exercises of mortification and penance. Rose, because she thought that in this kind she performed few things and quite commonplace, said something in passing about her fastings, hairshirts, disciplines, and other austerities, her mother being absent, and that in these she had fixed the manner and measure not by her own judgment but by that of her confessors. Finally, after many things had been discussed to and fro and most sagaciously explored concerning her distrust of herself, her ardor of faith, her security of hope, and the goads of heavenly love, the doctor concluded that the way in which the Virgin walked was sincere and safe; that no imposture of the most crafty demon lay hidden here; that such affections, effects, and lights were by no means from illusion or from the prince of darkness. Several times afterward he confidently met the Virgin, not so much to examine as to confer; always finding new things which he might admire and approve.

[187] The same was the judgment of Father Master de Lorenzana, with which judgment John de Lorenzana agreed after he had most diligently explored the Virgin's spirit by a more frequent examination broken up into parts. It would be long to pursue each point member by member. Let it suffice to have added this one thing to the above: that when he began to test Rose in the illuminative way, he was astounded at the answers of a simple and unlettered girl, when, being questioned about the hidden mystery of the Most Holy Trinity, about the hypostatic union of the Word, about the sacrament of the Altar, about the glory of the Blessed, about the book of life and of predestination, about the nature of grace, and about other secrets of faith and of theosophy, she brought forth axioms so profound and solid, conceptions so acute and sublime, sentences so perspicuous, brief, fertile, and weighty, words so proper, apt, clear, and succinct, that the other examiner did not hesitate to confess frankly that he had never lighted upon so luminous and perspicacious a mind; and he praised the Father of lights, who revealed to the humble, the little, and the unlearned such great things hidden from the wise and prudent. The same he thereafter admired in the method of confessing which Rose used, with such perspicuity, and such propriety and circumspection of speech,

that it seemed to Lorenzana that he was hearing not a woman but a professor of many years in both theologies; so great was the proportion, gravity, and measure of her words, without digression, without circumlocution, without confusion or superfluity. Hence it came about that, being called to receive the Virgin's confession, when the under-sacristan said that he was awaited in church by little Rose or Rosella, he rebuked him as having spoken irreverently: "Does she seem to you," he said, "a little Rose, who before God is a Rose, and a great one indeed? A day will come on which all will understand how exceptionally lofty, how great, and how notable this Rose is."

[188] and Luis de Bilbao, Dominicans, Master Brother Luis de Bilbao, nearly equal to Lorenzana and chief professor, noted the same things in Rose while he received her confessions; for he too examined the Virgin's spirit by various tests. He afterward confessed that many times, amid the secret conversations of that tribunal, he had been struck dumb at the profundity and erudition of the solid discourses by which Rose promptly, most easily, and in order satisfied most arduous and abstruse questions, and that he had at once recognized a loftier spirit which spoke in the Virgin. Truly among all who then lived at Lima, celebrated by many people's opinion for a repute of sanctity and perfection, this most constant opinion had gradually prevailed: that Rose acted and was acted upon by the Spirit of God, abounded in the gift of wisdom, and was governed by a knowledge infused from heaven. Hence Ludovica de Melgareyo, a most holy woman, so esteemed Rose that, if anywhere she met with her, she would receive her, resisting the honor, only upon knees bent to the ground; if she had observed her passing by, she longed in mind to rub her mouth and eyes there where Rose had set her footstep; and if she had to write a little letter to her when absent, she wrote it kneeling on the bare ground.

[189] who always greatly esteemed the Virgin's sanctity. But especially Castillo and Lorenzana, having several times held a mutual conference about Rose's most perfect ways, concordantly wondered at these two most singular things: first, that by a very brief short-cut, and as it were at a leap, she had possessed the illuminative degree, and presently the unitive also, without having more than cursorily touched the purgative degree — because, forsooth, having been prevented from infancy with blessings of sweetness, those most pure affections had always accompanied her, in which nothing earthly had grown foul that needed more laborious purging. The other, that in that dreadful torment of darkenings, little formidable only to the inexperienced, such was Rose's fortitude, courage, and constancy that the frail virgin was not only able to bear it, but also, a voluntary resignation having been premised, as it were contended with God whether he wished to afflict or she to be afflicted more grievously, provided that in all things the victory and triumph should remain with the divine good pleasure. Most wise, and plainly extreme, is this self-denial; but at the same time most difficult for one so loving, to whom it seems happier not to be than not to love. One must confess her an unfading Rose, whom thickets of this kind do not choke.

ANNOTATIONS.

CHAPTER XIV.

This Virgin's wonderful familiarity with Christ, the Mother of God, and S. Catherine of Siena.

To this Virgin as she read books, To a mind for which earthly things grow bitter, heavenly things grow sweet and insinuate themselves of their own accord. This befell Rose, whose whole conversation was in heaven. She sometimes read spiritual books during the day, and studiously chose out those chapters more suited to her present affection and time; she lingered for a while upon the lines wherever the most sweet name of Jesus occurred: for from each of the tips of those characters she felt as it were little fires and loving stings in her heart. Nor was this enough: the little Jesus himself, scarcely taller than a finger's height, often appeared to loving Rose upon the very surface of the little page: the tiny and naked Love stood there, then walked to and fro with a most light step, and meanwhile with a serene, tender, sweet gaze caressed the Virgin, offering himself, as being the Word most worthy of Rose's attentive reading, in whom are all the treasures of the knowledge and wisdom of God.

[191] as she worked with her hands, More familiar is what follows. While Rose was busied in spinning at the sewing of a web, behold again the beloved little Jesus sitting like an infant and most quietly upon the cushion of the spinner: there with silent nods he spoke to the heart of his Beloved; he smiled upon her; he stretched out to her his short arms as though offering an embrace; he continually scorched her with his burning little eyes, and with every gesture, movement, and turn declared his love. ^a Now what a sense of gladness the spinner had amid these solaces, let those estimate who have leisure: I wonder more that Rose then had eyes left with which to see thread, needle, and web. And yet she saw, because these favors so soothed her that they neither called away her whole attention from the outward work nor divided off a part of it. That these delights with her little Spouse befell the Virgin frequently, nay perhaps daily, is an argument, that if he sometimes delayed and was not present after his wont, Rose with plaintive but subdued voice, as though conversing perplexedly with herself, lamented thus: "It is the hour, and he does not yet hasten? Twelve has struck, and he is not yet here? Unhappy me, who now lack him! O happy the soul which now detains him with her!" And since love teaches poetry, Rose had likewise bound these complaints in familiar verse, to nearly this sense:

Alas for me! Who detains my Beloved? Behold, he delays: It is the twelfth hour, and yet he does not come. I languish, my eyes fail, my heart grows cold, While he draws out entangled delays elsewhere.

[192] and often as she lay sick It happened that Rose fell ill from a pain in the throat; and behold, that wholly Desirable One, whose throat is proclaimed most sweet in Canticles 5, appears to the Virgin, invites her to a game, and on both sides the fruit of victory is left to the victor's choice. Straightway the die ^b is cast, fortune favors the Virgin, she gains, she wins; and without delay she demands her prize, mindful perhaps of what the Bride says in the Canticles: His fruit is sweet to my throat. Why say more? The sick girl asks that the pains of her throat be mitigated, and obtains it. But the divine Fellow-player (as though not bearing the loss) returned, renewed the game, and by a happier throw came off victor. The prize of victory was Rose's patience, her pains being suddenly increased, which made the whole night sleepless for her. But it pleased the Virgin to inquire within herself whether she had made more gain by the first or the second game, since she favored her Spouse far more ardently than herself; whence to be conquered and to have conquered were an equal joy to her as she admired the eternal Wisdom, which, playing in the globe of the earth, declares that its delights are with the sons of men. Her mother, noticing that her former pains had returned to her Daughter as she lay abed, and indeed with an increase, suspected danger and grew afraid. But the wise Daughter, to remove her fear, gently and modestly disclosed the secret, namely that this was merely her Spouse's game; and while in most humble words she recounts the outcome, she seemed (as once Stephen) to shine for some while with a countenance altogether angelic.

[193] Jesus under various forms On another occasion, when Rose had stayed rather long, and almost until midnight, in her solitary garden cell, a sudden faintness and failure of strength invaded her in her weariness. She hoped the weakness would be transitory, but it lasted beyond the accustomed period. The sick girl felt sure increases of an unsure malady; but it was late night, in which it pleased her neither to call a physician nor importunately to summon any of the household to her aid: she recognized that she needed an electuary or a little sip whereby she might somehow succor her stomach and restore her strength; but it was Saturday, and, being about to approach the sacred Communion the next morning, she took heed of the fast, in case midnight had already passed. Whichever way she turned, she foresaw that either by failure of strength or by taking any comfort whatever she would be hindered from being allowed the next day to enjoy the holy Communion. What remedy here, between the rock and the sacrifice? Rose fled with familiar confidence to her heavenly Spouse, a helper in opportunities; to his apothecary's shop she commends herself, asks a strengthening medicine, and obtains it — and from nowhere else than from that precious perfume-box of the wounded side, where once S. Catherine of Siena had eagerly drunk. ^c This nectar-bearing breast of blood and water he kindly applied, not to the Virgin's mouth, but to her heart: here she found and drew the medicine of her weakness, here the vital juice. Further, that the vision was neither empty and vain nor purely imaginary, the effect proved: for Rose presently recovered; strength, agility, and vigor returned to her little body, wherewith the next day she went to church, ate the Bread of angels, and returned home full, vigorous, and well; having assuredly experienced how the Spouse's breasts are better than wine, how his fragrance is better than the best ointments. Great indeed was Rose's dignity, to have been not only the daughter and disciple of her mother and mistress of Siena, but also her foster-sister. But to other matters.

[194] In the house of a certain illustrious woman, Rose after her custom, following holy conversations, asked leave to withdraw for a while to prayer. familiarly and wonderfully The matron, for honor's sake, joined to her as she withdrew a seven-year-old girl, born of a slave in her house. She, when she had left Rose engaged in meditation, secretly ran off to her mother, who was working in a neighboring chamber: thence after the space of an hour she crept back to see whether Rose had risen from prayer. And behold, she saw beside the Virgin the boy Jesus most seemlily clad in a many-colored garment of blue and purple color, whom, when she saw him surrounded with a gleaming brightness and flashing with rays on every side, she did not dare interrupt the conversation, but stopped at a distance, content with the permission of a most sweet spectacle whose hidden meanings, on account of her age, she did not yet

grasp, nor did she disclose the matter before Rose had departed from among the living. That the same happened in the house of Lady Isabella Mexia, the daughter of Isabella, who saw it, related; namely, that far off among the more secret porticoes of the house Rose was walking, and with her Jesus in the stature of an eight-year-old boy, but already clothed with light as with a garment. Both walked together with joined hands, with the gait and gesture of those who love tenderly; they exchanged most secret conversations with one another, and lingered upon each other's faces, as though either forgetful or careless of all else; but the Little One's walk was graver than boys' is wont to be, majesty was in it, and wherever he set his foot the pavement shone with a sudden light.

[195] Zeal, as it is at once the herald and the explorer of intense love, is said to have appeared. so it troubles with cares even the heavenly Spouse himself, and suffers no rival, not even a little flower. Rose flourished in name and in deed: for she most diligently took care that flowers should be lacking to the altars in no part of the year, having set apart small beds for this use, in one of which she had planted basil (many call it ozimum ^d). This she happened to cultivate more studiously because, being royal in odor and in name, it would more fitly serve as tribute to the immortal and invisible King of the ages. The plant answered the industry of its cultivator, and the more luxuriantly it came forth, the more it gladdened. But, as joy from flowers is brief, Rose one morning found her basil not only dry and withered, but plucked up by the roots and dead. Rose groaned over the corpse and went away; but as she went, Christ met her visibly, and gently addressed the Virgin: "Why do you grieve?" he said. "Am not I, the Flower of the field, better to you than all basil and than the whole flower-garden of paradise? And that you may know that I am your basil, I with these hands rooted up that other, broke it, and cast it away. You are a flower, and do you love a flower? Behold me." Rose learned that she was loved by her Spouse even to jealousy, and for a more frequent experience of so great a grace she would gladly have exposed to plunder whatever of flowers was left to her. Assuredly these things give full credit to that ecstatic vision of a certain most religious woman, to whom in a rapture Christ declared that he bore Rose in the inmost sanctuary of his divine heart, since he knew that in turn he alone dwelt most tranquilly in her virginal little heart.

[196] Also with the Mother of God, Further, with how affable, serene, and frequent an apparition the most august Empress of the heavens honored her Rose, it will be right to conjecture sufficiently from this: that from the eleventh year of her age to the very last there was never lacking to the Virgin this precious solace of constant familiarity. In the Rosary chapel of the most blessed Virgin, Rose had become quite at home; there she remained whole days; there, having obtained the habit of her Order and there her little Spouse Jesus, she could not be torn from the place. There she had devoutly taken upon herself the care of adorning the altar, there the management of its whole cleanliness; there she had a daily commerce with the Mother of God from her sedulous service, and a mutual conversation. But in turn the Queen of the angels honored her Handmaid so far as almost to render her the offices of a chamberwoman, waking the Virgin from sleep in the morning. The occasion of so great a favor was this: for a long time necessary sleep had so failed Rose for continuous whole nights that no little fear had to be had for her health if she rejected a remedy. Hence there was need of the command of her confessors, who enjoined upon the Virgin the evening use of lettuce and of sleep-bringing seeds; then they also prescribed the space of time during which she should sleep, and the hour at which she should rise in the morning.

[197] who woke her from sleep The sick girl tried to obey; but, the habit of late-night vigils prevailing, sleep did not obey, whether it was to come or to depart. Especially in the morning, when the hour of rising was at hand, the soporifics began to work a little and drew a most sluggish sleep by force into her brain. Rose was tortured with a huge scruple, because she could not wake exactly at the prescribed hour, as she supremely desired. Therefore she complained of her struggle and affliction to the Mother of God, as to the true Morning Star, that she would come to her aid. She did come to her aid — nay, she came in person: since indeed thereafter, when the hour of rising drew near, behold, at that very point the Mother of God was conspicuously present, and with honey-sweet voice addressed the sleeping Rose: "Rise to prayer, Daughter; rise: for the hour is at hand." Thus placidly awakened, she saw close at hand, and (as she confessed) face to face, that gracious star of glory, that brow most full of comely majesty, that paradise of glory and pleasantness; she recognized the voice, venerated the presence, silently inquiring within herself: "Whence is this to me, that the Mother of my Lord should come to me?" O welcome bell for rising!

[198] and roused her to prayer, Once it happened that, when the Lady came, Rose was sleeping rather deeply: this was her first sleep, and had begun only a little before. The Virgin, being wakened, answered: "I rise, Lady, I rise now"; and she sat up in her little bed, but, the weight of sleep overpowering her and her eyes growing dim, the poor girl fell back upon her pillow. The most august Awakener approached again, and (what she had not been accustomed to do before) stretching out her snowy hand, she touched the sleeper's side, stirred with a most familiar touch the little body lying on its back, and again said: "Rise, little Daughter, be not slothful; you asked me, and behold I call you to your accustomed prayers: rise, I say, my little Daughter, rise, the hour has now struck." It was far sweeter to Rose to be called little daughter by such a Mother than to be called Rose. Sleep yielded to the sweetness of this address; but at the same time the most sweet Awakener departed: for when Rose parted her heavy eyelids, when she looked, she recognized the Mother of God, but from behind: for she had already begun to go away with lifted step, as though having discharged a friendly office. Alas, how great a loss so slight an indulgence in slumber sometimes brings! How Rose grieved that for that occasion the maternal face had been snatched from her while she lingered! The favors of the empyrean are delicate; unless you grasp them promptly, they slip away.

[199] From the time when Catherine of Siena was once sent from heaven and given by Christ as mistress to Rose (as was afterward ascertained), and she conversed as a friend with S. Catherine of Siena. she frequently met her dear Disciple visibly upon earth, especially while she was busied in reading through the rule of her seraphic mistress, which she had at last obtained to be sent her from Cuzco (Brother John Miguel, a lay religious of the Order of Preachers, procuring it). The mutual conversation of these Virgins was so friendly and so frequent that, as with Moses, after his long conference with God on the mountain, traces of the lights remained in his face, so lights seemed to have passed from the face of B. Catherine into the face of Rose, which made her almost like her in certain lineaments of countenance. Hence among her people of Lima Rose was commonly called a second Catherine of Siena; especially after her death, when on the funeral bier Rose's face lay open more freely to the sight of all. For the rest, concerning the wonderful delights, favors, and services with which this seraphic mistress caressed her Rose, more frequent and more convenient discourse will return below in its proper places.

ANNOTATIONS.

CHAPTER XV.

Familiarity with the guardian angels, and various contests against the demons.

[200] The Saint used the service of angels so familiarly, That the holy angels are the very heart of God, Bernard felt in sermon 12 on the Psalm He that dwells: where he adapts these words, "You set your heart toward him," Job 7, to the sending of angels for man's guardianship. Rose had her angel not only as guardian but also as a most friendly companion; ^a nay, as a go-between, ^b a fellow-initiate, ^c a fellow-steward; ^d so that from this too she might note how sweetly Christ had set his heart toward her. Hence the Virgin had such homely confidence and intimacy with her angel that she was wont to use him as a courier ^e whenever her Spouse did not appear at the accustomed hour. In a metrical rhythm ^f of her own tongue she then more familiarly addressed her angel, to nearly this sense:

Fly, heavenly youth; say to our Creator: That I live without life, that I die in waiting. Why he delays, while Rose burns, Swiftly inquire: Ask; let him hasten, let him bow the heavens, Let him descend to me, let him show his face, For I languish with love.

[201] so that, having suffered a fainting of spirit, On a certain night, the garden doors being shut, Rose after her custom was keeping vigil in the narrow little cell of her hermitage, and felt herself suddenly forsaken of strength, so that she feared a grave swoon: whence she determined to betake herself into the house to her mother, counsel having first been taken with her guardian angel. Her mother (who always kept the garden key with her), when she noted in her Daughter's face the signs of an impending swoon, without delay drew two coins from her purse and ordered the maid to go at once to the shop of the nearest dealer and buy sugar, charcoal, and that Indian cake which the natives call CHOCOLATE, ^g now sufficiently known to Europeans also both in use and in name: for indeed, dissolved in hot water with a third part of sugar, it powerfully succors both the stomach and the heart. ^h

[202] she had a drink brought her by them The Daughter, that this expense might not be incurred on her account, earnestly begged her mother, affirming that chocolate would not be lacking to her. Her mother replied: "Do you think that in this whole house even a crumb of chocolate is to be found?" Rose denied it; but added that it would shortly be here from the treasurer's house. Her parent grew angry, and said: "Either you are trifling or you are dreaming: for who at this untimely hour will send warm chocolate to you? Or how could it have become known in the treasurer's house, far distant from here, that you, languishing with a sudden weakness, need that medicine? You, shut up in the garden, assuredly had no one whom you might send thither, nor has anyone gone from this house to indicate your need to the treasurer. Go therefore, maid, and carry out my orders." Again Rose as suppliant stood in the way, asserting for certain

that the treasurer's slave would presently be here with the prepared medicine. So it was: for while the mother was still disputing with her daughter, a knock comes at the doors. It was the treasurer's servant; he asked to be let in, saying that he was bringing from the treasurer's consort something to be delivered to Rose. It was a silver vessel full of warm chocolate. The parent was astounded; but Rose, at once dismissing the servant, bade him report to his mistress that the benefit had come opportunely.

[203] Here the Mother, confused by the manifold prodigy, inquired she received it at the opportune moment, what had moved Gonzalo's wife to send a servant out of doors at such an hour of deep night; who had announced either the Virgin's faintness to that lady, or the certain arrival of the slave sent to Rose. At length by the supreme precept of obedience she compelled her daughter to declare whence she had known that at such an hour chocolate was being brought her from the treasurer's house. The daughter answered, smiling: "Do not wonder, sweetest mother: for often my guardian angel honors me with services of this kind. As soon as I began to fail in my little cell, I sent my angel to suggest to Lady Maria de Usategui that I needed that succor which you have seen. He accomplished what I had commissioned; and I was certain that he would not be wanting to his office. In this confidence I left the little cell, came here to you, and sat down to wait here for the treasurer's servant, and to share the benefit with my parent." The mother wondered at the immediate and swift service of the Angel; but more, when she saw that her daughter did not wonder, as one long accustomed to these things by use and frequency.

[204] On another occasion in the same garden cell she was waiting past midnight she bade a closed door be opened, until she should be called into the house, after her custom, for her nightly rest: for her mother was accustomed, about the hour preceding midnight, to come down to open the garden door, that her daughter, being led thence, might betake herself to her chamber. But on that occasion the mother, whether because she believed she had already brought her daughter back from the garden, or because, distracted by other things, she had applied her mind less, had forgotten to open the garden at the accustomed hour for the Virgin who was to come out. When therefore she saw that she was waiting in vain, and while she hesitates what to do, looking out through the little window she saw close at hand a white shade, agile with a comely motion and not unpleasing in aspect, which invited the Virgin to follow it toward the house. Easily, by the inward criteria which she had learned from holy Catherine of Siena, Rose recognized her guardian angel hidden beneath the shade; and so with him she confidently set out upon the way. Both came to the garden door, which at the shade's touch presently opened of itself without a key. Finally that shadowy guide set Rose, who followed, before her mother's chamber, and disappeared. Perhaps she was seeking this shade, who sought to be guarded by the Lord as the apple of the eye and to be protected under the shadow of his wings; let us not wonder that angels of light took on the appearance of a shade while they performed their office.

[205] The occasion of angelic guardianship demands that the following little history be here appended, and procured angelic guardianship for a certain man on a journey. by which perhaps it will be plain that she had at her nod obedient not only her own but also others' guardian angels. A certain religious, about to accompany an ecclesiastical prelate on arduous and lengthy journeys, disclosed his need to the Virgin, and demanded the suffrages of her prayers for averting dangers. Rose promised, being wonderfully liberal and prompt to help her neighbors, and earnestly commended the man setting out to God and to his guardian angel. He went on secure in the promise, since he was not ignorant of what Rose could do with God and the angels. Nor did the outcome fail his hope: for from Lima all the way to Potosí, ⁱ through various chances, through a thousand crises of affairs, he had a most safe journey. But from that point he felt himself suddenly forsaken at once by the Virgin's prayer and by the angelic guardianship: for, making for Trujillo, he suffered every most grievous thing in its valleys, and scarcely escaped unharmed. Returning to Lima, he bitterly complained of the Virgin, and at last before the Virgin, that in the middle of his way she had forsaken him of the protection of her prayers. Rose did not deny that this was true; she only asked how he knew it. He answered that from Lima to Potosí, with an angelic guard fencing him round, he had happily either trodden down or turned aside every danger he met; but that as he went from Potosí to Trujillo all things were adverse, so that he could suspect nothing else than that Rose had meanwhile desisted from the prayer she had promised, and his angel from the guardianship committed to him. Rose added: "You have not conjectured vainly; but know that those inconveniences befell you because you were not the man you used to be." Then, descending more confidently to particulars, she reminded the man of secret things known to him alone, and which from so great a distance could not have become known to the Virgin save divinely, or by an angel as messenger.

[206] Envious demons in various ways and under different forms But as much as the holy angels loved, sought, and caressed this Angelic girl, so much did the infernal furies strive secretly, openly, by force and by fraud to harm her. That garden cell, full of so many delights of heaven, tormented the demon; the proud one grieved that there he was not feared by an unwarlike young girl, nay that by that solitude he was of her own accord challenged to single combat. And so the creature of darkness attacked the Virgin through the darkness. It was in the shape of a huge mastiff, shaggy, foul, pitch-black: the only light by which it could be seen came from the reddening flames which it thrust out abundantly from nostrils, eyes, and ears. In this guise it went round Rose as she prayed with dread-sounding barking, with monstrous and fiercely toothed jaws, its tongue most foully thrust out, with a sulphurous smell; and at the same time it raised its hanging ears, its tail, its shaggy hair, as though about to make an onset; nor had it come only to terrify, but also to harm if it could: for (when it saw that it was despised by one unmoved) it kept trying that virginal little body with a rabid bite; it raged with assault, with tooth, with claw, as it could; at last with furious daring it dragged along the ground her whom it could not tear in pieces, hauled her, rolled her about, like some mangled offscouring; until the Virgin, undaunted but weary of its rashness, cried out to her Spouse: "Do not deliver up to the beasts the souls that confess to you." Nor was any other cudgel needed to drive off this Cerberus: ^k for straightway, unnerved, conquered, and broken, it sprang back, fled, and vanished; and Rose, wondering that she was wholly unhurt and undamaged, returned with tranquil heart to her prayer.

[207] assailed this Virgin; Once the Virgin was betaking herself from the household oratory of the treasurer Gonzalo to an inner bedchamber: creeping up from ambush along the way, the evil spirit struck her an unforeseen blow with as much force as it could, yet with more noise than harm: for the undaunted heroine smiled, ready moreover to give the other cheek, had she had the enemy conspicuous and open before her. In another place and on another occasion, in the house of Lady Isabella Mexia, the cowardly enemy, fearing to attack Rose in front and at close quarters, hurled a rough stone at her from behind and from a distance, with a straining so impetuous and strong that it laid her flat upon the ground as she went. Rose, neither hurt nor terrified, rose more nimbly than she had fallen, and reproached the most vile devil with his shameful weakness. He, confounded by the Victress's courage, most foully poured out upon her spiritual books the rage with which he could not harm the girl. Among these, exceedingly dear to Rose was the volume of Luis of Granada, which she used rather diligently for arranging the points of her meditations. This the wretch seized, tore, and threw far off into a sink of filth, reckoning that he had performed a great thing in having filched from so great an Amazon at least some part of her weapons by an ignoble theft. Nevertheless the Virgin both recovered her book and put to shame the hook-nosed plunderer, whom she deigned to call by no other name than that of a wicked cat, or SCABBY ONE.

[208] On another occasion, after she had finished her prayers in the same oratory, but she always withstood them undaunted, as evening drew on, she went to a more secret chamber in the highest part of the house, to ruminate in solitary meditation the sweetness which she had tasted in the oratory amid her prayers. But there was a most populous orchestra — nay, a racecourse — of dormice; they ran forth by squadrons, leapt about, fought, up and down along the walls, the cupboards, the tiles; with a confused chase they threw everything into disorder, nor could quieter things be hoped for, since the night itself and the condition of the place favored those foul and light-shunning beasts. And so Rose, changing her plan, went down to the lowest part of the house, to seek a hiding-place of deeper silence. It was a storeroom, where at that time the implements of the vintage, baskets, cauldrons, and utensils of that kind were kept. When Rose entered here, her hair standing on end with sudden horror, she recognized that there she was awaited by the SCABBY ONE for a fight. And, not yielding to fear, she ordered a little maid passing that way to bring her a candle; and when it had been brought, she dismissed the maid, charging her not to tell any of the household where Rose was hiding, and not to call her to supper — since she would perhaps linger there longer than usual — until she should come out of her own accord.

[209] The maid had gone, and Rose had scarcely shut the door when suddenly she heard so that it could never terrify her, the bolt drawn from outside, and herself as it were shut in as a captive by the evil spirit. Presently, enclosed within the storeroom, she noticed that her scurfy enemy was making a more unrestrained tumult in a very large basket which the bottom of a vat concealed. The high-spirited Virgin was ashamed to use the solace of the light present there, or any protection whatever. She therefore put out the candle of her own accord, and at once, challenging the lurking enemy from the basket into the arena, said: "Ho, you scabby swine, come now, here I await you: come forth if you dare; try what you can do; do to this vile little body what God shall permit you — certainly against my soul you will be able to do nothing; this most secure confidence I have from my heavenly Spouse. Come to grips, horned beast; come, come to grips." Nor was there delay: the most ferocious enemy sprang forth with a giant's bulk, at which the storeroom trembled, though Rose trembled not at all; he seized the Virgin by the shoulders, gripped her, twisted her, as though about to tear her limb from limb into the tiniest pieces as she struggled; and, to double her terrors, he made her learn by touch how hairy, bristly, and hedgehog-like his arms were; tossing, thrusting, and pressing the defenseless girl with these, he shook her most wretchedly, so that now each of the Virgin's bones seemed crushed together, her shoulder-blades dislocated, her sinews torn apart; but beneath the frail flesh a spirit unbroken flourished, and her little heart fixed in God laughed at, spat upon, and slackened the raging madness of the cyclops. For several hours the most darkling struggle lasted, to the huge disgrace of the adversary, who, despairing of victory, tried to wring out at least a single groan or an indication of fear, and could not.

[210] Meanwhile the treasurer's wife, asking the household about Rose, much less overcome her, learned from the little maid in what place she had left her with a candle, and that she had expressly forbidden her to be called to supper. She approached, and, seeing no light shining forth from any quarter, drew back the bolt and silently went away, to await the outcome of the delay. At length midnight parted the long contest; the Virgin came forth as panting with weariness as she was cheerful in countenance, and beyond her wont most glad; so that no one doubted that something great had been transacted amid that darkness. The next day Gonzalo's wife did not desist until, Rose narrating it, she had drawn out the whole course of the affair; where among other things this too was noted, that the hard struggles of conflicts of this kind were to the most constant Virgin neither strange nor infrequent, and had never wrung from her any sense of dread.

[211] or rouse her to unchastity, Once she had gone out into the garden to pray, when out of the shade of the neighboring trees she saw her antagonist meeting her, no longer terrifying, but winning, white, and almost transfigured into an angel of light:

for his appearance was human, but handsome, seemly, courteous. The Virgin grieved that a man should appear there contrary to custom, where above she was without witness and without companion. Meanwhile he began from afar with nods to play the wooer, and presently the shameless wooer. Here Rose, detesting the lying specter with resounding words, turned her back upon the ghost; and she who in the other conflicts had stood her ground nobly, in this one alone (because it concerned chastity) begged her victory from a noble flight. But when she had reached the garden door, flying rather than running, she halted in the nearby portico, and, seizing an iron chain, made her bared shoulders bloody with most bitter lashes: amid the flowing streams both of blood and of tears she complained to her Spouse that he had forsaken her for a time, while she fell into straits of this kind: for never, if he had been present, would so dangerous an image of masked impurity have met her. But straightway the glorious Spouse presented himself conspicuously to the Virgin and said: "Listen, Rose: if I had not been with you, would he then have carried off the victory?" This was a great solace to the victress, and a great lesson most full of instruction. These things are like, and plainly akin to, those which befell B. Catherine of Siena in a contest not at all dissimilar, when namely Christ answered her: "While you were fighting, while you were conquering, I was within; I was present in your heart as spectator and faithful helper."

[212] since she at once distinguished diabolical inspirations from divine ones. There stood out in Rose (her confessors testifying) a wonderful gift of distinguishing sincere visions from the illusions of Satan, and of discerning holy inspirations from the crafty suggestions of the ancient serpent — which the Apostle calls the discernment of spirits. And, what you may wonder at the more, from her earliest childhood she was endowed with this notable gift, by which she wonderfully profited herself and others, so that never did there meet the Virgin any temptation of the adversary so deceitful, any craft of the seducer so fraudulent, that she did not clearly and at once, on the very threshold, detect, convict, and disarm it. It is a wonder how many and how great victories she carried off against Stygian deceits with this one weapon. While still a young girl she learnedly recounted to her examining confessor the rules for discerning spirits from their effects. She said that illuminations are truly divine when they leave in the soul humility, an affection of reverence, a recognition of one's own vileness, order and unity of heart, and joy in God. On the contrary, that impressions opposed to these — swelling, confusion of a divided heart, self-complacency, and unquiet toward God — savor of nothing but the pitch of that wicked author. This, moreover, was what Christ had taught blessed Catherine of Siena, and she Rose, without any other master.

ANNOTATIONS.

CHAPTER XVI.

Persecutions, sicknesses, and other adversities patiently endured, and foreseen in a certain wonderful revelation.

The little Virgin suffered persecutions Thorns do not come late to roses, but are born with them. The same befell this Virgin; she had not yet left the cradle of earliest infancy when she put on the appearance, the name, and the thorns of roses. She had reached the ninth month of her age when her mother's breasts, as she nursed, dried up, the milk failed, and the narrowness of means at home prevented a nurse being hired from elsewhere: behold the first caltrops for the infant. They tried to supply the lack of milk with a rather liquid pap; but the very difficult ingestion tortured the little mouth by stretching it apart. Nor yet did little Rose weep, but by the useless sucking of her own thumb she cheated her hunger silently rather than solaced it. So far did she learn from her tender years to suffer before she could wail or speak. Her age grew, but affliction grew equally with her age; for she had scarcely begun to walk and speak when daily, on account of the womanly controversy of her grandmother and her mother about the name of Rose, the innocent Girl saw herself most wretchedly entangled in the persecution of both. For whether, being called by the name of Rose, she ran to the household or to her mother, her grandmother, gnashing her teeth, raged with rods against the little one; or whether she answered those calling by the name Isabel, her angry mother made ready a whipping and beat the undeserving child. Thus, with the bile of the women alternating, whichever way the patient little Virgin turned, she fell into punishment, and for this very reason, that she had not sinned, she paid the penalty.

[214] from her austere household; As sweet as was her little Daughter's disposition, so harsh was her mother's condition, so that patience alone seemed almost to have yoked that most unlike pair. The Virgin's modesty, sobriety, devotion, flight from the world, silence, and vigils were to her impatient mother mere offenses, for the chastising of which shouts, taunts, revilings, and finally fists and kicks did not suffice: a knotty staff of quince wood ^a was very often at hand; with this she was rather frequently accustomed to beat the Girl, now somewhat grown, especially when it was discovered that, after the example of S. Catherine of Siena, she had cut off her own ruddy hair. Nor were the household milder toward her, after her singularity of life became known, the frequency and commerce of her heavenly visions, and especially that abstinence evidently beyond human powers, from which it was easily argued that with so slight and almost no nourishment a young girl could not naturally be sustained in life. Her brothers by blood feared that perhaps in a short time their sister would, to the great disgrace of their family, be haled to the tribunal of the holy Inquisition, ^b as suspected of impostures and frauds, or openly guilty of, or to be convicted of, sacrilegious lying and feigned holiness. These fears therefore they daily thrust upon her with quarreling; with these threats they harassed her, forsaken on every side. Nor did her improvident mother fear moreover publicly to confound her Daughter before her own people and strangers, proclaiming her a hypocrite, deceitful, a dissembler, and empty and void of all sincere virtue.

[215] There was added to the heap of persecution the incredulous drowsiness, or rudeness, of certain confessors; and from incredulous confessors, when at the beginning they strove to persuade the Virgin also of what they had persuaded themselves, namely that she was going by a way not straight, or at least not safe; that she labored under a dizziness of the brain and other harmful disorders; and that what she believed to be illuminations from above were frivolous illusions. These and like things would have taken the life out of any other woman, but by no means out of Rose, for whom patience within was as steel — and all the more because from crags of afflictions so exceedingly hard she perceived more manifestly that she was being led along the very ways of B. Catherine of Siena to union with her Spouse. Hence on a certain occasion, being asked by an illustrious woman why she did not ask her seraphic mistress to be snatched from these distresses by her powerful intercession, she answered heroically: "What do you think my seraphic mother would reply to that? She would assuredly ask whether I wished for myself another path than that which she herself in her glory trod. Far be so cowardly a sloth from me." Both knew that whatever Rose asked of B. Catherine she would immediately obtain, and this will appear below; but the high-spirited Disciple valued her mistress's sorrowful stigmata more than delicate solaces; the bride of the Crucified was ashamed to be found even for a moment outside the cross and the passion.

[216] And truly, either never or rarely was great matter lacking to her great patience, to which diseases succeeded since indeed, when she was free from the outward cross, a heavier inward one occupied her; and when persecution ceased outside, bodily sicknesses succeeded in troops. At Canta from a dire contraction of the sinews she lay abed for three years, with immense torment, with no groan, save that she was tortured more bitterly by compassion than by suffering, on account of the inconvenience of those whose services she could not do without. Whence in this and in her other infirmities she was wont to say: "O how healthful, how pleasant and happy a lot it would be to be tormented by more frequent sickness, provided the inconvenience to one's neighbors were absent!" Often the Virgin's throat and jaws, from the lower

inflammation of the muscles, were invaded by a most acute quinsy, ^c upon which sometimes there grew a more dangerous cynanche; ^d often she had to contend with asthma ^e in her whole lungs and bronchi; very often a most troublesome sciatica lay heavily upon both hips, while meanwhile a pleurisy ^f no less briskly plucked at her ribs. Pains of the stomach, of the pericardium, ^g and of the intestines brought on frequent convulsions without law and without number; and those diseases, each of which singly was enough to prostrate the most robust of persons, generally rushed upon the languishing girl two, three, four at once, from different and opposite causes, the physicians sometimes wondering where in a little body sapless, dry, and exhausted so many different burnings could find fuel and tinder. The Virgin perceived skillfully enough that these festal contests came to her not so much from any harm or distemper of the humors as from the benevolent hand of her Spouse.

[217] Fevers, both ephemeral ^h and the other more stubborn kinds, of almost every kind, mere habituation had turned almost into a jest — not so those joint-racks of the hands and feet, upon which the most familiar (yet dreaded) names of chiragra, podagra, and arthritis have settled. This disease, because it is thought less to lie in wait for life, finds nowhere pity in proportion to the quantity of its misery, or remedy or relief in proportion to the greatness of its pain; nor is there perhaps another which either more quickly drives away or more voraciously consumes the long-suffering patience of the sick. Yet this Rose received with equanimity as a frequent guest, and with the unconquered virtue of endurance made it lie peaceably with her in one common little bed. It was prodigious to see the most tender Virgin, with burning joints, swelling knots, inflated articulations, and with muscles and ligaments shooting with sympathetic pain, lying amid the utmost manglings of pains quiet, serene, placid; and accusing her torments neither by a groan nor by a light sigh. If she was asked how she fared, she answered only that it was well with her; or that, in comparison with her own crimes, what she suffered was very little. To others inquiring about the atrocity of the disease, she said that whatever came from the hand of so sweet a Spouse was pleasant and honeyed; to others, that one must think of the punishment of the infernal regions, and that by this one meditation all the sharpest pains of this present time are blunted. Often, turning to her Spouse, she said: "Lord, increase, increase the pain, provided you increase love also."

[218] which she called heavenly favors, Speaking once of these things rather familiarly to a certain devout person, she reckoned this whole series of diseases among the precious and more illustrious favors conferred upon her by God, and added that, unless she had experienced these herself, she could never have persuaded herself that one wretched body would be capable of so many and so manifold pains; and that she did not think there remained any torment of any part or member which she had not herself felt; nevertheless that protection and strength had always been present to her from heaven, whereby she might bear all things without disturbance; that never had a motion of impatience crept upon her by which she had departed even a hair's breadth from a resigned conformity and the rule of the divine will. Accordingly she was ashamed of herself, that she had not yet responded to such benefits of heaven as was fitting: and that on this score she ought deservedly to be reckoned the most ungrateful of all creatures, as many as live throughout the world — since indeed she had seen that she was treated by the Lord in that manner in which he is wont to treat only his dearest friends, and yet did not love in return, as was worthy, so lovable and loving a God: and this perhaps was her meaning when she demanded that love be increased together with her pains.

[219] and which she foreknew from a certain wonderful vision, To this plainly seems to be referred that celebrated vision which grave professors of mystical theology reckoned so highly among Rose's more divine excesses. This I shall here weave in with a bare and simple thread, just as the Virgin herself, a few days before her death, related it to the doctor Castillo under a pledge of secrecy. "Suspended," she said, "in the unitive light of a most quiet contemplation, I saw a brightness of admirable excellence, comeliness, and majesty, which an omnipresent and subtle immensity had diffused without limit in every direction. The center of this pleasant brightness was occupied by a many-colored bow, splendid and gracefully variegated with a manifold painting of lights; and above that another bow extended, of beauty and majesty equal with the lower one; and this, in the middle of its convexity, the glorious cross of our Savior conspicuously adorned, empurpled, wet, and pierced in the places of the nails, and marked with the triumphal title of the Crucified. Further, the inner bow was filled by the humanity of my Lord Jesus Christ, radiant, clear, most bright, surrounded with so great a garment of glory as I had never at any other time beheld in him; and it pleased his sweet goodness to confer upon me extraordinary and wonderfully vivid powers, whereby with unaverted gaze I might most freely and at length behold my most magnificent King in all his comeliness: for I saw him not, as at other times, obliquely, or only as far as the head and breast, but entire and whole from the crown to the soles of the feet, and directly, face to face."

[220] The doctor here interrupted the Virgin, inquiring of what color those bows were. as things she must afterward endure, She answered: of a manifold and strange color, so that no comparison could be even most faintly fitted to any color whatever in this visible world, save that the loveliness of the bows seemed to have gathered into itself the variety and grace of all possible colors with a certain infinite excellence and dignity. Then Rose went on: "I felt from the near humanity of Christ inexplicable flames and sparks of glory flow sweetly down into the depth of my soul, so much so that I thought myself now wholly loosed from the corruptible world and translated to the blessed joys of perpetual fruition. After these things, that One beautiful in form beyond the sons of men set out in the open a balance and I know not what weights: presently populous phalanxes of angels approached, distinguished in festal adornment and brightness, bowing themselves with comely reverence to the Lord of majesty; there approached likewise in copious number happy souls, who, having revered the Savior with a like rite of adoration, took their stand apart.

[221] The angels, taking up the balance and the weights, began to load the scales, heaping afflictions upon afflictions into a pile, as though about to explore their burden to a hair's breadth. But Christ intervened as they strove, and, taking upon himself an office as too lofty for angelic judgment, and which she knew to be the forerunners of a richer grace, with his own hands he raised the balance in equilibrium, and from the heaps laid on he distributed afflictions to the souls present, among whom he set aside for me also a portion of most grievous adversity. Then, the weights being again laid on, there were heaped on the other side graces upon graces; and when the angels, approaching, prepared to lift the scale, again Christ intervened, as though about to perform more exactly a function worthy of his omnipotent arm; and in proportion to the afflictions distributed he most attentively divided those precious heaps of graces among the souls present; nor did he pass me by: since indeed to me too, according to the weight of the adversity granted, he measured out an inestimable treasure of overflowing graces. I noted that the souls standing by were so distended with that same treasure of grace, and filled up to the utmost, that the straitened fullness overflowed at their mouth and eyes."

[222] These things being accomplished, the Savior most seemlily raised a sounding voice: just as she, a few days before her death, "Let all men know," he said, "that grace follows tribulation; let them know that without the weight of afflictions one does not come to the heaps of grace: let them recognize that according to the increases of distresses the measure of graces is likewise increased. Let them not wish to err; this is the one and true ladder of paradise, nor is there any other left besides the cross by which to ascend into heaven." When I had heard these things (Rose went on), there invaded me a most powerful impulse, which I cannot express in words, to leap forth into the middle of the marketplace, that publicly and with the mightiest shouts I might cry out to every age, sex, and state of men: Hear, peoples; hear, all nations: from the mouth of Christ I announce to you that grace is not acquired without prior affliction; that there is need of distresses heaped upon distresses, in order that one may attain to the inmost participation of the divine nature, to the glory of the sons of God, to the perfect beauty of the soul. The same goad urged me most impetuously to preach the loveliness of divine grace; I was in anguish, I sweated, I panted, and it seemed that my soul could no longer be held in the prison of the body but must, leaving it, break out alone and more nimble, to cry through the world: O if mortals knew what grace is, how beautiful, noble, precious; how great riches it embraces in itself, what wealth, jubilations, delights — assuredly all would seek to be afflicted and to suffer, all would of their own accord demand troubles, persecutions, sicknesses, torments, merely to obtain the most opulent gain of grace; this is the merchandise of holy patience, and a profitable interest: no one would complain of the cross, if they recognized it as the lawful balance of so great treasures."

[223] she explained to the doctor Castillo. The doctor interrupted, wishing to explore further under what appearance or figure grace had appeared to the Virgin. Rose answered promptly that it had nothing in common with bodily figures, and far less with color, or with any created beauty whatever; that its nature was altogether divine; yet that she had well observed that grace is a thing other than God, although it wonderfully contains the image of God and makes the soul deiform. At length the doctor asked by what kind of speech, intellectual or vocal, Christ had uttered the words recited above. The Virgin answered that she did not know by what name it is called among those skilled in such matters, but that the manner of the speech was this: that from Christ's mouth there flowed forth a clear and most pure conception of wisdom, which, penetrating the depth of the soul, signified within whatever he wished to be understood. This illustrious vision seasonably prepared Rose for those last pains of her final paralysis, ⁱ which brought upon her a premature death. Accordingly, when the Virgin's happy passing is treated below, an opportune discourse will return upon these matters: for the whole of Rose's patience could not be set forth in a single chapter.

ANNOTATIONS.

cough. See the various species of this disease on page 378 in Gorraeus, just cited, if you please.

CHAPTER XVII.

Her ardent love toward Jesus her spouse.

The Saint burned with so great a fire of divine love, How great an Aetna ^a of divine love blazed in Rose's breast, it pleased God sometimes to make plain by visible signs, when he caused splendors and little flames to sparkle from the face of her as she prayed. On a certain night Rose had to sleep in one chamber with a companion virgin; she, waking about cockcrow, saw frequent lights flashing through the darkness in the chamber; then, looking about in fear, she noticed that they came from nowhere else than from the face of Rose praying in a corner; for she had secretly let herself down from her little bed onto the pavement to pour forth prayers, and where she believed herself most of all to lie hidden in the dark, she was betrayed by the bright little fires darted out from her mouth and eyes as she prayed, the prodigy testifying how great a conflagration was glowing within. That this very thing happened several times, Rose being unaware, before various persons, has been ascertained. No less indications and embers of the same ardor were those fiery sighs by which, as by fans, that kindled and glowing heart at once blew abroad its heats and at the same time kindled them more strongly. This was often in her mouth: "Lord, and who would not love you? But I, my good Jesus, when shall I begin to love you worthily? Alas for me, how far I stand from a perfect, inward, most robust love of you! I do not yet know how to love you fittingly. What a shame! To what end is this heart of mine, if it does not yet wholly melt into ashes for love of you?" Doubtless this is the dropsy proper to heavenly love, that it thirsts only for that in which it more abounds.

[225] that it burst forth outwardly Rose, growing warm with this affection, gathered, in order to obtain divine love, some ejaculatory prayers from the very fiery quiver of divine love, in the form of a little prayer, which it pleases me here to transcribe word for word, because it pleased all, profited many in use, and abounds both in signs and in goads of loving. Its tenor is this: "My Lord Jesus Christ, God and man, truly our maker and Redeemer, that I have ever offended you tortures my mind indeed; because you are who you are, and because I love you above all things. My true God, and Spouse of my soul, whole gladness of my heart: I, I desire to love you, most benign Jesus, with that most perfect love, that most efficacious, most sincere, ineffable, most intense, incomparable, incomprehensible, irrefragable, most unconquered love, with which all the citizens of the empyrean together love you. Moreover I long to love you, O God of my heart and of my life. God, my delight, I would love you as much as your most holy Mother, my Lady, the most pure Virgin, loves you; nay rather, you, O salvation, O joy of my soul, you, I say, I desire to love as much as you yourself, my God, love yourself. May I be burned up, may I fail, may I be consumed by the fire of your divine love, O my most benign Jesus." That rhetoric is rude in the ears of the world; but the school of divine love here recognizes and finds its own phrasing.

[226] in all public conversation; The ingenious Virgin knew how to hide her other virtues in herself: charity alone, because it is flame, could by no means be pressed down and concealed. Hence Rose's conversations, greetings, and answers were continually seasoned with mention of divine love. If she had to converse with familiars, matrons, or maidens, Rose's first utterance was: "Let us love our God, let us love him." If a eulogy had to be pronounced on any absent person whatever, Rose summed up the whole matter in this short form: "He loves God strongly and seriously." As often as she fell down at her confessor's feet to make sacramental confession, having fortified herself with the sign of the cross, she broke out into these words: "The Lord be with you, my Father. May God be our love. O who will grant that we may love him perfectly! Alas, they who do not love him know not his goodness." In every conversation Rose's one delight and solace was either to hear or to speak of divine love; to inculcate the supreme obligation of loving the Godhead which has so greatly loved and loves us; to distinguish the various titles, manners, and goads of this love; and finally by courteous dexterity to bend hither every other subject of discourse, however utterly different, so that the love and lovableness of God might take the place of theme for the rest of the discussion; and when this was obtained, it was wonderful to hear the Virgin, otherwise silent, reasoning in most apt but vehemently fiery words about the debt of charity, about the affable goodness of God who deigns to be loved, about the beauty of a majesty so worthy to be loved: here alone emphatic ^b words were not lacking to Rose; here alone her flowing eloquence abounded; here her spirit blazed, her voice was sharpened, her eyes flashed, her heart was kindled, and none of those present could doubt that out of the abundance of the heart the mouth was speaking.

[227] but when she thought herself alone, But when she was alone in the retreat of her little hut, or when she thought that she was observed by no one, more tenderly and at the same time more freely, in prose, verse, speech, and song, she poured forth all the most solemn axioms of seraphic love. The treasurer Gonzalo, together with his wife and children, once secretly listened in his house to Rose in a solitary place celebrating divine loves rather fervently with pious cries. The sum of her strained crying out was this: She invited in order each of the ranks of creatures to the love of the sweetest Creator; she addressed the elements, the heavens, the angels, the plants, the animals, repeating again and again: "Let us love God; God let us love; love is God, God is love." Nor did she say these things perfunctorily; for two and sometimes three hours, fixed in one place and looking up to heaven, she lingered upon these words, with such warmth and impetus that she moved to love and compunction, unknowingly, the hearts of those who heard.

[228] From time to time, not finding a manner in which amid these fervors she might either temper or satisfy herself, she indulged her affection more freely. she would seize a cithara (which she had never learned to play) hanging by chance on a nearby wall, and by the touching of its strings moderate the impetus of her voice, sweetly singing the complaints of a wounded love, that by every rite and gesture she might show herself a lover to her Beloved. It happened once that the cithara lacked all its strings; nevertheless Rose played, being intent rather upon the ten-stringed psaltery sounding within with a song. It seemed that under these most innocent attempts at symphony Rose was becoming a child again with her boyish Love, and, forgetful of all pains, indulged the simple tenderness of her inmost affections: she boiled in her heart, and, judging that no witnesses were near at hand to her, she solaced her fervent spirit with so slight an evaporation. It happened nevertheless that, carried away by the sweetness, she did not notice the household coming in and going out. Whence several times these verses, bound in Spanish measures, were heard from the mouth of the singer, which I have rendered into Latin as best I could:

Behold, among flowers and among olives you grow beautiful, Little Jesus; nor do you scorn to be present with a soft Rose.

These were charming conceits with which the Virgin more freely caressed the condescension of her Beloved, who had by no means disdained poor Rose — born as she was of a mother "Oliva" and a father "de Flores" — from the time when he had allowed himself to be so tenderly loved by her. Many things would remain to be said about like exhalations of loving Rose, about her answering-love ^c aspirations to her spouse, and her eclogues, perhaps not unworthy of relating; but we must hasten on to more solid matters.

[229] The companion and witness of a most vehement love is zeal: She also grieved vehemently on this account, nor could the Virgin conceal its ardors in herself; hence she burned so greatly if anywhere, privately or publicly, anything was committed which violated God's honor even in the least; certainly she did not dissemble even the slightest things. Above all she so detested idle chatter in church (that rustic evil of the nobility) that, although timid and most sparing of words, she could not restrain herself from admonishing the talkative, out of reverence for the place, of due civility — yet with such moderation, humility, and prudence that she seemed rather to beseech than to rebuke. At home all who were of the household took care not to bring forth any absurdities before the Virgin; they stood in awe of the censorious brow of Rose while she was still a little girl; they knew that the girl, most patient toward such atrocious and frequent injuries against herself, could by no means bear those things alone by which she judged God to be even faintly offended. This was her feeling from her earliest childhood; for when the other children, according to the chattering genius of that untrained age, either spoke filthy things which they did not yet understand, or innocently repeated love-songs perhaps heard elsewhere, Rose wept, fled, reported the childish offense to her mother, complained that God was offended, and what she could not sufficiently chastise in another way she avenged in herself with most bitter tears.

[230] that God is offended by sins, Lies, which are scarcely ever wont to be absent from the constant jests and talkativeness of children, she execrated so dreadfully that her own maxim was: "Neither for heaven nor for earth must one lie, because God is truth." Hence, if anything false was told to others even in good faith, out of an exact zeal for truth she most placidly corrected the narrator, interposing courteously that the matter had happened not so, but in such a way; that not this but that had been done or said. It happened about one hour before the Virgin's happy passing to better things that a certain religious priest came thither, whom she had desired to see before death; to him as he entered one of the women standing by said in good faith: "You come opportunely, O Father; for Rose had already ordered you to be called." The dying woman heard, and, being rather scrupulously solicitous about truth, gathered her attenuated spirit into a voice: "Let us not err," she said; "I did indeed desire to see you before my death, and that alone I said, nothing further." Doubtless so great a care of truth was in her, because God is truth. Tears, because she had learned that they belong solely to God's treasury, she did not permit to be uselessly poured out by anyone for another cause, desiring that these be reserved by all as tribute to the divine majesty alone. Whence on a certain occasion, seeing her mother weeping, as though seized with zeal for the divine treasury, she said: "Come now, O mother, what are you doing? Are you squandering a treasure which is to be paid into the treasury of the Godhead alone? Rather remember that this precious liquid is owed to God alone for the washing away of our sins." So great was the care of the zealous Virgin lest anything should be withdrawn either from the honor or from the tribute of her heavenly Spouse.

[231] and rejoiced greatly at the conversion of a certain sinful woman, The genuine offspring of the same most friendly zeal was that immense joy with which Rose flowered as often as she saw God's honor and service advanced by some notable success. Rumor had filled the emporium of Lima that a certain woman solemnly dedicated to God, having broken the bond of religion, had fled from Cantabria into the Indies,

and had long wandered in male dress in the city of Guamanga; ^d and that at last, by a wonderful benefit of God, she had returned to her heart, and now in the said city, having resumed the sacred garb, lived under religious enclosure among the nuns. When these things became known to Rose, you would have seen her flaming zeal kindled with as many affections as the kinds of matter drew her feeling in different directions. She grieved first over the sacrilegious injury by which the divine honor had been violated by a deed so foul and public; but at the same time her spirit danced at the victory of divine grace: she had compassion on the fallen sinner, and at the same time rejoiced profusely that in her the wonderful goodness and mercy of the Lord was publicly celebrated by all; for this Rose kept a festal day, and would not have rejoiced so had the scepter and empire of all America fallen to her by lot or gift. Finally she at once feared and hoped for the constancy and stability of the converted sinner: but for the heaping up of her solace there came a heavenly revelation, by which Christ himself made Rose secure of the serious repentance of the recovered nun, adding that she would not only persevere but would also attain a notable degree of holiness.

[232] There was nothing which could satisfy Rose, who desired to testify her love to her Spouse; whence she continually lamented before her confessors that she was ungrateful to the Godhead's goodness so sweet toward her, that she did not know how fitly to cultivate so lofty a friendship; and while she did all things, she complained that she had done nothing. and, the preacher's fever being transferred to herself, It happened that one of her confessors fell gravely ill, and that indeed at a very inopportune time; since indeed the day was drawing near on which he had to deliver a solemn sermon to the people. He sent therefore men to announce to Rose that he was overwhelmed by an unforeseen sickness, and would not have strength to preach; that he grieved on account of a notable failure which would in part obscure the festivity, especially since a huge multitude of illustrious persons had been invited to the sermon, from which exceptional fruits were hoped. Rose, alarmed at the sad message, after a brief deliberation answered: "God's honor and service is here at stake. Come, go, tell the sick man that he will most certainly preach on the appointed day; strength will be present in good time, so that he can — although not without a condition burdensome to another." Now this condition was that Rose should meanwhile take upon herself the fevers of her confessor, as once happened to holy Catherine of Siena. Nor did the Virgin hesitate to make a compact with God under such a burden: for she preferred to be scorched through all her marrow with another's fevers than that, from the failure of the sermon, God's glory should suffer detriment in a mutilated festivity. It fell out as the Virgin had foretold: a few hours before the sermon the preacher recovered, and performed his office excellently. Meanwhile a fever not her own tormented Rose. Nor yet did she wish to be absent from the discourse, because zeal for the divine glory, glowing hot, easily overcame the febrile heat.

[233] The most restless force of love devised everything by which it might serve her sole Beloved. she prepared spiritual garments for Christ about to be born. She had learned, from history's telling, that holy Catherine of Siena had once given a garment to Christ hidden under the form of a poor man; loving Rose therefore devised a method and means by which she might most devoutly clothe Christ with a garment laboriously woven of spiritual pieces. Nowhere did he occur to her as poorer than where in Bethlehem he was born a little one, naked, with his destitute Mother excluded from the inn, shivering in a stable, wrapped in little swaddling-cloths in a mean manger. Hither therefore Rose bent all her arts and limbs, that by a singular and precious stitching-together of pious works she might prepare garments worthy of the infant Love. It pleases us here to recite more simply from Rose's own writing-tablets the formula by which the Virgin set this work before herself; and, lest with failing memory she should pass over anything, she had noted each item in this order upon a little page:

"Jesus. In the year 1616, with Jesus Christ and his blessed Mother favoring and helping, I begin to prepare a garment for my sweetest Jesus about to be born, trembling, naked, needy in Bethlehem. Let the little shirt be 50 Litanies, 900 Rosaries, 5 days of fasting in reverence of the Most Holy Incarnation. Let the swaddling-cloths consist of 9 stations before the Most Holy Eucharist, nine thirds of the rosary psalter, and 9 days of fasting, for the number of the months which he spent in the womb of his most pure Mother. For the coverlets, let 5 days of hunger, 5 stations, and as many whole rosaries be expended for the honor of his Nativity. Let five crowns of the Lord, 5 days of fasting, and as many stations furnish the swathing-band, in reverence of his circumcision. Let 33 holy Communions, 33 attendances at Masses, 33 hours of mental prayer, 33 Lord's Prayers and Angelic Salutations, the recitation of the Apostles' Creed as many times, with the Glory be to the Father and the antiphon Hail, Queen; likewise 33 thirds of the Marian rosary, 33 days of fastings, and three thousand lashes, encircle the fringes and borders both of the coverlet and of the swathing-bands, in veneration of his age, which he lived on earth. Finally, for rattles I shall offer to the little boy my tears, sighs, and acts of love, and with these my soul and my heart, that nothing may remain to me, because it is fitting that I possess nothing."

It is established that from the mystical workshop of devout Rose this kind of garment came forth several times: for from time to time she yielded them by a generous gift to her dearest friends, to be offered, applied, and placed around the naked little Jesus, her love. And what did she not do, that he might be loved by all? This ardor of Rose pleased the Savior, and God sealed so great a solicitude for propagating his love with a huge miracle, which I lay aside to be narrated separately in the following chapter.

ANNOTATIONS.

\* rather, nearer here

CHAPTER XVIII.

The manifest miracle of a sweating image obtained by her prayers, that men might be roused to the love of Christ.

Rose in the oratory of her lodging In the household oratory of the treasurer Gonzalo there stood out, among other sacred images, one celebrated both for its beauty and for the reverence paid it, which expressed on canvas the manly face of Christ in the most skillful colors and lineaments. To this Rose was most devoted with a peculiar devotion; this effigy (as often as, the veil being drawn aside, it stood exposed upon the altar) she drank in with fixed gaze and most eager eyes, and almost swallowed with a most intent contemplation; feeling, doubtless, her heart grow warm while she clung to the sight of it. In the year 1617 therefore, on the 15th day of April (which was a Saturday), toward evening, about the ringing of the Angelic Salutation, Rose with the wife and daughters of Gonzalo were engaged in prayer after their custom in the aforesaid oratory; that venerable effigy of the Savior had been uncovered, on either side of which two candles were burning on the altar, and a third shone apart at a distance on a small table. Here the Virgin began to be shaken by the goads of love more vehemently than usual, so that she could no longer restrain her voice, but, standing upright, she addressed the sacred image most fervently and aloud, as though she had been alone in the oratory.

[235] The sum of her exhaling address was this: praying fervently before the painted image of Christ, "Lord, O when will all love you as you deserve to be loved? How long will you suffer yourself to be provoked by the sins of men and to be treated irreverently? O who will grant that all may recognize how great and with how great a love you are worthy, so that they may grasp that you are to be loved, not from a servile dread of punishments, nor from mere mercenary hope of rewards, but for your own sake? Come, Lord, make yourself to be loved as is fitting, shake out your quiver, brandish in every direction the fiery and most pure darts of your love, let bright conflagrations of hearts break out everywhere. Let all serve you, you; let the violence of pious charity unnerve every breast for you; let the balsams of all affections sweat for you; for you, I say, for you, most lovable Jesus, who boil and glow with so great a love of the human race." Amid these and like utterances, the treasurer's wife secretly slipped out of the oratory into the neighboring hall with her daughters, lest perhaps they should make noise against the Virgin as she spoke, or hinder these freer impulses by the respect due to an importunate presence.

[236] One of the daughters, however, her mother not forbidding, crept in by her prayers draws sweat from it, as though about to trim the candles on the altar with snuffers: and at once, interrupting Rose as though in sudden dread, she said: "What do I see? Behold, sweat has covered the whole face of the Savior." Her mother heard this from outside; and, entering straightway, she saw copious little drops of sweat, like the tiniest pearls, shining and standing out conspicuously over the whole face of the most sacred image: others sprang up beneath others, and by mutual rubbing were dissolved into a flow, and ran down drop by drop in various lines through the painted hair and beard. Astounded at the spectacle, and not daring to approach nearer, she sent someone to call with all speed her husband, who happened to be away from home; for he had met, on business, the secretary John de Tineo, then returned to Lima from the port of Callao. ^a Both came, ignorant of what was going on; and scarcely had they entered the oratory, where the wife with John de Benavides and Peter Chiandro, familiar friends, were silently waiting, when they saw, not without a stroke of piety, the effigy everywhere wet and covered thickly as with the little drops of dawn dew; and already the drops had flowed down to the very wooden margin which enclosed the picture, and new drops were again and again springing up from the brow, cheeks, and eyes.

[237] Headlong credulity harms the credit of miracles; circumspect doubt helps it, which many eyewitnesses so that by the severity of examination, as by the rubbing of polishing, its solidity may at once be tested and the truth become clear. So it happened here: for Gonzalo first called into his house Angelinus Medorius, a Roman, who had painted the image, that he might investigate the origin of the sweat, in case it came perhaps from the nature of the colors. The painter came, wondered at the clearness of the most limpid moisture, tasted some of the drops with his finger, rubbed them, brought them to his nostrils; and, when he could detect nothing either malodorous or oily, having diligently examined everything, he declared that what was taking place in the image seemed to him altogether supernatural; that the tests of color, smell, touch, and other circumstances by no means deceived, and that the contrivances of nature and art were far removed from such a prodigy.

[238] By no means content with these things, the treasurer sends off a trusty man, Andrew Lopes, and orders that from the nearby college of the Society of Jesus there be summoned by name the Fathers Diego Martinez and Diego de Peñalosa; yet in such a way that he should indicate to neither for what they were being called at that hour. severely examined. Father Peñalosa came with his companion Francis Lopez, a coadjutor; for Father Martinez was hindered, and the third hour of the night was at hand. Both entered, and, a brief prayer having been premised, he approached nearer to the altar, contemplated long and attentively the still-sweating face, and at last, having asked for cotton, lightly wiped away the moisture. But the more it was wiped away, the more new sweat

burst forth: again therefore Peñalosa applied the cotton where it was dry; again drops succeeded droplets, and little streams streams. Thereupon he applied paper, to see whether perhaps from the colors tempered with oil some unctuous fattiness were present in the moisture: the paper grew wet, but a little afterward it dried; whence he concluded that it was purely watery. For four continuous hours and more the pious portent lasted, all round about wondering that, with no detriment to the colors or to the beauty, that most sacred face appeared after the sweats more beautiful and more lively than usual. Nor did this sweat so vanish but that under the beard, as far as the edge of the margin, it left traces conspicuous openly for many years and lustra afterward. There remained a legal examination and inquiry of public authority, that the certainty of the miracle might become more evident. And so the archbishop of Lima, Lord Bartholomew Lobo Guerrero, ^b appointed as judge for taking the lawful depositions the doctor John de la Rocca, parish priest and metropolitan archdeacon, who, before the notary James Blanca, a priest, having heard the unanimous testimonies of all who had been present at the spectacle, took down the whole course of the matter in order, and committed it to the notary to be duly entered in the protocol.

[239] She frees the household, terrified by this prodigy, from fear, Meanwhile a most grievous fear invaded Gonzalo, his wife, and the household, lest perhaps on account of some hidden crime of their own or of the servants this portent had happened in their house, or threatened the wretched people with some impending disaster of divine vengeance. But Rose easily met these fears, being well aware of the whole secret, bidding them with tranquil and placid voice not to fear: that nothing terrifying, nothing sinister or dreadful was portended; that all this, whatever of miracle it had been, looked and tended only to this, that the Savior might manifest by his own sweating face, and by a glow beyond the ordinary, how earnestly he desires to be loved by all; that that stage-scene had been of divine Love alone, inviting the reciprocal loves of men; that the Redeemer had cried out in the image not with one mouth but with all his pores: "Love in return him who loves you." For who would perceive the pores loosening into this cry, save when they sweat? Rose had not yet ceased speaking when there recurred to the memory of Gonzalo's wife the fiery addresses with which the Virgin had spoken to the image before the sweat; she compared the earlier things with the last, and found that they agreed wonderfully with one another. No less openly did all who had enjoyed the spectacle of the sweat in person confess that under the sight of it they had felt new, keen, unwonted goads of divine love; and this was what the Virgin had so ardently and anxiously demanded. Such lovers are not satisfied to pray continually: "Let charity blaze with fire, let its ardor kindle those near."

[240] and bidding her injured arm be anointed with that sweat, Nor did the miracle stop here, but by the birth of a new miracle both asserted its own certainty and delivered Rose's arm and her credit. A few days before (namely on the second day of the Paschal week) Rose, dashed to the ground by a chance fall, had gravely hurt her arm; the surgeons, terrified by the swollen and livid signs, judged that either the Virgin would thereafter remain maimed in that part, or at least that the labor of the cure would be exceedingly long and uncertain; that the danger would have been far less if the bones had cracked and broken into parts. Rose, strong by habit and desire of suffering, received these things tranquilly, as though said of another's arm: nevertheless one day, conferring familiarly with Gonzalo's wife about the prodigy of the sweating image, she suddenly felt herself stirred to a confidence of recovering her health, provided the cotton which had been wet with the prodigious sweat of the image were applied to the bruised sinews and muscles of her arm. The treasurer's wife, as though snatching the word from the Virgin's mouth, at once brought the cotton, and orders the bandages to be loosed and the flocks laid on. The Virgin hesitated, fearing that her pains would be too hastily snatched from her, which she wished to endure longer for the love of her Spouse; she pleaded that without her confessor's permission she would presume nothing. Yet, lest she should seem to spurn the grace of a remedy offered, she at once went herself to her confessor in the church of S. Dominic: with the candor she was wont to use she set forth the matter, and awaited his nod. The confessor declared that there must be no delay: let her go, let her hasten, let her apply the cotton, and submit herself to the divine favor. It was done as he had commanded.

[241] It was the point of noon when Lady Maria Usategui with her own hands, at once the Saint is healed, Rose being brought back home, bared her arm, wound the cotton about it, and replaced the binding. Presently the Virgin rushed off into the oratory, and, coming out thence after about two hours, showed her arm sound in every part and flexible. The lady, rejoicing, inquired about the manner and the duration of the cure; to whom Rose said: "Scarcely had I composed myself in the oratory for prayer before the sacred image when I felt with a most powerful drawing the distorted sinews return to their places, the fleshy parts ^c subside, the muscles unbind; nor yet did I wish to come out at once until I had paid due thanks to the heavenly physician: with these things I detained myself somewhat: take away now the cotton, take away the bandages, for all is safe." So sudden a benefit roused the whole house to the gladness of secure congratulation; all wondered, and especially the surgeons, who the day before had feared that oil and labor were being wasted; since indeed they had seen the arm intractable and stubborn against every remedy, so that they did not shrink from muttering ambiguously about it as incurable.

[242] Thereafter a heavier tempest of fear fell upon Gonzalo, and to her host fearing that the image would on that account be transferred, but one presently to be dispelled by a new solace from Rose. An uncertain little rumor was creeping through the city that the sacred image was to be taken away from the private oratory, as most worthy of a public and more celebrated place. This report tormented the treasurer, his consort, and his daughters; because they would most grievously suffer this household treasure to be withdrawn from the daily sight, devotion, and joy of themselves and their people: especially because they had several times learned from Rose that this gracious effigy of the Savior was salutary to the whole house; that in it the divine mercy more secretly worked its great deeds; that from it a blessing of heavenly sweetness frequently flowed forth. But the high-spirited Virgin, when she found that anxious Gonzalo was tortured by this dread, said: "Do not doubt at all, my father" (for she was accustomed to honor him and his wife with the name of parents); "do not, I say, fear: for that benign Savior has not granted us portents of this kind as though about presently to depart from this house; he will deign to dwell with us, be assured. But if on account of the grace of the very recent miracle that painting must be taken away hence, then the whole oratory together with its other holy icons must needs be taken away, because most of them vie in wonderful benefits toward us and abound in hidden prodigies."

[243] she confidently foretells that it would remain in his house. That this was so they had long before conjectured from the affection, devotion, and reverence which Rose bestowed peculiarly now on this, now on that image there, as though from it a more copious breath of divine favor had breathed upon her. There stood upon the altar of the oratory an image of the little Jesus, sketched in comely colors: upon this the Virgin most often cast burning eyes; to this she sent frequent sighs from the depth of her breast; for this she pined; nor was the whole veil of her most cautious modesty sufficient to hide her inward fervors toward it. Maria de Usategui silently observed these things, and with prudent skill at length drew from the Virgin by roundabout ways what lay hidden there. Frank Rose confessed that at every sight of that painting she was suffused with new warmth and joy, that her heart leapt up and her spirit was inflamed, because that divine little Boy seemed to her now to greet her with a winning smile, now to transfix her soul with a sweet outflow of rays, and sometimes even to stretch forth his short little arms, as though about at that very moment to run forward of his own accord into Rose's embrace. Narrating these things, she caught fire, and could not restrain herself from raising her voice more strongly into exhortation: "Come," she said, "O mother, esteem this heavenly little One; serve this Lord, worship, venerate, love this King of glory, who without intermission from a tiny icon heaps such great gifts upon us, ready to pour out greater and more, if only we are willing to receive them." Thence she at once returned to that manly effigy of our Savior of which we spoke above; she asserted that by this she was renewed and refreshed to the marrow, and that she experienced in soul and body certain effects most like those which she perceived in receiving the Most Holy Eucharist. Finally she groaned plaintively that so rare and so few were those who loved in return with a whole and pure affection a Lord so sweet; that this grief seemed to her altogether intolerable; she wished that a sex, an eloquence, and a strength had fallen to her by which she might persuade the whole globe of the earth to the love of Jesus Christ alone; for the very same thing her seraphic mother and mistress had once wished; and at last amid these ardors she rebuked herself, because she did not burn enough.

ANNOTATIONS.

\ perhaps pulpas*

CHAPTER XIX.

Her tender affection toward two images of the Mother of God.

There was at Lima a famous statue of the Mother of God, Almost twin with the above-said are the things which we shall here narrate; but out of many a very few things must first be tasted concerning the singular prerogative of this most celebrated image, which from the first beginnings of the introduced Christian faith became known first to the whole kingdom of Peru through public benefits, and was privately so exceptionally dear and propitious to our Rose. It is a statue of unknown wood, of the height of human stature, skillfully carved into the beautiful effigy of the great Mother of God, bearing the little Jesus on her arm and with her other hand holding out her Rosary to the world. This image, brought with them from the Spains by the Christians as patroness of the Indies to be sought out, they placed with solemn rite, among the first undertakings of the city of Lima, in the first temple of the true religion there (which has its coeval name from the most holy Rosary), a distinguished convent of the Friars Preachers being built alongside. This was a most prosperous name and beginning for propagating the faith there: for at the same time in this church, which alone then existed, under the tutelary protection of the holy Virgin, under the title of the Holy Rosary, a parish was established: here for the first time the lustral font lay open to the instructed catechumens, whereby the unbelievers, brought to the worship of the true Godhead, began through the gate of holy baptism to be admitted into the sheepfold of Christ's flock; hence at last the whole administration of the Sacraments flowed out to the other sacred buildings which were gradually being founded, and, as from a single virginal rose-garden of the most august Queen of the heavens, the springtime of the nascent faith spread itself flourishing into all the circuit. ^a

[245] In the year 1553 near Caxaguana ^b in Cuzco and the neighboring provinces, which once, appearing in the air, had terrified the Indians, more than two hundred thousand heathen Indians were under arms, in order to trample rather than to rout the Catholic army, numbering no more than six hundred head. There were present with the Christian phalanx some religious of the Order of Preachers, and, the aid having been implored

of the Queen of the most holy Rosary, while the battle lines rush together on both sides, the holy Virgin was seen conspicuously in the air by both sides under the well-known likeness ^c of her image at Lima, drawing a rod against the enemy and threatening utter destruction unless they yielded. The idolaters, struck by the heavenly spectacle, preferred peace to the trial of arms, and, their obstinacy being shaken off together with the sword, they vied in taking up with joy the yoke of the faith. Thereafter the popular veneration of the sacred image grew, and with the fame of so great a miracle a wonderful propagation of health-bringing devotion pervaded the kingdom and the whole region.

[246] At last in the year 1643, on the sixth day before the Ides of May, the Catholic King, desiring that his kingdom of Peru be more firmly fortified by the heavenly protection of the Virgin mother against impending dangers, and which was chosen as protectress of the kingdom of Peru ordered that she be chosen by all the inhabitants, with public rite, as Protectress; and at the same time that at some sacred image of hers (whichever should be more celebrated in the whole region and more illustrious for the fame of its benefits) a perpetual token of public refuge, gathered by common vow, be most firmly established. It was done: the viceroy with the archbishop, and both the ecclesiastical and the secular senate of the kingdom, having taken counsel and cast their votes, chose the image of the Lady Virgin of Lima presiding over the most holy Rosary; and every year on the second day after the Sunday Quasi modo geniti, ^d a public supplication having been instituted (at which both they themselves and the Regulars of each of the Orders and all the courts of the tribunals ^e are present), they visit her in her chapel among the Friars Preachers. The same, when she is carried out in public with festal procession (which is done annually on the octave day of the Most Holy Rosary in the month of October), is saluted by thousands stationed through the marketplace with a frequent discharge of muskets, while on the unfurled banners of each cohort there shine the name, the token, and the figure of the Rosary image. Nor is the remaining time of the year empty of a perpetual concourse, especially as often as either an earthquake, or the contagion of an epidemic, ^f or any other need, public or private, reminds the citizens of their ready refuge. These things in passing about the Rose-image; now to Rose.

[247] heaped many benefits upon S. Rose, From her tender years this sacred image was to Rose (although she was anything but iron) a magnet and lodestone; ^g so greatly did it draw, so greatly did it strengthen the little maiden. Some things we have touched upon above; let others follow. When in that chapel of the Rosary Rose received the habit of the Dominican Order before this Virginal likeness, her weeping mother was present at the public function, and saw her daughter raised to heaven by a gracious favor of the Mother of God, whereupon, being suffused with joy, she easily checked her tears and began with silent applause to congratulate the happy girl. A sublime augury and worthy of note; for she who by so great an intercession deigned to raise her novice above the stars was here working as the happy gate of heaven. Whenever Rose had determined to ask from heaven some great and peculiar support for herself or for others, she fell down as suppliant in prayer at the altar of the most holy Rosary; there she gazed most attentively upon the face of the dear image, and, not without vast confidence, after tender addresses she hung upon the oracle of that face. Often the treasurer's wife noted that Rose, returning from the chapel, betrayed some new solace by the very effort of suppressing it: for generally the fervor of her gladness boiled over, so that the indications could not lie hidden from, or wholly deceive, a familiar and piously curious observer; wherefore by the household right of intimacy she dared of her own accord to address the modest girl, saying: "Today, O Rose, as I see, favors have rained again." To whom the modest Virgin said with a slight smile: "Continually does that affable Queen of heaven heap favors upon this most wretched sinner." Then, remembering that the same wife of Gonzalo had sat at the examination of which above, chapter XIV, and had from it learned more and weightier things about her hidden commerce, visions, and conversations with this image, thereafter she confessed to this matron a little more confidently a great part of those things which she had long before opened to her examiner with the candor she owed.

[248] as she frankly confessed. Among other things, being asked about the manner in which she perceived the Mother of God speaking to her in this image, she answered most simply that this wonderful kind of address was without language, sound, or movement of lips, purely sympathetic, ^h and that the face of the icon alone, by the varied radiation of a most serene brow, as by certain signs and nods, expressed feelings and affections according to the occasion so aptly, dexterously, and clearly that no eloquence of the most exquisite words could do it better: that the same power was in the face of the divine little Son; that from both, as in a living and animate book, she read the answers distinctly, far more significantly than if she discerned them written or painted in mute characters; that by these, as by trustworthy indices of inward conceptions, there was aroused in her soul a certain luminous attention, by which without discourse she penetrated and limpidly perceived each thing; and finally that in the lips, cheeks, and eyes of both figures there was as it were a clock of hidden affability, and a fitting diversity of signs explicable by no skill in tongues, yet far more certain than human speech. It was reported that Rose obtained all things whatsoever she seriously demanded at the sacred image from the most august Queen of the Rosary. Hence, being often asked to seek this or that, if it seemed to concern the commonwealth or anyone's private welfare, she took the care upon herself without difficulty; then, returning from the sacred image, she promised good outcomes with such security as though she had received a diploma of the grace granted.

[249] It happened by God's permission that envious Satan had sown the tares of discords in a certain regular community at Lima. The Saint as suppliant before this image, discord, The unhappy darnel grew; and what at the beginning had been only a battle of opinions, by the very sweetness of contradiction gradually degenerated into bitterness of wills, not without a rending of peace and an offense to the Godhead, which does not choose to dwell outside the bounds of peace. The swelling evil became known to the Virgin's confessor, and he enjoined upon Rose that she should go to the chapel of the Most Holy Rosary, and there before the image of the Mother of God commend with poured-out prayers to the Mother of mercy the need of that endangered congregation, and not lay aside the care until she had obtained grace and succor. The Virgin obeyed, being wonderfully inclined to the services of charity; she went to the chapel, poured forth prayers, but returned home sorrowful beyond her wont and wounded in mind. On the next day, having returned, she lay prostrate rather long at the feet of the sacred image, prayed more fervently, added tears, and with equanimous patience of a lengthy delay awaited the favor, hanging upon the face of the Mother of God alone, not about to rise from the place until she should understand that she had been heard. At length, suffused with sudden cheerfulness, she raised herself upon her feet, and, thanks having been most devoutly paid to the Virgin mother, she hastened home glad. The treasurer's wife had on both occasions silently observed the brow of the Virgin returning home, and, wondering at the difference, asked what new thing was going on. To her the Virgin answered briefly, as much as it was fitting for her to know.

[250] But a little afterward, being more solicitously examined by her confessor, arisen in a Religious community, dispelled by her prayers and not daring to keep anything back, she frankly set forth the whole series: how the day before, amid her simple prayers, she had found the face both of the Mother of God and of her little Son not only hard as steel, harsh, and inexorable, but also severely threatening, austere, and wrinkled with manifest indignation; how she had striven in vain to soften the Son through the Mother; how she had returned home most sorrowful after that unwonted repulse: then, how on the next day at last with many tears she had bent the Mother of God to intercession, the Son denying that he could be appeased toward that community so obstinately discordant; how her afflicted heart had trembled at perceiving the alternating utterances of the Mother and the Son, by which she urged grace and he justice and punishment; how at length the Son's anger, disarmed, had yielded to the most sweet Mother's mighty groanings; how he, now more appeased, had with kindly smile looked upon his Mother and then upon Rose most indulgently: that thereafter the grace was now secure, and let the confessor not doubt it; that in a short time the effect would be handled with the hands. So it happened: for a little afterward the divided minds wonderfully grew together, the apple of discord vanished, and Satan's wedge, which had opened the cracks, sprang apart. Let those note, whoever drive engines of division into religious communities, how abominable to God, how welcome to the evil spirit, how pernicious to their neighbors is the work they perform. But to other matters.

[251] (from another painted and household effigy of the Mother of God It will not be beside the point to append briefly what befell Rose with another image of the Mother of God, not carved but painted, in Gonzalo's oratory. There was represented in colors upon canvas the Virgin Mother, embracing in her bosom the sleeping little Jesus. To Rose all things in this image seemed to breathe and to live, and she often confessed that this was peculiarly held by her in great esteem, because from it she had sometimes been anointed with most sweet solaces; that the little Jesus's sleep and Mary's watching cast fire into her marrow, so that she dared not interrupt the little One's most gentle slumber, nor yet could she pass by the watching Mother without a melodious address of her kindled heart; but that under this duel of affections her soul was melted by the hidden address of her Beloved, as though he said: "I sleep, and my heart watches."

[252] she also obtained various favors) It happened that in the oratory Maria de Usategui, having begun before Rose and two familiar friends a spiritual conference about the benefits of the most blessed Virgin, fell upon the great deeds which the heavenly hand deigns to work at the image of the Mother of God at Atocha, ⁱ a village near Madrid; Rose, with eyes fixed upon the image present there, eagerly listened to what was being said: but when the matron gradually turned aside to other things, Rose interrupted with an unwonted emphasis of words: "Go on," she said, "O mother, go on to discourse more upon this subject, of what you know." The matron easily perceived that something singular was going on between the image and Rose; whence, when the others had departed, she secretly extorted from the Virgin why she had interrupted: that assuredly a mystery lay beneath, which it concerned her to learn, and that she altogether wished to know it. Rose, in order to attribute the prodigy which she had seen not to her own merit but to the matron's, said: "Indeed a mystery lay beneath; for meanwhile, while you were narrating the miracles of the absent image of Atocha, this one here present was giving signs of unwonted gladness; she moved her dove-like little eyes toward us; she was raised with a new appearance of bodily fullness beyond the surface of the canvas, as though about to come forth thence to us with her sleeping little Son; she scattered hidden sweetnesses; she shone back and radiated more august, caressing maternally now her little One, now ourselves. And under so great a grace was it not worthy to linger longer upon the praises of our Queen?"

[253] and when flowers were lacking for adorning her, But we must return for a while to the chapel of the Rosary, to which throughout the whole year, every Saturday, Rose either sent or carried in little bundles the flowers which she herself had cultivated. All who knew Rose's little garden wondered that flowers were never lacking in her beds which she might dedicate to the altar: for whether the accustomed temperature of the varying year had elsewhere taken away this growth, or a more burning Sirius ^k had everywhere spoiled this solace of the earth with a torrid drought, always in Rose's modest garden there flourished untouched shoots ^l which she might consecrate on the next Saturday to the heavenly Flower-bearer. ^m She would have preferred to offer from time to time to the sacred image, instead of flowers, a robe stiff with gold and gems; but poverty prevented it. Nevertheless the industry of an ingenious devotion supplied even this: for, that she might each year twice clothe the Queen of the most holy Rosary with a spiritual garment, she devised a matter, art, and form far more precious, after the manner which we described above in chapter 18.

[254] The idea of one was found in the Virgin's writing-tablets,

of this tenor: "A memorandum for the garment which I, Rose of S. Mary, she wove for her a spiritual garment. the unworthy bondservant of the Queen of the angels, begin to weave for the Virgin Mother of God, with the Lord's help. First, let 600 Angelic Salutations make the inner tunic, and the antiphon Hail, Queen to be recited as many times, with 15 days of fastings, in reverence of the most pure joy from the angelic message that the eternal Word of the Father was to be clothed with human flesh in her most chaste womb. Secondly, let 600 Angelic Salutations weave the cloth of this garment, as many times Hail, Queen, 15 Rosaries, and 15 days of fasting, in reverence of the most joyful gladness while she visited her kinswoman Elizabeth. Thirdly, let 600 Angelic Salutations surround the edges and fringes of this clothing, and Hail as many times, etc. (as above), in reverence of the most lofty joy when she bore her Son, my Lord Jesus Christ. Fourthly, let 600 Salutations (as above) supply the clasps, in reverence of the inmost joy when she offered her blessed little Son in the temple. Fifthly, let 600 Salutations, Hail, and fastings (as above) be spent upon the collar, in reverence of the most happy joy when she found her Son, lost for three days, in the temple disputing among the doctors. Sixthly, let 33 Lord's Prayers, as many Angelic Salutations, with the verse Glory be to the Father, Hail, Queen, and as many rosaries of the divine praises, and again as many rosaries of the praises of the Virgin, compose the little branch to be borne in her Virginal hands, in reverence of the 33 years which my Lord Jesus lived on earth." And a little below: "Now this garment is finished; blessed be God; and may his most holy Mother by her exceedingly great mercy supply my defects and pardon my daring. Praise to you, O Christ."

A like, but much more laborious, garment for the holy Virgin she began to sew on the first day of the year 1616. In the sumptuous weaving of this the Virgin defined the number of Lord's Prayers and Angelic Salutations no longer by hundreds (as above) but by thousands. But there is no leisure to pursue in detail each of her exercises of devotion, especially since out of innumerable ones fewer have become known.

ANNOTATIONS.

CHAPTER XX.

Her devotion toward the health-bringing sign of the cross, and toward the image of S. Catherine of Siena.

The holy virgin, the sign of the cross, The first and almost the whole furniture of the solitary cell in the garden (of which above) was a cross taller and higher than the Virgin, so that it might both more fully press upon her as she meditated the punishment of Calvary, and might more conveniently be clasped in the pious embraces of a new Magdalene. With how many kisses Rose covered it, with how many tears she moistened it, with how many fiery sighs she scorched it, with how tenacious arms she pressed it to herself day and night even to bruising, with how frequent and suppliant adoration she venerated it, did not wholly lie hidden from the household, who sometimes observed her unawares through little chinks. If anywhere in churches, chapels, or houses the frequent likeness of the life-giving cross ran upon her eyes, she saluted each with a sorrowful gaze and a warm groan. In every familiar gathering, conversation, or company, if any cross stood there, it was Rose's sun, and she a sunflower ^a to the cross; at the sight of it the Virgin's heart, with a stronger and quickened beat, seemed to be transformed into a clock. Especially in the greater week of the Lord's Passion she could not be torn from the cross openly exposed for the adoration of the faithful; she sat beside it unmoving, she wore it away close at hand with the tenderest kisses when the thicker crowd had dispersed, upon it she nailed her eyes from afar, nor could she look elsewhere even for a moment. Nay, so far had the religion of the holy cross settled in the Virgin's mind that, wherever the figure of a cross met her — in a chance joining of beams, in the lattices of windows, in the crossed rods of hedges, in the hinges of doors, in bars, in the very straws and chaff, or in any other cast-off thing — she nowhere passed it by without an attentive and silent veneration.

[256] From time to time her brother by blood accompanied Rose as she went to the sacred buildings, for propriety's sake, wherever it was placed, and he grieved that he had to stop with her as often as his Sister bent down there to lift up straws from the ground. He noticed that they were chance figures of a cross which the breeze or accident had fashioned in the cast-off straws; and Rose could not bear that these should lie upon the ground and be carelessly trodden under the feet of passers-by. Hence Ferdinand (that was the brother's name), impatient of so many delays, and as it were murmuring at his Sister's superfluous piety, said: "Do you think it seemly for a Virgin so often in public to unfold the covering of her face to lift up bits of chaff? What will people we meet think, what will they say, that you linger in the streets in order everywhere to pull apart crosswise straws with laborious effort? But if in this way you desire a sight of the figure of a cross, assuredly you have taken upon yourself an immense labor, nay a ridiculous one, whose whole reward will be the mocking grimaces and sarcasms of passers-by."

[257] But the Virgin gravely and modestly replied: "Ah, brother, she venerated, and even formed in plants, I am tortured with excessive grief while I see lying contemptuously on the ground and worn down by heels any rudest type whatever of that adorable cross on which the innocent Lamb of God redeemed us at the inestimable price of his own life. I know that these leavings are indiscriminately trodden by others without scruple or fault; their carelessness I would not dare condemn, nor do I presume to reprove it; but neither can the simplicity of my devotion deservedly displease them. Finally, let them mock, laugh, and think of me as they please; I, so far as I can, shall not cease from taking care lest the cross of my Lord be anywhere trodden underfoot, even in an abject and most worthless straw." She added — wonderful to say! — that to that zeal for honoring the cross (which seemed to others childish and too womanish) she was roused by goads so lofty and serious that no manner or reason of resisting was ever at hand for her; and accordingly that this too, among very many other things, must be forgiven to the ardor of her affections, especially if that were true which she had received from elsewhere by an obscure persuasion: that from the sacred treasuries of indulgences some gain was laid up for the faithful, whoever should show reverence to the holy cross by this religious service of simplicity.

[258] one of which, which had withered in the vicereine's garden, Rose had planted in her little garden libanotis ^b (commonly called rosemary), and had forced its three little shrubs on separate clods into the form of a cross in such a way that each clod separately expressed on every side an exact figure of Mount Calvary. She rejoiced that among flowers and fragrant plantings a cross likewise was continually before her eyes. This new device of pleasantness pleased many, which, with grace watering it, had happily grown up under the devotion of the little gardener. But, through the working of Master Father Brother Alphonsus Vasquez, Rose's confessor, of the three only one remained left over in Rose's little garden, since he demanded one for himself, and the vicereine obtained the other as his gift, and with the greatest care strove to nurture it in her own keeping; but in vain: for scarcely had a very few days passed when the cross-bearing clod withered utterly away at the vicereine's, a manifest indication that its own gardener of the cross and of Calvary was lacking to it. The confessor related the vicereine's grief to the Virgin; but the Virgin smiled, and warned that crosses of this kind cannot flourish amid the secular pomps of a court and the constant commerce of the world: yet she forbade the withered corpse of the little shrub to be thrown away, and ordered it to be sent back to her to be shortly revived.

[259] she wonderfully restored to its former greenness. Scarcely on the fourth day was the sapless little plant with Rose when it grew green again on every side, more beautiful than it had been before, tressed with new shoots of little branches, brought to life again with new sap of little roots and pith, and reshaped into the former figure of a cross by the plaited obedience of its twigs; to which Rose placed round about, as ornament, several heavenly spirits made of the workable pith of a fig tree in a most apt order, and skillfully added a little image of holy Mary Magdalene lying at the base of the cross; and so, reborn, adorned, and leafy, the confessor sent it back

to the vicereine, who wondered that her rosemary had under Rose's hands revived so quickly, so pleasantly, so fully. But the Virgin attributed all this to the glory of the cross, which she remembered that S. Catherine of Siena had continually done also.

[260] For adorning the image of S. Catherine of Siena We must now digress to the image of this seraphic mistress, marked with the characters of the cross and of the stigmata, with which Rose had very much commerce, and not without prodigies. At Lima for a hundred years and more there has flourished a devout confraternity of laypeople under the invocation of B. Catherine of Siena; it is their solemn custom, three times yearly, to carry forth in festal procession through the public circuit, conspicuous upon a lofty litter, the statue of their holy patroness, seemlily adorned with crowns, flowers, and much splendor and costliness of gems. Further, for seeking out, handling, and placing about the statue's ornaments, no one while she lived was found more apt, more worthy, more skilled than this Rose alone; because no one was either more devout toward the prototype or more like it. Thus by the vote of all this office of religious piety was conferred upon Rose alone. She, having diligently collected from every quarter necklaces, veils, collars, tufts, ribbons, and every precious furnishing (of which no part was ever lost, but all returned to their owners), applied herself strenuously to the work, taking most faithful helpers into a share of the labor and the merit.

[261] money is prodigiously supplied, But while she went about the dear icon, while she clothed it, while she arranged the folds, she could not for ardor restrain herself from tears, from kisses, from addresses; she spoke to, venerated, and covered with caresses the sacred image, as though she had her mistress present from heaven. On a certain occasion, amid her sighs, these words fell from the Virgin (but casually and in a low voice): "You know assuredly, my sweetest mother, that if I had the means of fifteen or sixteen patacoons, ^c I would clothe you, according to the dictate of my genius, with a new and whiter garment." And behold, after a little while, her companions thinking nothing less, there came the Ethiopian maidservant of the illustrious lady Hieronyma de Gama, and brought with the money a little letter, whose tenor was this: "Greetings, sister Rose. I conjecture that you are now busied in adorning the likeness of the glorious mother of Siena; behold sixteen patacoons which I found in my possession; use these for the adornment of the seraphic image, if there is need. Farewell." Rose looked up to heaven and said: "O sweetest Jesus, how faithful a friend you are!" Presently she bought a garment of snowy whiteness ^d and fitted a new robe to the icon. While Rose was sewing the long band (we call it a scapular) with which the icon was to be clothed, she sends into the room where it stood Philippa de Montoya, her fellow citizen, that she might bring her thence a ball of silken thread. She went, and saw the face of the image shining with an unwonted splendor more brightly. She was struck with unhoped-for joy, and reported the matter trembling to Rose, who was spinning in a nearby chamber. But she, wondering not at all, answered in few words: "Have you not seen, sister, with how serene a token our seraphic mother deigns to approve what we do? It pleases her that we both are pleasantly busied in working upon her scapular."

[262] At another time Rose wished that a supply of gilliflowers ^e were at hand, and flowers, which that season of the year did not bear, with which she might adorn the sacred image. The present temperature of the year forbade it, which in those regions in the month of May knows nothing of that kind of little flowers. Search was long made in Rose's little garden, in case perhaps in the bed of gilliflowers even buds might appear, shortly to break into flower; but nothing was found. The frustrated search is repeated twice, three times; but that evening there was no hope remaining. Nevertheless Rose, perceiving with good hope what was to be, said: "The Lord is able to grant what we wish; nay, on this very night, in honor of the Most Holy Trinity, this one twig" (she pointed with her finger to a shoot then nowhere swollen with any mark of fruitfulness) "will thrust out three gilliflowers for us." Having said this, she sent the women home laughing (they were called Catherine and Francisca Montoya), because at that time of the year she expected — nay, promised — gilliflowers from a languid and barren shrub.

[263] The next day very early in the morning (since that was the day appointed for the procession) they hastened to Rose, are found in the holy Virgin's garden. that they might finish with her what remained in the adorning of the image. Rose, then fixed in prayer, signed to them as they came to go into the garden and in the name of the most holy Trinity to bring her thence at once three gilliflowers to be fitted to the sacred icon. Catherine replied: "But do you not remember, dearest, that yesterday we traversed the whole garden with you several times in a useless search for a flower, and nowhere found even a bud upon the stems, or a tiny tooth ^f upon the stalks, which might promise the down of any little flower for this whole month?" But Rose insisted with a more efficacious command: "Go, sisters; the threefold flower which I spoke of, fully ripe, crosswise, wide-open, bring quickly. Why do you hesitate? Why do you delay? He who bade Aaron's rod flower has provided for us also." They went, and, as the Virgin had said, found three gilliflowers upon that very little stalk which Rose had pointed out the day before; trembling they plucked them, brought them, and, having begged pardon for their distrust, prostrated themselves with Rose in thanksgiving to God, at once full of wonder and glad that on that day the sacred image was to go forth in public with an adornment so strange. And what is more wonderful, from that time, as long as Rose survived, fresh gilliflowers were lacking to her little garden in no part of the year.

[264] Then B. Catherine upon a certain helper in the adorning On another occasion Rose had called, to clothe the icon of holy Catherine, among other helpers, Maria Euphemia de Parejas, a widow. Her household maidservant, Francisca by name, was dangerously ill, who at the same time performed the office of nurse, and was then suckling the widow's little son Joseph; but the physician, terrified by the force of the growing disease, had ordered the day before that the infant should not suck milk from the sick woman. Yet Euphemia, anxiously commending her sick woman to the household, went on to Rose, to add her own work to the common office of piety. When at last all was finished and the image seemlily adorned, Rose, compassionating her wearied companions, said: "Go, take breath, and refresh yourselves alike with a leisurely walk: for you are tired." Euphemia answered: "Do you bid me walk, when you are not ignorant what affliction awaits me in my house? Rather do you, with this seraphic mother, with whom you are strong both in grace and in confidence, beg life and health for my maidservant." Rose assented, and at once, turning to the image present with the friendly familiarity she was wont to use, said: "Ho there, glorious mother, do you not see the bitter affliction of this woman? Come to the aid of this need, and do not put off the solace; now I shall find out how dear to you are the stigmata of our Redeemer; by them I adjure you, obtain health for Francisca in her peril." She spoke, and, having consoled the widow, bade her hope well; that S. Catherine of Siena, whom she had just now served, would by no means be wanting to the peril of her own servant. Euphemia hastened straight home, and there found her Francisca convalescing, the danger driven away, so much so that the next day, by the physician's order, she again gave the infant her nourishing breasts as before.

[265] conferred a double benefit, Once the same Francisca de Montoya mentioned above had helped Rose through a whole night in adorning the icon of S. Catherine of Siena; and, the work being completed, as she was departing to take some rest, so as after some hours to be present at the festal procession, Rose earnestly commended her, when she had gone, to B. Catherine, asking that she would guard her from impending danger. Nor did the solicitous intercession go without fruit: for while, as the procession circles about, sulphurous crackers of hurled fires receive it here and there with varied din for magnificent applause, one of these made straight for Francisca's eye and struck upon her brow, yet with no harm to Francisca; not that the power of harming was lacking: for the same, springing back from Francisca with a slanting impulse, caught another woman, and swiftly set on fire her inner shift together with the hem of her gown. Francisca, sure enough that she owed her safety to Rose's prayers, related the outcome to the Virgin, and gave thanks for her benevolent care. To whom Rose said: "Why should not our seraphic mother have a peculiar care of you throughout this whole day, after you passed this entire night laboriously with me in her service?"

[266] and freed holy Rose at once from the arthritis Blessed Catherine, so munificent toward the other clothers and adorners of her image, was assuredly not ungenerous toward her own Rose. I shall give a single example and finish. In the year 1616, in the month of August, Rose had according to custom clothed the icon of B. Catherine, to be carried about at the chief solemnity of the holy Father Dominic; and she awaited the same in the house of the treasurer Gonzalo, to be unclothed when the feast was over. It was brought and carried into the household oratory, that there it might be stripped of the precious adornment which Rose had received on loan from various persons. But two or three days before, a dreadful arthritis ^g had invaded the Virgin's right hand through all its joints with most importunate torment, so that it not only rendered it utterly useless for even faintly touching the work, but also, by the savagery of a monstrous swelling, terrified the physician, who suspected the atheromata ^h of a graver evil. The hand had swollen to the size of those little casks in which the choicest honeys are carried from the Spains to Lima; so that now none of the fingers could be moved, much less could she hold or grasp scissors or anything else.

[267] It was the day of S. Lawrence the martyr, when toward evening the physician, which had invaded her hand, having inspected the hand and judged that a purulent meliceris ⁱ or some other kind of abscess lay beneath, decreed that slow poultices ^k should be applied, and ordered that on the following day, for drawing off blood, a vein be opened with a lancet in her left arm. Gonzalo, who chanced to be present with the physician, sick at the sad spectacle of the hand, withdrew from the oratory, as though unequal to excessive compassion. But Rose grieved more that on that day, which was for her the anniversary of the Dominican habit she had taken, she was hindered from handling with her accustomed religious service the festal garment of her seraphic mother. And so she fell down before the sacred image (which stood by, placed upon a small table) and prayed briefly. Presently rising, with a more cheerful voice she demanded scissors from Gonzalo's wife, who had stayed there with the others for the work. She, thinking it sport or a jest, smiled, asking with what hand she wished to take them, knowing well enough that the fingers of the right were so swollen that they could be inserted into no rings of scissors; and so, as though in play, she held out the narrowest scissors she could find. Nor was there delay: Rose put her fingers into them, seized the work, and began with the freest diligence to unfasten the gems, collars, and necklaces in the order in which they clung, aptly to unstitch the threads of the bindings, to cut the knots, to lay aside the adornment neatly part by part, and to strip the image bare. The matron cried out again: "What are you doing, Rose? Spare your hand, now useless for these things; let this be our labor and care." The Virgin went on briskly, and replied nothing else than that the same One who had given her hands to spend upon clothing the sacred image had then healed her right hand, that she might serve in unclothing it.

[268] After a little hour the treasurer came in, and, seeing Rose working most readily with both hands, immediately freed, he was astounded, and, interrupting her gently, said: "Is your right hand then so strong that it suffices for these things? Stop, let us see the hand." He saw it, and found it in no way unlike the left — sound, strong, agile. The treasurer grew faint with a most joyful astonishment, and, silently looking toward his wife, hung

astounded upon the mouth of her who narrated how the Virgin had prostrated herself in prayer as he was going out, how in a very brief interval she had risen sound upon her feet and had strenuously begun the work, having demanded scissors. He then preferred to learn the manner of the sudden cure from the Virgin's own mouth; she answered that in that brief space in which she had prayed before the image she had felt vigor returning into her joints, and that they had at once subsided with a violent puff, as a bladder full of air is wont to do when it is pressed, and that thus, together with the swelling, all pain had likewise vanished.

[269] as the Virgin herself candidly confessed. The physician, summoned the next day, examined the hand, and then the Virgin; who most simply confirmed what she had said the day before, referring the whole course of the matter with a grateful mind to the favor and grace of her seraphic mistress. There was added to the benefit that thereafter the arthritis never afterward invaded that hand as long as Rose survived. But more excellent was that other thing which within was sweetening Rose's soul at that very moment in which her hand outwardly recovered; she confessed that in that short time in which she had dealt as a suppliant with S. Catherine of Siena about curing her right hand, at the same time there had rained down into the inmost recesses of her heart a copious dew of unwonted sweetness, which even fell thence upon her body. Nor is it a wonder if heavenly medicines are wont to work from the center to the surface, and to touch the soul before the body. But it is a wonder that these things were by no means wonderful to Rose, as to one for whom, from blessed Catherine of Siena as from a mother, solaces out of their mutual commerce were almost daily.

ANNOTATIONS.

\ perhaps stato*

CHAPTER XXI.

Her fervent piety toward the most holy Eucharist, for whose faith she girds herself for martyrdom.

The Saint communicated rather often in the Body of the Lord If such things happened to Rose when she clothed the virgin of Siena with another's substance, far more wonderful things did she receive from that wonderful Sacrament in which alien accidents clothe Christ. This food God prepared in his sweetness for the poor one; yet it must be recalled to whom he said: "I am the food of the grown; grow, and you shall eat me." Rose had not yet grown beyond her childhood years, and already she was eating this food; but her confessors had found her already grown in spirit when they permitted to her so tender an age a place at the sacred Banquet which affords delights to kings. Nay, with their consent the girl was refreshed twice each week with this divine nourishment; she would have preferred more often; but it was not then yet permitted her to go to church without her mother. How well does honey-flowing Bernard exclaim in his jubilee: "They who taste you hunger"! For in Rose the hunger for the feeding Sacrament so increased from frequent Communion that, when she was a little more grown, the sacred Communion had to be permitted her three times in each week.

[271] Nor was this enough: for if either the celebration of a feast day or a solemn station intervened, by the counsel of her confessors, even four, nay five times within the week she most eagerly enjoyed this divine Food. Her confessors, the more thoroughly they had begun to know the state of her soul, the more easily granted her this frequency, unanimously testifying in the process that they had found in her spirit so limpid a cleanness and so bright a purity of innocence, and moreover so great a hunger for the Eucharist and so robust a warmth of devotion, that thereafter they never dared to keep the Virgin from participation in so great a mystery. Whence she easily obtained that both at Easter and at the solemnity of Corpus Christi it was permitted her daily throughout the whole octaves to feed upon this delicate Bread of angels. In which matter, to escape human applause and lest she could be marked for singularity, on each of these days she most studiously varied the hour, approaching the sacred Communion now earlier, now later: for the heavenly treasure (as Gregory warns) is hidden that it may be kept; and all wonder at him who does what no one else does.

[272] and always did so with such fervor, Here indeed it is worthy of note that the Virgin, amid so great a frequency of communicating, and at the same time so great a serenity of her spotless conscience, nevertheless, as often as she had to approach the divine banquet, as often premised a sacramental confession; and not perfunctorily, but with such solicitude of examination, such a goad of contrition, such an apparatus of groans and tears, as if for weeks and months she had utterly lacked both Sacraments. On the day before the sacred Communion she wore down her little body more harshly with scourges and rigid fasting, that a hunger of the body might accompany the hunger of her soul: for the Spouse who was to come she adorned the secret bridal chamber of her mind with affections of reverence, humility, and desire; she kindled the lights of pious meditations, especially from Luis of Granada's little book which is entitled On Prayer; she perfumed the dwelling of her heart with the precious odors of fiery aspirations, and gathered the whole household of all her powers and strength into the service of the dear guest who was on the next day to lodge with her. Upon these exercises she spent as much zeal and care as if throughout her whole life she had to communicate for that one time only. Further, what an ardor of most attentive devotion, what a religious composure of countenance and gestures, what a burning of a boiling spirit was in the Virgin at the very approach to those awful mysteries, cannot be described otherwise than if one should sketch, by transcribing here, Catherine of Siena herself, prostrate to receive the Eucharistic morsel. But for this work there would be need of an angelic pen and brush alike. Nor yet did the Most High permit it to lie wholly hidden, since several times he made the indications, flashings, and sparks of the interior flame visibly sparkle in Rose's face at the time when her soul was kindled by the receiving of the divine Host.

[273] that the priests who held out the sacred Host to her, On a certain second day of the Pentecost week, when Father Brother Antonio Rodriguez, a general preacher, was performing the sacred rites in the chapel of the Rosary, Rose was kneeling with other faithful at the rail of the altar to receive the Eucharist. When the priest came to her with the most sacred Host, he saw the Virgin's face wholly aflame, and was terrified to the marrow, not yet knowing what this wonderful and unforeseen flashing indicated. But afterward, from the more frequent occurrence of the same prodigy, he learned that it was Rose in whom, at the touch of the most sacred Host, an inner pyre of love suddenly flashed, so vivid and powerful that it changed even her outward face into a torch. Master Brother Luis de Bilbao, after Mass in the same chapel, while he holds out the sacred Communion to the Virgin, often noted her face suffused with a heavenly splendor, so that from the vehemence of the brightness his eyes trembled, as being unequal to that starry clarity which the loveliness of grace had conspicuously kindled, and which the Bread of angels had (as he said) wonderfully transformed into an angelic beauty.

[274] saw her face flashing, Master Brother John de Lorenzana, happily struck by a most similar portent, obtained thence an occasion of knowing Rose more inwardly, whom until then he had never known by face. He too had offered sacrifice in the chapel of the Rosary, and after the Sacrifice was distributing the Sacrament to the mixed people about to communicate there. When he came to Rose (who at that moment, the edge of her mantle drawn back, was uncovering her face to receive the holy Host), he saw an appearance more beautiful than human, clear, snowy, gleaming, and irradiated with a certain heavenly beauty. He passed on, certain that a flashing comeliness of that kind was not from the region of our mortality. Presently, in thought, he said within himself: "Whoever this Virgin is, she must needs be strong in a sublime grace with God: would that it were permitted to know the inward state of a soul so bright and burning." He was afterward made master of his wish when he was thinking least of it: for the providence above afterward gave him to Rose not only as confessor but also as preceptor, to whom the Virgin rendered obedience until death as to her regular superior.

[275] Father Brother Bernard Marques, while still a novice, from time to time served those celebrating in the chapel of the Rosary, and another felt the outward heat. and after the custom carried round to the communicants, after the priest, the cup of ablution; and as often as he stood before Rose with the cup, he felt heats steaming from the Virgin as from an oven or furnace, so that at times he thought

that his hand was being burned with which he either held out or took back the cup. But then, being ignorant of the mystery on account of his age, and content to wonder silently, he passed on; yet fifteen years after the Virgin's death, being now a priest and more mature in judgment, he narrated the prodigy as it had happened, under the pledge of an oath, adding that from sacred ardors of that kind his own rude heart, boy as he was, had nevertheless grown warm with a hidden veneration of the Sacrament present, which he had seen received with so great religion and glow.

[276] God willed that by these outward and sensible things it should somehow be made plain outside The Virgin herself could not explain how great a pyre of devotion blazed within. But when he came to her bodily who came to send fire upon the earth, Rose seemed to herself to walk in the midst of fiery stones, wholly of the empyrean, no otherwise than among the Seraphim. Hence in her soul those wonderful effects, so connatural and proper to this Sacrament, which no one knows save he who receives. The Virgin, obeying her confessors when they commanded, tried to indicate some of these; but she stuck fast at almost every word, pleading a poverty of vocabulary, nor did she know how to speak otherwise of them than by repeatedly calling them unspeakable. Yet she said that from the virginal flesh of God there was diffused into her soul a certain admirable gentleness of the heavenly Lamb, and at the same time that she was invigorated with an unwonted strength from the nobility of this nourishment; that her powers were restored and refreshed by a certain as it were new transubstantiation of her spirit into this divine food, sweet, full of juice, most powerful; and that meanwhile there shone forth in her heart a placid serenity, peace, and temper of a loftier sphere, explicable by no comparison. Further, concerning the immensity of joy from close union with her most friendly Spouse, concerning the height of fruition, concerning the spiritual savor of true sweetness where it is tasted at its own proper fount, concerning the excellence, abundance, and richness of its fruits, and the like, it wearied her to attempt any manner whatever of barren utterance; it was enough in these things either to become plainly speechless, or to declare in brief that there is nothing of pleasantness, gladness, or jubilation in this lower world which even shadow-wise may be likened to the joy of that precious Banquet, where the infinite hunger of the soul lights upon a pasture worthy of God, upon the food of sons, upon the breast of the incarnate Word, which alone fills the hungry with good things.

[277] These things the confessor Father Master de Lorenzana had heard from the Virgin's mouth, who, standing by her when she was now dying, while in ecstasy she gradually swallowed the sacred Host for her last viaticum, added these few words: all the effects of this heavenly Food in her, "Daughter, now enjoy your Spouse, and take your delight alone with him alone, for truly he is most sweet; ask that after his manner he now fill you with the same good things with which he was wont." Another confessor of Rose likewise remembered that she was accustomed to say that in the most holy Communion she seemed to receive the very sun from heaven into her breast: for whatever the visible sun works in the world, while with light and warmth it refreshes all things, while it adorns the earth with flowers and fruits, while it enriches the seas with pearls and the bowels of the mountains with gems and precious metals, while it gladdens the little birds of heaven, quickens plants and animals, and with diffused pleasantness illumines, kindles, and gilds all the corners of the vast hemisphere — all this the real presence of the Lord's Flesh accomplished in the bare spaces of her soul. And perhaps on this account it was divinely granted to the Virgin that generally the sacramental species lasted in her stomach for seven or eight hours before they were dissolved by the heat of the stomach; namely, that meanwhile under this divine Sun her devout breast might grow warmer and be more vigorously cherished by the life-giving conjunction of the Sacrament.

[278] by which she was thus strengthened and satisfied, Lest these solar effects should lie wholly hidden, Christ provided by making two prodigies redound outwardly from these very things even into Rose's little body: strength and satiety. Strength from the holy Communion her mother detected in her daughter: for as often as Rose went to the church with her parent to receive the sacred Communion, she was from the previous day's fastings, scourgings, and vigils so weary, attenuated, and weak that often on the way both had to stop here and there in the alleys until the wearied Virgin should recover her breath. But refreshed by the Nourishment of the divine morsel, when she returned home from the church, she went before her mother and urged her to follow, as though she had to walk in the strength of that Food as far as Mount Horeb. ^a But bodily satiety from the Eucharistic food Rose herself confessed both to her confessors and to the household. For, having returned home, and having scarcely unwound her little mantle, she hastened straight to the secrecy of her chamber, shutting herself up there until late night, and meditated upon the greatness of the benefit received, nor did she come into anyone's sight or conversation.

[279] so that for a long time she did not need bodily nourishment. When asked to take food, especially because, exhausted by the previous day's fast, she seemed to need refreshment, and because she should remember that the Lord's day is exempt from the law of fasting, she answered that on account of the vast satiety from the Lord's Table she could not yet admit other food; so that, short of extreme violence and torment, she perceived that she could neither swallow a morsel of bread nor sip a drop of water. When therefore they had proved that it was so in fact, they ceased importunately to press mention of food upon her; and thus the Virgin persevered with her most satisfied fasting until evening, and from time to time until the following day. It happened that Rose, throughout a certain whole octave, with her confessor's permission, fed daily upon the Sacrament of the altar, and then indeed for that whole eight days she abstained from all bodily nourishment, because that heavenly satiety had not only driven away all appetite for other food, but had plainly rendered her incapable of any other nourishment whatever for that time. These things are most like those which the history of her life records about S. Catherine; so that it might appear more evidently that both excelled by one spirit.

[280] With the greatest reverence For the rest, with how great a religion Rose was wont to venerate this Sacrament, whether anywhere it was offered in the sacrifice of the Mass or stood exposed for adoration upon the altar, we have somehow touched upon above. Masses indeed she listened to, all that were celebrated in the church of the Friars Preachers; she was present at these until noon with as much quiet and silence as a stone is fixed in its center. And in truth Rose's own center was the sacred Host, wherever she could reach it with her sight; hither she was borne with the whole weight of love, so much so that for whole hours she was noted scarcely (or perhaps not even scarcely) to have lowered her lashes in a single blink, much less to have turned her face from the altar even for a moment. Known and unknown people passed close by before the kneeling Virgin, and almost ran into her eyes, and yet she then knew no one, nor did she even slightly move her eyelids, being most intent upon what was being done at the altar, whose sight perhaps the passing of an alien object did not even in passing eclipse.

[281] The same was the tenor of the Virgin's unmoved attention when the venerable Sacrament exposed in the monstrance was adored by the people, and with unmoved attention of mind as happens in the public supplications of the Forty Hours: there, from morning until evening, Rose remained in a continuous and utterly unmoved kneeling, forgetful of her dinner, nor did she accept even a drop for refreshment, content with the jubilation and the delights which she perceived from the bodily presence of her Spouse. Thus through the whole solemn octave which hangs upon the feast of the Most Holy Body of Christ she passed those whole days before the open tabernacle of the Sacrament standing forth, her confessors especially wondering whence in a little body so attenuated strength should suffice for genuflections so lengthy, continuous, and arduous, to be sustained together with days of fasting. Her strength seemed the strength of stones, and her flesh of bronze — which the most unconquered Job complained was lacking to him. Further, in the last four years of her life, in the greater week (as we call it), as long as the sacred body of Christ was adored, shut according to custom in the sepulchre, Rose did not withdraw thence even by night, being fixed to the tomb; nor did she rise from the place where she had fixed her knees on the fifth day of the week until on the following day, Good Friday, that divine Treasure (with which her heart always was) should be transferred by the accustomed rite to the tabernacle. Meanwhile, forgetful of hunger, thirst, and weariness, she was wholly taken up with her beloved, and that indeed with such veneration and reverence that during the whole course of the twenty-four hours she presumed neither to sit before him nor for a while to lean against the adjoining wall.

[282] Nor was she less prompt to the worship of this adorable mystery she adored this venerable Sacrament even when it was out of sight. As often as in conversation, whether by her own mouth or another's, the most holy Sacrament of the altar was named, Rose testified her reverence by a profound bowing of her head and of her whole body. If anywhere she heard a signal given from afar with bells for its adoration, or little bells sounding before its sacred solemnities, she could not restrain the sudden signs of inward gladness, but her heart and her flesh exulted in the living God. A livelier color was kindled in her face, and her spirit exulted in God her savior. But in listening to solemn panegyrics on this ineffable mystery she could never be satiated, and, having heard them once, she recited them almost word for word after intervals of years with a wonderful felicity of memory.

[283] No labor of her hands was more pleasant to her than that by which the altar, the tabernacle, or in the greater week the Holy Sepulchre came to be adorned. and labored strenuously for its adornment; Hence with so great a zeal of devotion she sewed the linens which we call CORPORALS; the cloths and palls of the altars, the silken coverings of the chalices, and whatever woven thing could pertain to this sacred furnishing she made with every ingenuity, art, and elegance of piety. Moreover, by no means content with living flowers, she fashioned more precious ones out of silken threads with many-colored artifice; she added, at the same cost and labor, little branches leek-green, ^b grass-green, and variegated with every pleasantness of verdure. Her Daughter's costly devotion was not approved by her mother, and she took it ill that so much time should be withdrawn from Rose's other labors, which supported her parents and her needy family. And so the Virgin, to satisfy her mother, after the day's task of labor set aside some part of the night for making ornaments for the altars. But this too seemed to her spiritual father (perhaps at her mother's suggestion and exaggeration) to exceed her Daughter's strength; but to him Rose gravely answered: "I would not be held so delicate that for my Spouse's adornment the labor of a single night should be either too much for me or troublesome: for what bride would be so slothful or idle that it should be hard for her to spend a night upon the ornament and dress which her husband needs, that on the next day he may go forth becomingly in public?"

[284] Nay, when a fleet of Calvinists Finally, such was Rose's affection toward the mystery of the Most Holy Eucharist that she preferred to spend blood and life for it rather than flowers. Nor was the immediate occasion far off. In the year 1615, in the month of August, along the Peruvian shores in the Pacific ocean a hostile fleet of the Dutch ^c appeared, and unexpectedly terrified the whole coast. Everywhere there was a cry to arms; and meanwhile both clergies (as happens in public dangers), about to implore divine protections, had exposed openly through all the churches at Lima the most holy Sacrament of the Lord's Body, to be adored by the unwarlike multitude. At length, on the very sacred vigil of B. Mary Magdalene, that formidable fleet of heretics was seen, drawn up in battle line, to run straight into the very harbor of the emporium of Lima (called Callao by the natives),

as though about to pour out its military forces upon the land for the destruction of the city. Presently the whole city was in alarm, and the ecclesiastics were ordered along with the citizens to take up arms: since indeed it was certain that this Calvinist enemy gaped most savagely not only for the fortunes and throats of the inhabitants, but also for the profanation of sacred things, the spoils of churches, and the extermination of religion. Amid these things Rose, who with respectable matrons was awaiting in the church of S. Dominic the outcome of these tumults, feared only for the most divine Sacrament standing exposed upon the altar, which assuredly the sacrilegious hands of the treacherous people would not spare — perhaps not their feet either, but with dreadful daring would trample it, and, having flung it on the ground, would tread upon it with blaspheming fury.

[285] had put in at the Peruvian shores, Meanwhile a sadder message came even to Rose: namely, that the enemies of the faith were leaping from the height of their ships into boats, and thence onto the sand by companies, and were advancing in a mass to the gates of the city. This empty rumor the very fog of the public fear had begotten; but nevertheless it so struck the unarmed sex, which had stayed with Rose in the church, that it almost deprived them of life. Rose alone was so far from fearing for herself, or looking about for flight or a hiding-place, that rather, like one triumphing, she could not restrain the signs of a vast gladness, judging, of course, that the most happy hour was at hand, longed for with so many sighs, in which she could pour out life and soul for the honor of the most holy Sacrament standing exposed there. And so she drew her companions with her in passing into the chapel of Lord Jerome; there, with her face opened out into cheerfulness, she began to exhort the frightened women to undergo martyrdom with her: that this occasion was exceedingly precious and fortunate, namely to fall as a victim not in any way whatever, but under the very sight of the holy Host — to be slain a victim before and for that divine Victim, to lay down one's soul for the exposed Body of Christ.

[286] Having uttered these things with glowing face, she drew scissors from their sheath, she prepared to shed her blood for the defense and truth of the sacred Eucharist and briskly cut off her dress, which flowed down too long upon the ground; and, her sleeves being rolled back to the elbow, she drew what remained of her tunic within her girdle as far as her ankles, and put off her buskins raised with cork. Being asked what she was doing, what she meant by this novelty, she said: "I am girding myself for the contest; I do not wish my clothes to be a hindrance to me when I am to struggle and to die for the Sacrament; in this short garment I shall climb more nimbly to the upper step of the altar; there I shall expose my body to wounds for the body of Christ, nor shall I yield until, pierced on every side by the axes of the impious, I fall; nay rather I shall beg the enemy not to dispatch me suddenly with one blow, but with slow cruelty to dismember this little body joint by joint and to break each part into the tiniest fragments; so that while they are busied in butchering me, they may at least put off the injuries which — alas! — they will afterward inflict upon my Spouse present here."

[287] These things she pronounced in such a way that from the sparks of her eyes, she prepared to shed her blood, from the constancy of her undaunted face, from the vivid tone of her heroic voice, and from all the rest of the gesture of a courageous Heroine, it was easily to be conjectured that Rose had put on a lioness for the Eucharistic Lamb of the altar: nor did the women standing about believe their own eyes, seeing an Amazon who until then had been nothing but the living idea of gentleness. They wondered that a most modest Virgin in public, with her mantle rolled back about her shoulders, with short dress, with sandals cast off, with arms entirely free, girded high, and fiercely armed only with the beads of her rosary, was of her own accord provoking the fatal hour in hope of martyrdom, and most combatively threatening death. Meanwhile she herself, as though now impatient of delay, now tried her step, now looked toward the altar and the sacred Host, and presently toward the doors of the church, in case the enemy might come, whom she would outrun in flying to the altar, certain to fall there; already in all her veins and arteries the Virgin's blood boiled, eager to be poured out; but while she waits, while she prepares herself for the contest, while she invites her companions by example, gesture, and exhortation, it is announced that the enemy is going farther from the shore; and so it was: for the admiral, ^d seized by disease, had sounded the retreat, and a little afterward was buried by his men on a rock opposite the harbor. Rose, when the fear of the others had been dispelled, began herself to be ashamed at the shortness of her cut-off garments, and, in order to return home decently, she had to await night in the aforesaid chapel with grief for her martyrdom snatched away, although she rejoiced at her country's deliverance, and especially at the inviolate religion of the churches.

[288] Not courage therefore was lacking to martyrdom, but martyrdom to courage, and she often desired to undergo martyrdom for the same. so often both before and afterward longed for with the most ardent wishes: for she often bewailed her lot, that on account of the condition of her sex she could not go to the regions of the unbelievers, to seek death a thousand times for Christ: she grieved that she had not been born in those times and places in which tyrannical persecution empurpled with Christian blood the theatres, the marketplaces, the amphitheatres; the happiness of those seemed to her inestimable to whom it had been granted to seal the character of the faith with the last drop of blood; often with a groan she said to her familiar friend Lady Francisca Urtado de Bustamante: "Would that a fitting reason or manner might occur of arranging a flight to the provinces of the barbarians, that there we might be most savagely butchered by the idolaters for Jesus Christ." Finally, when she could do nothing else, she delighted herself with the image and meditation of the tortures, all of which one by one she desired to experience in herself for the love of her Spouse. Thus she desired with S. Ignatius the martyr to be found the clean bread of Christ, for that charity by which Christ, the angelic Bread, becomes the bread of men.

ANNOTATIONS.

CHAPTER XXII.

Her exceptional zeal for the salvation of imperiled souls.

Rose, solicitous for the salvation of the barbarians, She who burned so manfully about the mystery in which the true Body of Christ is veiled could not neglect its mystical members, if anywhere she saw these lying open to the doubtful crisis of losing their salvation. She knew how to esteem souls from the infinite price at which they were redeemed: hence, as often as she turned her eyes toward the inner mountains of southern America, she was tortured to the marrow, weeping over the perdition of so many barbarians who, behind those snowy ridges of the loftiest mountain-flanks, ^a populated like ants innumerable but inaccessible valleys, still blinded by their ancestral idol-madness. She deplored inconsolably the neighboring kingdom of Chile, ^b where daily souls perished by myriads, ever since its fierce inhabitants, having shaken off the yoke of king and of religion, had returned to the vomit of their former heathenism. Nor did she grieve for her own western Indians alone, but whatever nations the vastest tracts of the Chinas, or the empires of the East, contain were daily matter of lamentation for Rose. She wished to be torn asunder in her vitals, and to be spread like a net across that broadest way along which so many pitiable souls were rushing to hell. This, doubtless, was the spirit of her seraphic mistress, who had herself also wished (if it could be) that the jaws of Gehenna might be stopped up with her own little body, lest such populous throngs of souls should thereafter migrate thither and frustrate the ransom of their redemption.

[290] she exhorted one of her confessors, It happened that one of Rose's confessors was treating of his mission to announce the Gospel to the neighboring barbarians. Him therefore the Virgin courted, exhorted, and goaded with most ardent words, seriously beseeching him: let him fear nothing, let him hasten the journey, let him succor the perishing; that no service more acceptable to God could be rendered; that this was the office of an apostolic breast and dignity, to which the divine assistance cannot be lacking; and finally that in reward and solace of so great a sweat it would be enough if he should transmit even one single infant among the unbelievers to the heavenly ones through the gate of Baptism. On the contrary he, seeking a test of him who spoke in the Virgin, Christ, like one hesitating, made light of his own powers as little fit for so great a ministry; he exaggerated the difficulty of the work, hunger, thirst, the dangers of wild beasts, heat, weariness, exiles, and finally also the poisons with which that most savage and least hospitable people was wont to rage against foreign heralds of the faith. Nevertheless he added that he had placed very much protection and hope in Rose's prayers, fastings, and the faithful suffrage of the rest of her good works.

[291] Here the Virgin, although she thought most humbly of her own pious works, that he should fearlessly establish a mission among the Indians, nevertheless, in order to fix whatever spurs she could in one about to go, conceiving a vast confidence, promised that she would succor him in the holy expedition with the whole merit of her exercises, provided that he in turn should be willing that she be a sharer, in due proportion, of the whole spiritual gain which he was to carry off from the conversion of the unbelievers. The confessor consented, as being aware enough how great the Virgin was before the Lord, the weigher of spirits, with whom he was making a compact of mutual interest. So at length it was agreed by pact on both sides that Rose should yield to this confessor half of all the fruits which she had hoped meanwhile to heap up from the whole exercise of her good works; and in turn that he should make over to the Virgin half of the gain from the conversion of the souls which he was to draw by his preaching into the way of salvation.

[292] With the same fervor of spirit the pious Virgin strove to bring religious men (as many as she knew to be fit) to the conversion of the heathen: and roused other fit men to the same work, especially she asked, admonished, and adjured the Brothers of her own Order that they should destine hither, hither the advances of their studies with a timely intention; that they should set this generous, distinguished, and sublime end and aim before their studies, so that in the remaining regions of America they might rout whatever of idolatry anywhere remained; that they might carry into the Lord's granary copious sheaves of Indians; that they might snatch a thousand thousands of souls from the gulf of eternal damnation; that one must not cling too much to the fine points of subtleties; that one must not languish over useless controversies about little words; that so many labors of the schools, so many sleepless nights, so many clamorous hoarsenesses of disputations are ill bestowed, if the erudition gained with such sweats is not spent upon the salvation of one's neighbors and the propagation of the faith; if at the goal of idle leisure, at the vanity and applause of empty pomp, or in the temporary honor of a laurel-crowned brow it rests over-proudly, gapes, and sits idle.

[293] She asserted with grave feeling and impetus that, had nature not fashioned her a woman, being about to do it herself, had her sex not prevented. this would have been her first prayer: that, having run through the whole cycle of literary studies, she might devote herself wholly to the evangelical mission, desiring to go to the fiercest, brutish, man-eating ^c nations, provided that she might impart to her Indians, still entangled in heathenism, help and remedy by her catechizing, her sweat, her blood. Nor did an affection of so great compassion allow the Virgin to rest: whence she devised a plan by which (had she not been forestalled by death) she hoped in the business of the apostolic mission to supply through another what she could not perform by herself. Namely, she had conceived in mind to adopt for herself from elsewhere a needy orphan, destitute on every side, whom from his earliest infancy she herself with a mother's zeal would educate to virtue and letters out of the pious alms of matrons familiar to her: in this boy she had firmly purposed from his tender years gradually to implant eager desires of the evangelical mission,

which should grow up by degrees with the little one, and meanwhile to provide that he should be most exactly formed in piety and in the sacred disciplines, until, having become grown and duly initiated into the priesthood, he might now be reckoned a fit workman for laboring in the conversion of the heathen. Then indeed the Virgin had determined to exact from her nursling this one reward of her long nourishment and maternal solicitude: let him go, let him hasten to the peoples ignorant of the Christian law, let him raise the trophy of salvation in the midst of the barbarous nations, and strenuously disentangle from the devil's ropes as many souls as he could. By this supplement Rose believed that some satisfaction would be given to her generous ardor, with which, eager beyond a woman's measure and manner, she thirsted for the salvation of her neighbors.

[294] She also admonished bad Christians, Nor was her zeal and care more lukewarm toward imperiled Christians, if she knew any either to have fallen unhappily from the state of divine friendship through mortal fault, or to be ensnared by some capital vice unto certain destruction. For these truly wretched ones she daily inflicted bloody scourgings upon herself, groaned, and sighed before the offended Godhead, and spared no expenditure of tears, that for such she might obtain from God a sincere repentance of their crimes and a serious amendment of life. She said that, if in any way it had been permitted her to perform the office of a preacher, assuredly, covered with a dreadful hairshirt, barefoot and squalid, day and night through all the streets and crossroads of the people of Lima she would carry about the image of the crucified Redeemer, and everywhere through the marketplaces, through the crossways, through the alleys would again and again cry out with a mournful shout: "Repent, O repent, sinners; withdraw from those most evil ways along which like cattle you are led to the shambles of the Stygian butcher; flee, turn aside from the slippery precipices of a most unhappy eternity, you who are distant from Gehenna by a single and most uncertain moment of fleeting life; recognize the danger in which you have entangled yourselves, have pity on your own souls, you lost sheep whom the good Shepherd seeks through thorns and briars, through bloody sweats, through wounds and the cross, that he may save you; O hasten to return to this propitious Redeemer, whom if you now spurn, no redemption will remain in hell."

[295] or took care that they be admonished, that they might repent, These things the merciful Virgin generally offered with so bright a conflagration of breast and with so great an affection of an inflamed heart that not seldom she pricked those who heard; and now Rose seemed not privately among familiars, but Jonah among the Ninevites, in fact to be beginning a sermon of penance. There chanced to be present Father Brother Antonio Rodriguez, by title, degree, and office a general preacher: turning to him, the Virgin with equal fervor and confidence (which modesty and charity governed) addressed him thus: "Note, O Father, that the divine clemency willed you to be a preacher, that you might bring back to fruitfulness lost and stubborn sinners. Take care therefore that you do not uselessly consume the rich talent of your eloquence in the applause-winning little flowers of subtle conceits; away with these curling-irons of empty niceties; let the buskins and trappings of theatrical ostentation be gone; remember that you have been appointed by the Lord a fisher of men, that your net must be let down more strongly for the catching of sinners; do this, I beseech you; strive and endeavor for this one thing, that you may take as many wicked souls as possible out of the whirlpools, that you may call forth from the lowest Charybdis of vices those who are perishing, and lead them out to the safe shore of saving penance."

[296] It happened, while Rose was still dwelling with her mother, that a young man more noble in birth than in manners, Vincent Montesius Venegas, obtained a dwelling in the same street not far from Rose's house. He, wondering at the Virgin's exceptional beauty, but at the same time certain and a young man who had come to her with a lustful mind, that marriage could not be hoped for, sought an occasion by which at least he might more freely feed his eyes on Rose's most sweet comeliness. He therefore went to her mother, pretending that he had need of some collars of fine linen with precious work; that he wished these to be made by Rose, who, it was established, earned a living for her parents by that craft. Rose sat intent with the girls upon the labor of her hands, to whom her mother signed that she should hear Vincent, and that they should agree about the price after the custom and fairly in her presence. The young man, being bidden to sit before the Virgin, began courteously after the urbane fashion to inquire how she fared, and that he had come to commission the work of making some collars: he asked how many ells of the better cloth would be necessary for each, at what expense, in what place the material might more fitly be bought, and within what time the work could be finished.

[297] But the Virgin, divinely taught the secret which Vincent kept pressed in his heart, being divinely taught, she rebuked, began vehemently to pity the stinking soul in which the impure desires of a slippery youth stagnated; and, raising her eyes with a groan to heaven, she said: "O good Jesus! how exceedingly long is your patience! But you, noble Vincent, pardon me, and give place to the truth which I am about to tell you. Your heart turns over thoughts far other than about collars; do you wish me to tell you frankly why you have come? But I spare your blush; you act as a young man, and I grieve for your case. Grieve you also, and repent. Whatever does not lead to God is a lie; whatever panders to wanton flesh destroys the soul. Recognize, Vincent, your danger; correct a mind distracted by too great a hunting after empty delight; strive to walk more cautiously in the paths of God's commandments, lest you perish: behold, whatever you may strive to conceal, your intention has not lain hidden from my Spouse."

[298] Struck by this unforeseen sermon of the Virgin, Vincent and brought him to penance. cast down his eyes, and, looking into himself, was for a while silent. At length, now changed from what he had been a little before, he addressed the Virgin thus: "I perceive that Christ speaks in you, who alone could so uncover me to you that you should penetrate the inmost parts of my depraved heart; I yield therefore to your pious and fiery exhortation; I shall follow God inviting me to better things; do you render him propitious to me, that what he has today begun in me he may perfect." The Virgin pledged the faithful supports of her prayers, and courteously dismissed the man, who thereafter, bidding farewell to youthful desires, established a grave and sober manner of living, so much so that at least once every eight days he grew accustomed to expiate his soul by the sacrament of Penance and to refresh it with the divine Banquet, glad that he had lighted upon Rose, who both had learned from heaven the state of his unhappy soul and had known how to fix opportunely the healthful stings of serious compunction in one who expected it least.

[299] It was a prodigy if any person subject to any vice whatever approached Rose and did not depart from her a better one. Moreover she corrects an irascible woman, Maria de Mesta, wife of the painter Medorus Angelinus, had by the combative disease of impatience and headlong anger become almost intolerable even to herself: by any least thing she was disturbed and disturbed others — with ready hand, threatening with shouts, and by the sonorous intemperance of her quarreling an implacable tempest of the whole house. When the storm of her mind subsided, she sometimes grieved and herself condemned the unbridled impotence of her fierceness; but a bilious complexion and habit had hardened the vice into a callus. Whether at others' persuasion or by chance is uncertain, once she visited Rose as she dwelt in her garden cell. Straightway the Virgin, seizing the occasion, began a grave and sinewy discourse about tranquility of mind, prescribed brief and healthful aphorisms ^d for acquiring gentleness, urged upon her apt counsels of equanimity and patience, and thus instructed dismissed her. Wonderful thing! From that day the woman, calmer and milder, seemed to have put on a tractable disposition of peace; she bore with a most quiet heart domestic briars and annoyances, and if her bile was kindled by any sudden blast, she lulled it with wonderful ease by the mere recollection of the most gentle Virgin, and in a short time came so far in the pursuit of patience that she now of her own accord asked from God more and more adversities. Truly zeal for souls alone had made eloquent Rose, so great a lover of modest silence; nor was eloquence ever lacking to her by which she might efficaciously persuade to the following of virtue and the flight from vices.

[300] A certain Religious's base passion A certain man, a Religious by profession, had been brought by that gluttony for smoking tobacco ^e — as sordid as it is foolish and monstrous — to the most immediate ruin of body and soul, so that the remedy of both was almost thought to be despaired of. The man's mouth within was altogether sooty and presented the appearance of a chimney; his stinking nostrils were foul with an ashy discharge; his brain, vexed by that black cloud, dripped down upon his chest; and, his lungs being obstructed, a hoarse asthma beset his vocal windpipe; nor yet did the wretch cease from the harmful sucking of his kindled pipe. The physician protested; friends dissuaded and entreated; finally the regular prelates added to most severe prohibitions fines, precepts, and thunderbolts of curses and censures; but in vain, because the stubborn vice, by a possession and lodging of thirty-three years, had grown too strong; nor did any other remedy seem left to the perishing man than that Rose, after so many exhortations, counsels, and invectives of others, after so many rebukes, threats, and shouts of Superiors, should put forth her wonderful persuasive power of a more ardent eloquence, and should speak to the man's heart, and should at least commend the salvation of his soul to the almighty right hand of the Godhead.

[301] and inveterate habit, The Virgin readily assented, pitying the man in his peril; especially because she knew that he had thus grown brutish in the absurdity of an intemperance most senseless of all, not now by voluntary obstinacy or contempt of obedience, but solely by weakness in resisting a violent and long-standing vice. And behold, scarcely five days had passed from the Virgin's address when an utter nausea for tobacco invaded the man, and presently a horror and vehement abomination, so that thereafter he not only abstained most easily from the sucking of the clay tube, ^f but could no longer even endure the smell of that ill-omened little furnace, which he alone could reckon among the delights and dainties of human foolishness who is thus depicted in Job 41: "Out of his nostrils goes forth smoke, as of a pot heated"; and finally he has found here in Europe too those who gorge themselves on smoke.

[302] and the diseases arisen from it she removes by her prayer, Rose healed this madness in one man, and would have healed very many, had she been duly implored. Nor did the Virgin's benefit stop here: together with the vice she drove off the inveterate asthma of his chest, the hemorrhage, ^g and the gripings of wind, with which the poor man had wrestled for about fourteen years. Nay, the energy of the most healthful correction passed even to his soul: for that mind, wonderfully recalled to sobriety, began to treat more attentively the business of eternal salvation, to cleanse his conscience, to reform his slothful manners, to shake off his lethargy, all rejoicing who had ever before wept over him as rotting in the wasting of that vice. Doubtless he had thus heard Rose who knows how to make the whole man sound on the Sabbath.

[303] I shall add one thing and finish. Father Brother Peter de Loaysa, a Dominican, and another near to death, well aware of the zeal and charity with which merciful Rose burned for the help of her imperiled neighbors, had indicated to the Virgin that there lay in the convent, and fearfully struggled with the anguishes of death, N., a Religious of the same institute, abandoned the day before by the physicians; he added that the sick man was tormented by burning scruples, afflicted not by the certainty of approaching death but by uncertainty of a better life, because he recognized himself void of merits; that he trembled in fear and sweated at the continual remembrance of the severe Judge whom he was about to approach; and finally that it was to be feared lest excessive dread should entangle the desolate man in a graver peril.

[304] These things deeply wounded the Virgin's heart, so pliant and compliant to a ready affection of compassion: who was overly anxious on account of the impending judgment of God, whence she enjoined Peter, who was to act, that the sick man

should be visited, and bidden in her name to hope more confidently in the immense mercy of the best and most benign Godhead: that she indeed would pray for his happy passing, but at the same time offered from now, out of whatever reckoning of her own pious exercises, whatever the dying man needed to supply the emptiness of his merits — nay, let him claim the whole for himself; and that, if any good work had ever hitherto proceeded from Rose through her whole life, she wished it wholly transferred by her to the sick man by the freest gift; let him exhibit this to the Judge as his own, and let him meanwhile cease to think abjectly and meanly of the magnificent liberality of the Most High. To these things, for a fullness of solace, she added that she wished (if only God should permit) to be met after his death by the departed man's soul, so that if perchance it should need further suffrages, it might at once be helped.

[305] Peter faithfully reported everything to the sick man, she bids him be made secure of eternal salvation. and straightway that immoderate dread gave place to the joy of a more cheerful hope; the sick man accepted Rose's munificent bounty, not ignorant how much wealth lay hidden in the gift of so many merits; and thus, being at last fortified with the saving Sacraments, and having conceived a vast confidence of salvation, he rendered a tranquil, placid, serene spirit to his Creator, having first made a pact with Peter that he would visit both him and Rose after death, if the Lord should grant him that faculty. But after the brother's decease no light care gnawed at Peter, why it was that, according to the agreement, the dead man's soul did not appear. But Rose, being secure, removed Peter's solicitude, and said that it went happily and well with the dead man's soul; that it, being now enrolled in the region of light, enjoyed perennial refreshment, so that it by no means needed to return to either of them to beg the alms of suffrages. Doubtless the lavish liberality of merciful Rose had enriched it with so great a viaticum as it departed hence — to whom nothing could be so precious or dear that she would not spend it upon the salvation of souls.

ANNOTATIONS.

CHAPTER XXIII.

Corporal works of mercy bestowed upon her neighbors.

The Saint hungers, that she may feed the needy, Whoever reads will wonder that the funeral of the most poor Rose was celebrated by the public wailings, dirges, and tears of the beggars of Lima, the throng of the needy crying out that the true nurse and mother of the poor had been snatched from them by a most bitter and premature fate. For what could a needy daughter of slender parents share with other needy people, when she scarcely sufficed for herself and for feeding her parents? And yet, withdrawing necessaries from herself, she dispersed, she gave to the poor, and, mindful of the heavenly Stonecutter (who, as related above in chapter XI, had among the dowry-compacts transferred the solicitude of feeding her parents from Rose to himself), she with her mother's consent opened her hand to the needy and stretched out her palms to the poor, sharing with these the alms which she had unexpectedly received. Once a certain person's hidden or pressing need was reported to the virgin, but since there was nothing else at hand with which to help, she withdrew from herself eight days' nourishment (content meanwhile with bread and water alone) for the needy person's support.

[307] On another occasion Gaspar Flores, the Virgin's father, brought home a good-sized roll of whiter cloth (whether given or bought I do not know), and she distributed among the poor the cloth given to her, that from it his wife Maria de Oliva might more copiously provide for herself and for the flock of so many children all that pertains to cleanliness. She, knowing that her daughter Rose, on account of the frequency of her sicknesses and her zeal for cleanliness, needed several things of that same linen, assigned to her separately a notable part of that cloth (thirty-six ells there were), that she might herself at her own discretion for her own uses make and sew napkins, headcloths, bands, aprons, veils, mantles, coverings, fillets, pillowcases, cloths, and all the necessary furnishing of white cleanliness. Rose, whether wondering at a gift so copious and abundant, or in order to thank her parent more humbly, said: "Do you give me all this portion of linen, mother?" She answered: "To you, daughter; use it as you please, make from it what you will." The Virgin seized upon these last words, and at once, keeping for herself not a palm's breadth of that cloth, she secretly gave the whole to two maidens as noble in birth as in virtue, but most poor, and whom she knew to suffer secretly at home a vast want of all things.

[308] Her mother, when she saw that her daughter was thinking of anything rather than of making linens for herself, and to her mother taking it ill suspecting what was the case, asked the reason why she delayed to fit to her own uses the cloth handed over to her, white, fine, and good. Her daughter answered: "It is already fitted, so that it could not be better fitted; nay, now for the first time it has shone comely and white, since it was turned into an alms." Her mother replied: "But I had ordered it to be spent on your own uses, being solicitous lest anything should be lacking when you are ill." The Virgin smiled and said: "Did you not expressly give me power to use it as I wished? I have used it; and do not think that anything will thereafter be lacking to me when I lie sick: the Lord will provide abundantly." So it plainly happened: for a little afterward, having been transferred from her mother's house to lodge with the lady Maria Usategui, she so far from lacking linen furnishing by the matron's kindness that she even abounded. Of this admirable confidence of the Virgin in divine providence, separately in the following chapter.

[309] Rose's mother possessed among her woman's gear two mantles, (she had also given this woman's mantle to a poor maiden) or long cloaks let down from the head to the ground, a womanly and seemly covering whenever one goes out in public. One of these, having caught sight of it laid by chance at home upon a seat by her mother, Rose freely took and made a gift of it to a certain needy maiden. Her mother, when she had sought her mantle through the whole house in vain, indulged suspicions almost to the point of rash judgment, that one of the neighbors had secretly crept into the house and stolen the mantle hanging carelessly from the seat. Her daughter, lest the imputation of theft should burden any innocent persons, addressing her mother pleasantly, said: "Why do you in doubt accuse your loss and an unknown author? Behold me the household thief of your mantle, but a harmless one, because the lost mantle will profit you more than if you possessed it untouched. Meanwhile I have given it to the most poor Montoya, who, because she lacks a garment of this kind, cannot decently go to church and be present at Masses and sermons. To you, O Mother, there remains the other mantle, still almost untouched and new; and before it grows even a little old, the divine goodness will enrich you not with one but with several mantles."

[310] she promises repayment with interest. It fell out as the Virgin had foretold; for after the lapse of a short time a man never before seen in that house, and known to none of the household there from elsewhere, entered, asked for Rose's mother, held out to her forty silver pounds for buying a new mantle, and went away. Likewise about the same days Lady Maria de Sala of her own accord sent by a servant a suitable material of silk weft, as much as was enough for making a new mantle. Finally a devout person had offered as many ells of the same material, which would suffice for a woman's cloak, to the Convent of the Friars Preachers at Lima; this the Convent gave to Rose's mother: thus within a very few days Maria de Oliva, for her single mantle which Rose had given to needy Montoya, received three new and better ones, and learned to trust more courageously both her Daughter's prophecy and the bounty of a provident Godhead.

[311] A needy and sick maiden of noble stock Outside the walls, in the farthest suburbs of the city of Lima, dwelt Joanna de Bobadilla y Azevedo, a maiden of illustrious parentage, but an orphan, and richer in virtue than in means: for, her parents being lost, her affairs were straitened, and the hidden narrowness of a frugal economy pressed the poor girl hard enough. There had been added, to the heap of her affliction, a devouring and purulent cancer ^a beneath her breast, which by livid and wasting increases was tending toward a carcinoma; ^b and, the remedy being delayed, it threatened destruction. Joanna, as destitute of counsel as she was unequal to the danger and calamity, could find no means by which to meet the crisis short of a worse crisis: for that she should daily summon a physician from the city to the place beyond the river where she dwelt, the length of the way prevented; for the extent of Lima had not then (as today) grown as far as those farther spaces across the river; or, if she should for the time move into the city for a slow cure, the means were lacking to a stranger and a poor woman by which she might hire a lodging for six months. There was one who offered his house free; but the honorable and timid maiden was unwilling to entrust herself, a stranger, to strangers. At last all these things became known to Rose as she prayed in the church of S. Dominic, and, understanding at once that this desolate and perplexed woman was reserved for her, she promptly found a way by which to come to her aid.

[312] she orders to be cared for in her mother's house, She approached Joanna secretly and bade her lay aside fear and anxiety, saying that in her mother's house a suitable chamber, most convenient for the purpose, was free to be let at a price; let her go thither and make a compact with her mother about the monthly cost of the lodging, and thereafter leave to her the whole care of procuring the payment. Joanna consented, and with modest cheerfulness accepted the unhoped-for benefit. Yet Rose was more cheerful that she had found such a person to whom she might so secretly and piously impart the bowels of her mercy; and thus, trusting in divine providence, she found what she might each month secretly bring to Joanna for the exact payment of the lodging, having only made a pledge of silence. After four or five months Joanna fully recovered and, being well, returned to her dwelling outside, grieving at this one thing only, that she was by no means allowed openly to render thanks to her hostess. But after Rose's death, being loosed from the bond of the silence promised, she most freely proclaimed the benefit to all.

[313] and to any sick people whatever, To Rose, as long as she lived with her mother, nothing more pleasant could happen than if she were permitted to bring into her father's house poor persons of whatever lot or condition afflicted with diseases, that there she might constantly minister with her own hands to the languishing: nor did she strive to refresh them abundantly with the solace of roof, bed, and bedding only, but also of medicines and food, of which they were destitute. If anywhere in the neighborhood or in a house she knew she had learned that any cheap slave whatever lay ill and was rather negligently kept, she at once demanded the care of that person for herself, and with many entreaties besought her mother to consent that the languishing person be carried into their house for more solicitous care. Her austere parent sometimes refused, because she judged that her Daughter, seldom well and continually an invalid, ought, before she thrust herself into the care of others, to begin the order of charity with herself, and to look after her own health rather than another's. Yet from time to time, lest she should unmercifully sadden the merciful girl, she allowed her, according to their domestic slenderness, to do what she could, not as much as she wished.

[314] Presently she would invite the first beggar she met to her own home; even if they labored under a filthy disease, for him she wiped, anointed, and bound up purulent ulcers; his clothes she cleaned, his torn rags ^c she mended, the filth grown into the folds she cleared away, she washed his feet and his scurfy head, and was wanting to no service by which she might bring relief to his hunger, thirst, and distress. Nor (which is almost contrary to the custom of that region) was there for the Virgin any distinction of origin or nation, but she succored equally and indifferently with ready charity the needy Spaniards and Indians, Ethiopians, whites, and mixed (whom they call Mulattas ^d). With like compassion she attended to native and foreign, servile and freeborn, known and unknown, rustic and indigenous, regard being had only to the more evident need. But among these beggarly and wretched women there was none so ragged or sordid, none so deformed or ulcerous, none so horrible in appearance or intolerable in stench, that Rose could either disdain her or turn from her in nausea. There was no sickness so putrid and foul, no ulcer so loathsome or full of corrupt matter, no scab so crusted or running, to which Rose would refuse to offer remedy, service, and care, to which she would refuse to apply her virginal hands, to remove the filth, to lay on, cleanse, and change the plasters. ^e With this ambition the pious Virgin visited the hospitals of the women, whenever there was occasion of respectable company; she sought through the passages the sick women who were beyond the rest dreadful and more scurfy; for these with wonderful alacrity she made the little bed, washed the vessels, prepared the food; nor could any service so cheap, gloomy, or abject be furnished to the sick that she did not of her own accord seize upon it.

[315] It happened one day that the Virgin, coming from the care of a sick woman, turned aside for a while to her mother's house: she served most dutifully, her curious mother perceived in her daughter's dress an unwonted stench of moldy rottenness: thence, casting a more attentive eye upon her gown, she noted that here and there in spots something of purulent filth had by chance stuck to the cloth from another's corrupt matter, which the Virgin had unknowingly contracted in cleaning an ulcerous woman. The parent, indignant, grew angry at her daughter: "To what end," she said, "this carelessness of yourself? Not indeed for this does that religious garment shine white upon you, that you should disfigure it with others' filth; nor did we call you Rose that you should smell so: when I bade you use musk-scented and sweet-smelling gloves, you resisted as a little girl; but now, grown up, if you will not be fragrant with musk, at least do not stink with another's mucus." The Virgin smiled and gently rejoined: "We are the good odor of Christ while we minister to the sick; charity is not delicate, nor does it disdain a neighbor, remembering that we are all of the same clay and mire; by an inherited mortality we all rot, nor is there anyone who does not carry about the bilge of his own corruption: and so, mother, count it little that I have in passing and unawares stained my tunic: far more foully did the rheums, spittle, and saliva of base executioners disfigure the very face of the Redeemer, for our crimes."

[316] and once over her own nausea Another thing in this kind, scarcely imitable, Rose performed, which must not be kept silent. There lay sick in the house of the widow Lady Isabella de Mexia one of the household maidservants, swollen with a rotting humor and the heat of fevers; the service and care of her Rose had taken upon herself, as in a familiar house with her mother's permission. It happened that by the physician's counsel a phlebotomy was applied to the sick woman, and the blood drawn from the vein set aside in a corner until the physician should return to inspect it. He delayed beyond two days, and meanwhile the blood, already marked with corruption from its very source, rotted more dreadfully, greasy and discolored everywhere with a watery greenness, with yellow and black spots and branching corrupt matter. At length the physician came, and, having cursorily examined the blood and noted in it the criteria of a dangerous disease, ordered the stinking mass to be thrown away according to custom. Rose, from her affection of compassion, having looked rather closely at the basin in which the clotted blood was being carried away, felt her stomach overturned from the very bottom, the saliva altered in her throat, and herself inclining with all her bowels toward vomiting. She dissembled as she could, and asked the servant who was hurrying away with the basin that it be handed to her to carry, saying that she would not only empty what was in it but would moreover cleanly wash the vessel itself.

[317] she wins an exceptional victory. The man readily consented to be relieved of such a stench. But the Virgin, indignant with herself for having shuddered, withdrew secretly with the basin into a corner outside, and there, harshly upbraiding herself, said: "Is it thus that you have strenuously and seriously studied love of your neighbor, that the infirmity of wretched people is a nausea to you? Is this what your seraphic mistress taught you? Have you not yet so learned that you are viler and more rotten than all this rottenness? Come, delicate one; come, tender little thing; find out better, learn more fully, whether it becomes you thus to loathe a wretched woman, your equal, in whom no less than in yourself the image of your Creator shines." Having uttered these things against herself with a growl (stop your nostrils, reader), she set the basin to her mouth and with heroic daring gradually drank up that whole corrupted gore (shall I say, or bloody corruption); then with a cloth she wiped her mouth, lest anything remaining on her lips could be noted, and brought back the basin washed, scoured, and bright. The generous deed lay hidden from her mother; but it became known to Isabella (God wonderfully disposing), who also carefully preserved in memory of the deed the cloth with which the Virgin had wiped her lips, found at last by chance. Hereafter no one, I think, will doubt that Rose was a true disciple of B. Catherine of Siena.

[318] Visiting her host's sick friend, Hence indeed what follows becomes more credible. Closely bound and most intimately familiar to the treasurer Gonzalo, both by community of office and by an equal zeal of virtue and friendship, was John de Tineo Almianza, keeper of the records ^f of the royal (as they call it) chamber, and supreme overseer ^h of the tribunal of Quito, ^g a man notable for piety and religion. He, as he was frequent and almost domestic in the treasurer's house, had very often seen Rose there on occasion of business, and had rather often heard wonderful things about her holiness and the singularity of her life, and thought so loftily of the Virgin as was fitting, especially because he knew that Gonzalo had several times been freed from most grievous infirmities by Rose's prayers and merits. It happened that John fell dangerously ill from torments of the stomach, so that, having summoned his confessor, as one uncertain of life, he judged that his soul must be expiated by confession. Meanwhile, mindful of the bowels of charity in which he knew the Virgin abounded toward the sick, he pressed with the greatest entreaties through the treasurer's wife that she would bring Rose to pray for him in so great a danger. She at length prevailed, with the confessor's nod added, so that the Virgin promised to be a companion to the treasurer's wife as she went to visit the sick man. It stood in the way that for Rose, by virginal modesty, it was hard and unwonted to come into the sight of a man, however most familiar and however sick; but there prevailed both a pious compassion, which knew not how to deny just solaces to the sick, and a humble obedience, which Rose recognized to be owed to Maria de Usategui as to a second mother.

[319] And so, safe with these protections, she casts herself upon the way with the most respectable matron and her attendants; she at once frees him from his disease; yet first she wished to be present at the sacrifice of the Mass in the church of St. Dominic, and meanwhile she sent ahead one who should announce to the sick man that she, as he had asked, would presently be with him from the church along with the matron. The sick man felt at that very point of time at which he received the message that his pains were mitigated. At length Rose entered the chamber of the man lying there and greeted the sick man, but with such a sweet abundance of compassion and mercy that it was not doubtful even to the healthy standing by that God, the God of all consolation, was speaking in that most modest Virgin. But John, having observed Rose's face, noted in it an angelic majesty, a token of peace, and a living hope of soundness. Nor was there delay: at once all pain vanished, and sleep, which had wholly fled, placidly seized the sick man; presently, falling into a deep sleep (the Virgin meanwhile having returned home with her companions), he awoke entirely well. This was a short-cut by which Rose, helped by a swift miracle, might neither be wanting to a work of mercy nor linger too long in another's house contrary to the custom of Virgins. Nor was her care less to depart most quickly, that she might escape the applause which she deservedly feared.

[320] More miracles of cures of this kind I defer for a while to another place and time; nay, her charity extended even to brute animals, here, where Rose's mercy alone is treated, let it be permitted to add one, but a charming one: for the gentle sweetness and tender compassion of Rose extended even to brute animals: since indeed, on Solomon's testimony, Proverbs 12, "The just man knows the souls of his beasts, but the bowels of the wicked are cruel." Maria de Oliva had in her household henhouse a cockerel of wonderful beauty; upon his back and wings there played a many-colored and pleasant variety of streaked feathers; a certain purple had comelily girt his neck; the hindermost parts of his body, from the arched loveliness of the plumes, seemed to end in a rainbow; and finally this one beautiful little creature was the delight of the whole house, and all rejoiced that he was fed by the mistress of the house and kept in hope of offspring when he should have grown: for it was hoped that the chicks which he should beget would be most like him. The cockerel grew, but such sloth was in the pot-bellied creature that he continually lay upon the ground, and was scarcely ever seen to raise himself of his own accord upon his feet, nor was ever heard to crow. Her mother, wearied, because she believed that offspring was expected in vain from a lazy bird, determined at table before her husband and children that on that evening

the cockerel, useless in other respects, should be killed, and on the next day set out to be eaten.

[321] as is shown by a charming example. Here the young girl Rose, standing by, pitied the beast, and with innocent simplicity turned childishly to the bird: "Sing," she said, "my cockerel, sing, lest you die." Scarcely had the Girl uttered the word when, before the eyes of all, the cockerel suddenly raised himself upon his feet, and, having shaken his wings strongly, crowed tunefully and cheerfully. Presently, walking about the whole room with high and strutting steps, at Rose's nod he sang briskly several times with his whole little breast distended. All who were present laughed, the sentence of death being suddenly revoked; the cockerel applauded with those who applauded, by repeating his song; he strode about as though girded high, and, shrill with outstretched neck, again and again renewed the laughter of the household who cheered him. Thereafter he often during the day filled the neighborhood with resounding songs; the family counted the times, and sometimes found that he had sung fifteen times within the brief space of a quarter of an hour. Nor did he disappoint the mistress of the house's hope, for to her a little afterward there came from this most beautiful cock most beautiful chicks. So much did a single word of the pitying Rose avail even for the safety of a brute animal. Indeed here too it might be asked: Who gave the cock the understanding by which he should obey the holy Girl bidding him give his throat to song, lest he give it to the knife? But to weightier matters.

ANNOTATIONS.

CHAPTER XXIV.

This Virgin's great confidence in God, whose fruit she often experienced in her own necessities and those of her people.

The Saint, firmly trusting in God, From her earliest childhood Christ had prevented his Rose with blessings of sweetness, teaching her to trust in the help of the Most High; whence through her whole life thereafter she was most secure that she continually abode in the protection of the God of heaven. Hence she was so greatly moved by the beginning of Psalm 69: "O God, come to my assistance; O Lord, make haste to help me." This verse she continually bore in her mouth; this amid the labors of her hands she sweetly chanted with a lowered little voice; this, sitting, standing, walking, she most devoutly repeated, nor was she satiated with its frequent repetition, especially when she afterward learned from elsewhere that this same verse had been perpetually in use and a delight to blessed Catherine of Siena. She sometimes asked that the Latin emphasis of these words be more learnedly and profoundly unfolded for her; but she never lighted upon such an interpreter as either knew by experience the inmost sweetness of this honeycomb better than she, or could explain it by fitting indications. Being asked why out of so many thousands she had loved this one little verse above the rest, she answered: that the whole solace of her seraphic mother was contained in it; that each of its syllables swelled with a certain hidden juice of familiar confidence in God; and that nothing else could occur to her palate more savory than these words so exactly fitting. There were three chief things about the obtaining of which the certitude of confidence granted from heaven did not allow the Virgin to doubt. The first, her eternal blessedness; the second, a perpetual and never-to-be-interrupted friendship of God; the last, an infallible succor from on high in any necessities whatever and in sudden dangers. We must pass through each.

[323] The Spouse's kindness sought an occasion by which he might render his dear Virgin secure of eternal felicity by a singular privilege; by a heavenly revelation, wherefore once he permitted her to be somewhat shaken with a fearful dread about the secret of her predestination, which is to be feared by every soul. Innocent Rose was distressed, considering that she could perish; she grew dim with trembling, thinking again upon the great abyss of God's judgments; but the Lord, swift to help, did not delay to refresh opportunely that contrite and humbled heart, addressing her with a gentle utterance thus: "Daughter, I condemn no one save him who wills to be condemned; therefore from now on be of tranquil mind." It cannot be said how sublime, unconquered, and solid a confidence these few words impressed upon the Virgin's heart: for she understood that more was signified to her by the very manner of the utterance than by the words; nor did the Spouse thereafter permit her, fixed upon the anchor of eternal salvation, to be disturbed by any wave of uncertainty.

[324] The doctor John Castillo once, among other things, inquired of the Virgin whether she had received from heaven a revelation of certain knowledge of her predestination. The untrained young girl stuck fast at the scholastic word PREDESTINATION, as she indicated to the doctor Castillo, whose proper force and etymology she did not sufficiently grasp; nor had she heard anything else of it than that an impenetrable mystery was signified, and one not rashly to be searched into by any mortal. And so, simple and timid, she at length denied that anything had become known to her of the most subtle notion of predestination. But when the prudent examiner by suitable periphrases ^a explained more clearly what he was asking, Rose neither ought nor could deny any longer that she had by a heavenly illumination learned quite early that she was chosen from eternity for heavenly glory, and that by a wonderful benefit of God she held this with such certainty that she could not desire a clearer revelation of it.

[325] and showed in the article of death, These things appeared more manifestly in Rose's last lying-down as she was dying: since indeed she was so certain of her most happy passing to blessed rest that she even foreknew that she would be immune from all delay of purgatory. And when someone of those present had said that this was a very great and altogether most rare grace; that it goes prosperously enough with souls departing hence when for the wiping away of the remaining dross of mortal life they are sent to the purging flames; and that for herself she wished this from her heart — at once the Virgin, stronger than herself from the alacrity of a vast confidence, courageously answered: "But I have a Spouse who can give very great and rare things, and not only small or middling things are to be hoped from him through distrust." Hence she looked gladly upon approaching death no otherwise than as the certain doorkeeper of paradise: for as soon as the physicians announced to Rose that nature had succumbed to the disease, and that nothing remained but the decisive day, undaunted and not at all disturbed she answered that she rejoiced exceedingly at so welcome a message, and only wondered why they had feared to indicate it sooner to one who awaited it.

[326] and by another mystical vision More memorable is what rendered Rose secure of eternal salvation while she inhabited her garden cell. The Virgin was praying, and in an excess of mind she saw around her the ground everywhere strewn with roses. As she wondered whence so sudden a spring had blossomed, behold, the little Jesus was conspicuously present, resting upon the arms of his most pure Mother, and, gently addressing Rose, he bade her at once gather the scattered roses into the turned-up fold of her flowing garment. She gathered what she could, and with full lap presented herself to the divine little Boy. He asked from among them all one alone as a gift for himself; and, having gratefully received it, he added: "This Rose are you; of her I take upon myself the provident care: do you dispose of the rest as you shall more wish." The wise Virgin understood whither the words of her delicate little Spouse, so serious and precious, tended; she rejoiced that she was held in the right hand of the Savior like a chosen rose; she remembered of whom he had promised, John 10: "No one shall snatch them out of my hand; I give them eternal life."

[327] she was made more certain of her predestination Further, for the greatness of her joy that she saw herself, an acceptable rose, flourishing safely in the little One's fist, she did not know, nor anxiously ask, what she herself should do with the remaining roses, except that by a brief counsel she made from them a sudden garland and reverently placed it upon the heavenly Infant, who, smiling most sweetly upon the Virgin and giving his blessing, disappeared. She afterward suspected that by the other roses which she had seen scattered upon the ground were signified the most pious virgins scattered throughout Lima, who at some time had to be gathered at last into the new monastery of holy Catherine of Siena, so that there, bound together by the votive bond of religious profession, they might crown the Spouse of virgins with chaste service, and in turn be crowned by him with glory and honor. So it happened; but not until after Rose's death. Concerning which matter, below in its proper place, chapter XXVI.

[328] With a like solace of imperturbable certitude happy Rose enjoyed security of grace and of divine friendship: and of the confirmed state of grace, for, besides that after those fifteen-year eclipses of dreadful darkenings (of which above, chapter XIII) she daily found herself confirmed in her Spouse's favor by a new illumination in her return to divine union, on other occasions also it was promised to Rose by the Lord that he would never permit her to fall away even for a moment from the sweet covenant of his friendship. One of the Virgin's confessors was silently astounded at so inestimable a gift. This was Father Brother Peter de Loaysa of the Order of Preachers, who, desiring to test more evidently how firmly the Virgin stood by herself in her faith in so great a promise, in one of her confessions began to magnify a childish and very small matter as though doubtful and worthy of a more solicitous examination, in order to see what this unforeseen and perhaps not useless terror would work in the Virgin, whom (as he knew) so great a security of divine grace possessed.

[329] The wise Rose wondered at the unwonted ambiguity ^b of her rigid censor, although her confessor tried to terrify her. and permitted him to speak his fill. But at last, certain that she had not violated God's friendship, she perceived whither that hidden contrivance of ambiguous exploration tended: whence, having first begged pardon, she modestly replied: "Rightly

am I admonished to work out my salvation with fear and trembling; and would that I so worked it out as I ought! I am a sinner, I confess indeed, and to confess it I here fall prostrate. But (such is the supreme benignity of my Spouse) I feel within me such infallible bonds of his condescension toward me, hitherto uninterrupted, that anyone would more easily persuade me that I am a stone or a straw than that the sweet Godhead is turned away from me. My Father, not even if someone should fold the vast spheres of the heavens upon this earth would he bend me to that opinion by which I could believe that by God's permission I have committed a mortal fault; I know what he has promised me, unworthy though I am. I trust in the Lord not because I deserve to be so preserved, but because he is faithful in all his words." The confessor, conscious of the truth, acquiesced, briefly excusing himself, that he had stirred up this censorious dispute solely for the sake of testing her spirit.

[330] The same force of confidence in God had from her earliest age most powerfully armed Rose against any difficulties whatever of mortal life, So great was her confidence in God, against dreads and inconveniences. Maria de Oliva, Rose's mother, by a singular quality of temperament, feared darkness and specters, and did not easily either go out by night to the more secret parts of the house, or trust herself toward evening to her own garden without a companion. The same genius of dread had settled upon her daughter Rose from her mother's constitution ^c as though inherited; nor yet on that account did the Girl, given to prayer, avoid solitude and darker places. It happened on a certain evening, sloping toward night and more shadowy, that Rose, still tender in years, lingered rather long in the garden, whither she had withdrawn to meditate. Her mother came to seek her daughter, but with her husband as companion, because (as has been said) she was most timid toward nocturnal terrors.

[331] Rose, when she saw both her parents coming toward her from afar, which she had strengthened from a certain likeness went forth to meet them; but as she went a thought sent from heaven took hold of her, which thereafter disarmed all dread, taught confidence, and infused security. She said within herself: "My mother comes through the garden, and does not tremble after her manner, being now undaunted for this reason alone, that she has her husband present at her side; and shall I, who am continually and everywhere fortified by the presence of my Spouse — I, who bear about so faithful, solicitous, and strong a companion, not at my side but in my heart — shall I hereafter fear the terror by night? She trusts in a mortal man, and has learned at his frail assistance to lay aside for a while her accustomed fears; and shall not confidence in God my savior likewise strengthen me, so that I dread nothing shadowy thereafter?" So deeply did this robust thought settle in the young girl's mind, so utterly did it empty out her inborn proneness to fear, that from that moment Rose wondered at herself, because by night, by day, at home, abroad, she feared the encounter of no danger, monster, or beast, being courageous by the sole protection of her present Spouse.

[332] so that twice in manifest danger of life Nor was there lacking an occasion in which that heroic solidity of a virginal breast might be made manifest amid arduous and sudden crises. She was living at the age of twelve with her parents in a certain village of the Indians, where one day, as she was returning home with her mother and brothers, she saw in the open square a most ferocious bull coming to meet them, which, having escaped from the stall and having partly broken and partly dragged its bonds, was rushing with headlong course toward the place from which Rose was coming with her companions. The mother, lifeless with sudden dread, along with her children, looked about for flight. Rose alone stood fixed with undaunted step, and exhorted her mother not to provoke by flight a danger now too near, promising at the same time that the monstrous beast would pass by harmlessly. Rose had not yet finished her words (her eyes meanwhile fixed on heaven) when the fierce and brawny animal, having swept past like a whirlwind with terrifying bellowing, made an onset far off upon other persons, as though it had not even seen Rose or her unwarlike company. The hearts of the rest throbbed panting even after the danger; but Rose, without even slightly changing color, admonished them that hope must be placed more firmly in the help of the Most High, and most of all then, when the nearness of the danger has shut off every escape.

[333] she was by no means alarmed, On another occasion she was returning at Lima with her mother and most respectable matrons in a carriage from a festal station at a celebrated church. They had to pass through the very ample marketplace of the city, where then the multitude of the clamorous people, having slipped away in fear, had made room for a raging bull, and with confused shouting and the throwing of stones was more savagely provoking the furious beast for the pleasure of the spectacle. With leaping and a winding course to right and left the threatening animal hurried on, its tail stiffly erect, its mouth foaming, with dread-sounding bellow, its nostrils smoking with rage; it flung the sand into the air with its hooves, and wherever it struck upon a log, a cloth, or a little cap purposely thrown before it, it dug it into the ground with the atrocious and repeated force of its driven horns. At length the bull had now filled everything with terrors enough, when, catching sight of the carriage coming from afar, it aimed its course straight at it. All the women who were with Rose grew pale, and leapt out as quickly as they could, placing their hope of safety in flight; the driver himself looked about in alarm on which side he might more safely get down to the ground and betake himself to his feet. Rose alone again, having cast her eyes to heaven and at once drawn them back, removed the fear of the trembling women, and stopped their flight as by no means necessary, affirming that the bull would not run up as far as the carriage, but would go back by the way by which it came. She had spoken: and the outcome answered, all being astonished no more at the bull's swift return without harm than at the Virgin's spirit superior to any fear. But she, in the greatest dangers most greatly secure, sang to her heavenly Spouse: "I shall not fear evils, for you are with me."

[334] She who had so great a confidence in divine protection amid dangers of life could assuredly not be less in hoping for the necessary supports of life. and in household want, bread, On a certain day bread failed for the numerous family in her father's house, and there remained neither time for baking nor money at hand by which it might be procured from elsewhere. It was announced to Rose that the storerooms were empty, and that not even a crust was left over from the last baking. The Virgin wondered that provisions could be so quickly consumed which they had set out the day before, and which assuredly would suffice for two days. But now, being made more certain of the want, and in no way terrified, she seemed by a brief movement of the lips to commend the matter to God. Presently with vast confidence she opened the bread chest, and found it full of loaves, white beyond the custom of that house, unleavened, and savory — their shape, unwonted and strange there, testifying that these had by no means come forth from a household bakery.

[335] At another time in the same house honey (a most necessary seasoning in those regions) was lacking, a great abundance of honey, and its cask, drained to the bottom, was growing dry. and she might obtain necessary money wonderfully, Maria de Oliva, whether ignorant or forgetful of the want, sent two or three times into the cellar those who should bring honey from the vessel known to all. Each reported back that they had found nothing but an empty jar. Rose had compassion on the common need of so many heads, and, being bidden by a most secret prompting to hope the best of God's providence, said to her mother: "If you command, I will go down in the name of the Lord, to see whether I may find any honey remaining." She went down, and found that very cask full of fresh honey up to the topmost brim. The whole house stuck fast, astounded at a spectacle truly honey-flowing, and the more so because by a new prodigy the honey given from heaven sufficed the whole family for daily use for eight whole months. Has anyone ever seen the offices of bees supplied by roses?

[336] A troublesome sickness of body pressed upon Gaspar Flores, the Virgin's father; at the same time his afflicted mind drooped with sorrow on account of a debt of fifty pounds, for the paying of which he had nothing through poverty. His perplexed mother was saddened; on this side by the importunity of the creditor, on that by the necessities of the house, and above all of her sick husband, gradually unequal to it. When the Daughter learned the anguish of both, with the key she was wont to use, of heartfelt confidence in God, she tried the opulent treasury of the eternal provider: and scarcely had she poured forth prayers in the church when, as she returned home thence, there stood by her a man plainly unknown, but of modestly comely countenance and courteous voice; he, greeting the Virgin in passing, at the same time held out silver wrapped in a little cloth, bidding that with it the present need of her parents be relieved; and, delaying no further, he at once departed. From the weight and the very slight bulk of the wrapping it seemed that little metal was in the little napkin: but when Rose unfolded it at home, she found the very fifty silver pounds which her father owed; and, going with the money to the sick man's little bed, she repeated again and again that very great trust must be placed in the divine goodness, which had just now come to their aid by a most opportune means, as much as suffices to remove the annoyance of a hard creditor. It seemed to Gaspar that dreams were being related to him, until his Daughter, having unfolded the little linen cloth, promptly counted out the fifty pounds just as she had received them.

[337] By strange and unexpected supports of this kind the needy house was often refreshed, and the destitute Virgin might hope, lest the holy Daughter's constant and robust confidence in God should be defrauded. This, doubtless, the heavenly Stonecutter had once promised his new Bride among the dowry-gifts ^d and marriage presents ^e (of which above, chapter IX), so much so that the wife of the treasurer Gonzalo, who knew the Virgin's secrets beyond the rest, turned the matter into a familiar saying, being wont to say: "Has the empyrean Stonecutter again at your admonition shaken out his purse?" Nay, toward this most wealthy Spouse Rose's confidence was such that with generous daring the most poor Virgin frequently and openly took upon herself to provide for the whole cost of raising from the foundations a new monastery of holy Catherine of Siena, provided that in her days there should arrive that which alone was then lacking, the diploma of royal permission. But since we have fallen upon mention of this, the things which were divinely both promised and shown to the Virgin about the founding of that monastery must be narrated separately in the following chapter: here I briefly append, and finish, what suffices for the present chapter and remains for its coping-stone.

[338] that a new monastery could be founded by her. At home Rose was conversing with devout maidens with wonderful and serious confidence about the foundation of the aforementioned monastery; but her mother, unequal to her disgust, rebuked her Daughter before all, as one manifestly raving in dreams of impossible things: "Cease," she said, "to play the fool, silly girl; remember that it is not a business of plebeian station or of common patrimony to found convents; but you speak with such presumption as if for the sumptuous outlay of so great a building two hundred thousand pounds of silver were already at hand for you." The modest Daughter humbly replied: "Assuredly if I looked to mortal help, if to the hands of men, I would freely confess that what I am treating of is impossible; but know, mother, that I have placed my confidence higher; I have as guarantor him in whom are all treasures; to distrust his liberality is now no longer permitted me. These eyes of yours will see the outcome; you will rejoice; nay, you will prove by your own experience what I say."

ANNOTATIONS.

CHAPTER XXV.

The prophecy about the future convent of S. Catherine of Siena, which was afterward founded at Lima.

The monastery of Lima is described, To the more illustrious ornaments of the emporium of Lima there was at length added the noble, spacious, and elegant monastery of blessed Catherine of Siena, dedicated to a numerous college of sacred virgins under the regular institute of the holy Father Dominic. In the year of salvation 1622 (that is, five years after Rose's blessed departure to those above), the illustrious and opulent widow Lady Lucia Guerra de la Daga being its foundress, this celebrated convent stood at Lima in a most convenient place and situation, and, a new sisterhood of the white veil having been introduced, the Divine Offices began to be celebrated. The new convent grew with sudden and prodigious increases, so that today it numbers more than two hundred nuns, serving God their spouse under the religious guardianship of an inviolable enclosure. There flourishes in this chaste sanctuary of piety the worship of God by day and night, the devout pomp of feasts, the canonical order of the Offices, the continual psalmody of a virginal choir, an exact brightness of the sacred furniture and of the church, and a copious magnificence of appointments.

[340] Nor does the inward beauty of exact observance in any way differ from the outward comeliness — which began to be built after S. Rose's death, the constancy of prayers, mortifications, and exercises, the zeal for perfection, a uniform purity and holiness of manners, a rigid tenor of discipline, and through every corner living and altogether angelic exemplars of all virtues. Further, to the most celebrated fellowship of so many illustrious heroines the august amplitude of a most noble building worthily and aptly answers: fountains, gardens, vineyards, porticoes, dormitories, colonnaded courts, workrooms; likewise possessions, estates, servants, annual revenues, and a most well-furnished economy of complete abundance — so that this renowned monastery, within the first forty years perpetually watered with so many blessings of heaven, has advanced by its example, fame, and splendor to that degree in which it can be compared with the greater and chief monasteries of all Europe.

[341] Finally, it is that which almost a whole decade before its foundation was so often divinely shown beforehand to Rose, and whose building the Saint herself, now by symbols and figures, now manifestly in its own form and type. It is that which the Virgin so securely and confidently, so often and openly, so gladly and freely promised by prophecy to her sweet native city, and that indeed with such firmness and constancy of assertion as though she had already had it built before her eyes. Only the circumstance of the time and year in which it was to be built, for the loftier purposes of the divine wisdom, long lay hidden from the Virgin; and late she learned that she would not see it with bodily eyes; as for the rest, she pointed out with her finger many who should see it; she designated the persons who should there serve God (and among these her own mother); she defined the number; she foretold the place; she drew upon a tablet the ground-plan and system of the building that was to be there; she expressed by name the first celebrant of the unbloody Sacrifice there. Why say more? The first prefect of the nuns to be (we call her prioress) she recognized by her face, imbued with her own spirit, and in a manner initiated with a kiss of peace. But we must run through each more closely and in order.

[342] foretold by frequent visions The prophet, long experienced, warned that there is need of understanding in visions, Daniel 10. But that this was not lacking to Rose in the business of which we treat, for grasping the genuine sense of the portent in symbolic previsions, will appear from what follows. The Virgin had sat down alone in the household garden, intent upon gathering flowers, and had already filled her lap with roses stripped of their leaves, when, her eyes raised to heaven and a hidden spirit dictating within, she began, not without devout sighs, to throw each of the roses on high, as though commending them to the heavenly gardener. The Virgin's brother by blood came upon her, and, supposing that his sister was delighting herself with an innocent game and that nothing serious lay beneath, he approached familiarly and asked what she was doing. She, concealing the mystery, said: "This which you see me doing"; and she went on, as before, to throw the roses aloft. Her brother, suspecting nothing beyond a simple jest and a delight of the mind, replied: "I too will scatter roses into the air, and perhaps I shall throw higher than you."

[343] and various revelations The Virgin fell silent, but prodigies began to speak: for behold, those which her brother had thrown up were presently rolled back to earth with a very light falling; on the other side, those which Rose had scattered aloft clung in the air, and there came together most aptly into a conspicuous figure of the holy cross, and to that cross a comely border was formed round about by the roses that followed. Here the understanding of the mystery was lacking to the brother, not so to Rose; who afterward, being asked by those privy to the prodigy what she thought was portended by that airy suspension of roses, answered with undaunted candor that by these was signified the distinguished monastery of holy Catherine of Siena to come among her people of Lima; that into it very many roses of outstanding holiness would eagerly migrate, so that, being fitted to the cross-shaped rule of a stricter life, they might from a sublime degree of perfection look down upon the earth, and that to them this world should be crucified, and they to the world.

[344] being taught from heaven On another occasion there was divinely shown to Rose as she prayed a meadow of wonderful pleasantness, everywhere variegated with the whiteness of lilies and the purple of roses (though scattered and without order). The two-colored loveliness and grace of so many flourishing little plants pleased the Virgin, especially when she received an answer within that all and each were being kept as a crown for one Beloved, white and ruddy. But it displeased her that the spacious and noble meadow lay open to any traveler; nay, that a common and public passage of both beasts and men going to and fro in every direction was frequented there: accordingly she seriously feared that little flowers so comely, such exceptional little gems of the earth, would be improvidently trampled by the feet of passers-by. But at the same time an irradiation from above removed her fear, teaching Rose that a time would come when that chosen growth of flowering offspring would be gathered into one enclosed garden of S. Catherine of Siena, and by its own hedge separated from the commerce of the profane world; and further that by the roses and lilies were signified the pure souls, beloved of God, of the maidens of Lima, who indeed were dwelling scattered here and there through the city without order, and in their own time were to be gathered into a cloistral heaven, where they should be most safe from all treading of a secular heel, and should breathe an odor of sweetness for the eternal Godhead alone, until, translated thence into the paradise of the Spouse, they should be woven for him into an unfading crown of glory. While Rose most eagerly gaped upon and listened to these secrets of the heavenly decrees, she seemed meanwhile with her own hands gradually to be weaving this flowery garland and placing it upon her Spouse, who in turn showed that it was most welcome and inwardly dear to him. This vision suffused Rose with a vast solace, because she understood indirectly through it that it was granted by God chiefly to her labor and merit that Lima should one day be adorned with such a religious house of sacred virgins, as with a precious necklace. And as often as she related this sweet portent to her friends, she at the same time testified that there would flourish in that monastery distinguished servants of God, who by the odor of their virtues and the fame of their sanctity should gloriously excel.

[345] Father Master Brother Luis de Bilbao, the Virgin's confessor, asserted confidently to her confessor although he deferred very much to her other sayings, nevertheless doubted more scrupulously about this prophecy of hers, because, looking to human things, he could not see even from afar the least spark of likelihood which promised any success at some time for so great an undertaking. Nay rather, every reason on every side, and the power of government, seemed inexorably about to stand in the way, especially since for the condition of the time there were abundantly enough monasteries in a new city whose age had not then completed its first hundred years, and which was still very far from that vastness of extent with which it swells today. Rose perceived that the incredulous father doubted about the outcome, and with great confidence addressed him thus: "Why do you hesitate, my father? While you live and see it, there will stand in this city that monastery of B. Catherine of Siena of which I have often spoken. Set down and suppose, as you will, the commands of those who forbid as about to stand in the way; add to these, as an obstacle, all this our America — nay rather the whole globe of the earth; join in by hypothesis the forces, arts, and power of all hell; finally, imagine in your mind whatever obstacles you can conceive; and nevertheless, while you survive, while you live and are an eyewitness, the monastery of which I have spoken will be built, inhabited, and will flourish. I have designated the place for you; there it will be. And you indeed God has chosen by his eternal decree, who first there shall offer the most holy Host in solemnity: because there the first stone of the church to be built will be laid in the foundations with a most celebrated rite. Then remember that these things were just now foretold to you by a worthless little woman." The whole came to pass as the Virgin had foretold: for in the year 1622 Luis, approaching that function, amid the solemnities, during the Mass, remembered the prophecy, and, the Sacrifice being performed, related openly to those standing by how confidently, clearly, and expressly, many years before, Rose while yet alive had foretold what he had done on that day and in that place.

[346] Once before the household, amid familiar conversations, and foretold to many others, while the glorious prerogatives and just encomiums of B. Catherine of Siena were being discussed, the talk gradually fell upon the future monastery under her tutelary name. Here the Virgin first frankly confessed and declared that she indeed would by no means behold it with mortal eyes; yet that all the rest who stood there would most certainly enjoy its sight, presence, and solace. The matter was received with laughter by all; nor were there wanting those to whom Rose seemed, from excessive zeal for her seraphic mother, to be mad; especially after he who had taken it upon himself to obtain at Madrid the royal faculties necessary for the new foundation returned empty to Lima, bringing with him not even the hope of the permission ever being obtained. These things would have terrified any other woman, or at least would have snatched away her confidence in speaking; but the most firm certitude of the heavenly revelation itself did not allow Rose either to be terrified or timidly to keep silence, so much so that what she could not sufficiently establish in fit words she strove to sketch more evidently by architectural marks expressed upon a board. Whence, having seized a tablet and wax before the unbelievers, she formed an extempore archetype of the future monastery, with such skill and such assurance that she carried away the onlookers into astonishment. She described with a brief drawing of lines the circuit of the walls, which under the first beginnings of the future convent was to embrace less space; she marked the corners, the bordering turns; in what place the church, in what position the gate, the workrooms, the porticoes, the dormitories were to be disposed; nor did she grieve at anything else than that the rest did not, as she did, have the whole image of the monastery present before them in a living ray.

[347] and foretold to her unbelieving mother; Rose's mother was indignant beyond the rest, and took it ill that mention of the new convent should be made so often and so seriously at home and abroad, which her Daughter so assertively and undauntedly prefigured to acquaintances and strangers. There appeared no procurator of so arduous a business, no founder, no supporter or persuader, nowhere a patron or protector; all shrank from it as a thing humanly impossible; they taxed the Virgin as either

deluded, or as obstinately indulging an affection. The doctor John de Castillo himself (whom Rose esteemed so highly on account of the man's known holiness) tried to turn the Virgin from this persuasion, because he judged that the difficulties would be plainly insuperable. The same was the judgment of the treasurer Gonzalo, the same of her confessors. Hence her anxious mother, fearing disgrace for herself and her family, upbraided her Daughter: that against the judgments of so many prudent men she alone wished to be wiser than she ought; that the concordant opinion of all the skilled must not be obstinately opposed; that Rose as a vain prophetess would shortly with dishonor be the common talk; and finally that in these matters reason, not stubbornness, must be obeyed; that the promised monastery would sooner be set up in Utopia ^a or in imaginary spaces than at Lima.

[348] that she was to be enrolled there among the nuns; But Rose, made more cheerful by so many contradictions, replied with humble but glad voice: "Come now, sweetest mother, let the battles of words here cease at last; you will experience, to your own great advantage, how hard it is to kick against the goad: in the monastery of holy Catherine at Lima which I foretell, you yourself among the first will put on the white habit of the nuns; there you will be veiled, there you will solemnly profess, there as a Religious you will complete the remainder of your life." Hearing these things, her mother so blazed up, thinking herself provoked, that she drove her daughter from her sight, crying out aloud: "Shall I be a nun? I, into whom no thought of the regular life and state ever found entrance; I, destitute of the necessary dowry, ignorant of singing and chanting, brought up in secular cares, void of spirit, impatient of enclosure, burdened with many children — shall I hide myself in a cloister? At this age shall I be veiled, shall I profess a religion severe, strict, difficult? Away with it; enough of trifles; on the Greek Kalends ^b we shall see these things fulfilled."

[349] as happened in the year of Christ 1629. The beginning of the year 1629 did not see the Greek Kalends, ^c yet it saw Maria de Oliva a nun in the new monastery of holy Catherine of Siena, where, after her husband's death, at sixty years of age she was most devoutly joined to the religious daughters of the holy Father Dominic, and with the sacred garment of the Order took the name of Sister Maria of S. Mary; and, the year of probation being completed, she made her solemn vows, and, full of days, rested in a holy end. The needy widow lacked the lawful dowry, which had been fixed at four thousand pounds of silver for each who was to be veiled there. But, lest poverty should stand in Maria's way, the all-knowing care of the Godhead had provided by inspiring the foundress that in the very charter of foundation there should be reserved some places for the free reception of worthier but needy persons; and Rose's mother enjoyed that privilege.

[350] There remains, concerning the foundress of the convent herself and its first prefect, a memorable and brilliant prophecy of Rose. When the future foundress of the aforementioned convent The illustrious matron Isabella de Mexia had at home a maidservant, Mariana by name, to whom, when she was gravely ill, Rose (as being almost of the household in that house) ministered after her custom out of charity. On that occasion respectable women came frequently to visit both Isabella and the sick woman. On a certain day, among others, there was present the most noble Lady Lucia Guerra de la Daga, no less distinguished in virtue than in parentage and wealth. She, catching sight of Rose (of whom she had heard memorable things) there piously occupied in the service of the sick Mariana, began to be more devoutly drawn to her, and, having seized an occasion of speaking with her, after mutual rites of urbane courtesy to and fro, she earnestly begged the Virgin that she would be willing to remember her in her daily prayers to God and holy exercises.

[351] Rose, feeling herself already admonished within, bound the matron with a reciprocal affection, had on a certain occasion visited S. Rose, by offering that little which she could; and, when the other pressed more strongly, she promised that each week she would specially choose a certain day on which she would commend her to God. Lucia, rich with this solace, and returned home, could not rest until she should again meet Rose, now plainly her own. She came with the pretext of commending her husband and her little daughter: for perhaps they then more needed the Virgin's intercession with God. Rose, as though she had looked more inwardly into Lucia's heart, embraced her more familiarly than the day before, and answered nothing then about her husband, nothing about her little daughter or her sons; but she bound the matron to herself by a new benefit, and at last, goaded by a hidden impulse of God, admitted her, not to the gain of a single day each week, but fully into the friendly communion and participation of all her exercises.

[352] She herself did not yet sufficiently grasp whence or why she acted thus, she felt that she was being roused to found the monastery, until, contrary to her custom, having cast her eyes most attentively from the ground upon Lucia's face, she began to exult in spirit, to be suffused with the color of an unwonted gladness, to throb with warm heart; and at length, kissing Lucia with most modest cheerfulness, she said: "Well done, mother, God has reserved you for a vast work of his." And repeating this rather often with melting joy, she at the same time covered with a seemly kiss the astonished woman, who by no means resisted. It cannot be told what and how great spirits the happy matron presently drew from the Virgin's spirit: she grew rigid, and felt herself changed to the marrow both by Rose's address and by her breath; unknown little flames crept sweetly through all the veins of her soul; her heart, suddenly enlarged into various deliberations, was wholly raised to heavenly things, as though crying out with a quickened beat: "Lord, what do you want me to do?" So affected, she returned home, addressing God thus along the way: "Lord, if it is of your eternal good pleasure and for the glory of your name that I should one day pass from this secular to the religious state, go on to work in me what you have wonderfully begun; behold, with the whole affection of my heart I offer myself to you together with my children and all my substance; it will be yours to remove the obstacles in which you know me to be so inextricably entangled."

[353] although her husband and numerous offspring were still alive. Thereafter there migrated into the woman's mind, as in a connected column, at once an efficacious desire of the religious state, at once a most lively hope, at once an undoubted certitude of reaching this goal, of escaping the bonds, of breaking through innumerable barriers which the divine hand alone could remove. Lucia had not then yet passed the thirtieth year of her age; her husband survived, likely (as it seemed) to live for very many years; a numerous offspring stood about their mother, namely four sons and one little daughter; the vast management of great wealth pressed upon her; nor yet could these things either shake or diminish in Lucia's mind the certitude of her religious vocation, so much so that she was wont to treat with her own people about the execution of her holier purpose as securely as if, all things being arranged, she were expecting the veil to be placed upon her shortly.

[354] Then to her confessor, whom Rose had obscurely forewarned, It happened meanwhile that the Reverend Father John de Villalobos, who then presided as Rector over the novitiate of the Society of Jesus at Lima, turned aside to the house of Lady Isabella de Mexia, where, falling into conversation with Rose, after varied talk had passed to and fro on both sides about the certainty of the future monastery of blessed Catherine of Siena, he learned from the Virgin that she had spoken there the day before with Lucia de la Daga, young indeed in years but grave with maturity of disposition; and that she would say nothing more about her now. The religious and prudent man understood whither Rose alluded both by speaking and by keeping silent about the rest; yet he kept silence, until, after Rose's death, Lucia came to expiate her soul according to custom by sacramental confession.

[355] this noble matron indicates her purpose, Here the matron disclosed to her confessor that she was turning over in mind a work of great and exceedingly arduous undertaking, the foundation of a new monastery under the patronage and name of holy Catherine of Siena; that she was impelled to this by divine goads, which must altogether be obeyed; that to this she would turn her powers, wealth, and all her thoughts. In turn the confessor, at that point of time remembering the words which he had long before heard from Rose, taught Lucia that this was that very thing which the Virgin had promised the matron when she foretold that she was reserved by God for a certain great work. Accordingly let her not distrust the prophecy of so great a Virgin; that a matter so arduous would not lack most powerful obstacles, delays, and difficulties, but nevertheless that in the very height of the fury and stir of the tempests one must most tranquilly hope in the help from above, which Rose, now reigning together with her immortal Spouse, would most easily obtain by entreaty.

[356] and after the death of her husband and children carries it into execution. So it was: for God a little afterward called away from this light Lucia's husband and all her children in order, removed the innumerable and most powerful obstacles of the new foundation on every side, and bent the hard minds of the opponents to favor of the pious work. There remained to Lucia a most noble kindred, which so urged the widow toward a second marriage, in view of her birth, age, and wealth, that they almost compelled her. But she, mindful of Rose's prediction and tenacious of her purpose, resisted, conquered, triumphed; and, her affairs being happily settled according to her wish — nay, beyond her wish — she gave her most ample means, and finally herself as well, for the founding, building, and endowing of the new monastery of holy Catherine of Siena; and, taking with the sacred veil the name of Sister Lucia of the Most Holy Trinity, she was the first to hold the office of prefect of her new religious house, and by exhortation, care, and example wonderfully propagated among the nuns subject to her the spirit of religion which she had long before conceived from Rose's kiss; and at length, celebrated for a repute of holiness, she closed her last day there. This was the outcome of Rose's prediction; whence it came about that the monastery of holy Catherine of Siena at Lima, from the event, among the people who knew of it very often loves to be indiscriminately called Rose's monastery (that is, foretold long before by Rose's prophecy).

ANNOTATIONS.

\ the Spanish word is in Latin ichnographia*

CHAPTER XXVI.

Predictions about various future and hidden matters, whose truth the event proved.

The Saint to several persons The same Reverend Father Villalobos of the Society of Jesus (of whom a little before) testified upon sworn faith that he had by his own experience detected the prophetic spirit in the Virgin. He had asked from Rose the suffrage of her prayers for the happy outcome of a hidden but arduous business, which, that it might be kept silent by the rest, he himself first kept silent. But Rose (what she had never been wont to do), fixing her eyes for a little while upon the speaker's face, as though she had read the secret there as in an open book, modestly smiled, and answered the Father in such a way that he gathered not obscurely that at that moment the whole course of the most secret business had become known to the Virgin from heaven; whence, astounded with amazement, he reported the matter to Father Antonio de la Vega Loarsa, a most upright man of the same Society; who openly asserted that a most similar thing had happened with the Virgin to the Reverend Father Philip de Tapia, Rector of the college of Callao.

[358] Michaela de la Massa, daughter of the treasurer Gonzalo, was turning over in her mind a certain secret thought, the secret thoughts of the heart which she had communicated to no mortal, nor had she determined to communicate it. To her Rose familiarly applied herself, and recited that whole thought exactly as though from a writing-tablet, and prescribed to her, as she wondered, the aphorisms of a most healthful instruction. Maria de Mesta, wife of the painter Medorus,

Angelinus, was treating with her husband alone, no one else knowing, about the departure of both to the Spains, and about the necessary quantity of money for sustaining life there honorably and conveniently. Thence she went to Rose to converse about other matters which then pressed her more closely. The Virgin, having in passing turned the conversation also to that which was thought to lie hidden, answered as though she had likewise been asked about it: namely, she approved the plan of setting out, mentioned the sum of money which the woman with her husband had by mutual judgment fixed for the support of the rest of their life, and said that this would be enough for both (because they lacked offspring). The woman wondered, confessing that more could not have been said by the Virgin if she herself had sat as a third party at their secret counsel.

[359] Far more wonderful did it seem to Brother John Miguel, a religious of the Order of S. Dominic, when, having returned to Lima from a distant pilgrimage, and speaking apart with the Virgin in the chapel of Lord Jerome, and indicates other hidden matters, he heard narrated to him by her in order and exactly what had befallen the brother far off in a foreign region, and which could not by human means have come thence into Rose's knowledge; nay, he evidently recognized that the most hidden recesses of his own conscience had lain open to the Virgin. In the church of St. Dominic Rose had stopped with her mother and respectable women to commend to God in prayer the last agony of Maria de Vera, who, lying sick in the house of Diego de Requena the silversmith, was awaiting the last hour of her life. A sad message came, that the sick woman had expired. The terrified women looked sorrowfully upon Rose; she upon heaven; but, her eyes being suddenly drawn back to those standing about, she said: "Let us not mourn, for our friend is not dead; Maria de Vera lives: only let us pray God that she may recover." She lived, she recovered, but by another miracle of Rose, concerning which in the Appendix.

[360] and to a certain man thinking that he would die in the year 1615; A certain religious of the Society of Jesus, a plainly apostolic man adorned with the highest virtues, had settled in him (it is not known whence) a firm, tenacious, and immovable persuasion that in that year (which was 1615) he would most certainly depart from this life; he truly desired to be dissolved and to be with Christ: whence, having seized an occasion while he once was speaking to the treasurer's wife, Rose being present, he humbly and earnestly commended to the prayers of both his passing from this life, as being undoubtedly to occur before the Kalends of the next year. Gonzalo's wife shuddered; but Rose, gently smiling, said: "By no means, my father, will this year snatch you from us; so I confidently promise you." He on the contrary contended that the matter was most certain, and that nothing happier could befall him than if a little after the celebrated sacrifice of the Mass he should be bidden to render his spirit to his Creator; that this one thing he ardently desired, nay even hoped. The conceived opinion of his imminent end gradually grew strong with the excellent father, so that, moving from the college to the novitiate or dwelling of the young trainees, he bade farewell not only to his brethren but also to the very trees, walls, and roofs, as though never about to see the former house again.

[361] she bids a longer life be promised; These things tortured the pious wife of Gonzalo, who grieved to lose so prematurely the governor of her conscience; accordingly, looking anxiously to Rose daily, she asked a thousand times whether the things were true which she had foretold about her confessor surviving longer. In turn a thousand times the Virgin replied, and bade the matron be secure. Nevertheless she trembled whenever she was present at her confessor's Mass, fearing lest he, having attained his desire, should at that very hour, the Sacrifice being ended, depart from among the living. Finally, on the most sacred vigil of the divine Nativity, while the matron was going to the father to confess, Rose bade it be signified to him through her that he should now at last lay aside the most empty persuasion of his approaching death, and should know that he was reserved for greater services of God; that he would not die before he had by laborious conversion brought several souls abroad into the way of salvation, and that among these five chief ones stood out peculiarly, worthy of his apostolate and to be won for the true Godhead. This Rose had chanted a hundred times to the timid wife of the treasurer for her solace; this the event itself at last fully proved: for the father survived Rose by nine years, and in the conversion of lost men carried off the admirable fruits which she had foretold; inasmuch as he was the first of the men of his institute to go to the mountains which today have the name Santa Cruz de la Sierra, ^a where he snatched very many souls from the demon; and at length at Lima in the year 1626 he rested in a holy end.

[362] Father Brother Bartholomew Martinez of the Order of Preachers, To two Dominican priests, Prior of the convent of holy Mary Magdalene at Lima, and Rose's confessor, was struggling with a doubtful outcome against a most grave and extremely dangerous disease; and now, care of the body being almost laid aside, at the physicians' urging the last remedies of a departing soul were being hastened. Father Master Brother John de Lorenzana visited the sick man, and, having conceived an impulse of sudden confidence, bade the sick man hope well, because at that moment he had seen in the church, before the tabernacle of the Most Holy Host, a bright candle burning for the sick man's health — meaning Rose, whom he had observed from afar pouring forth there most ardent prayers. Scarcely had he finished his words when the sacristan, Brother John Fernandez, coming in, said that he had been sent thither by Rose, kneeling in the church before the most holy Sacrament, to make Bartholomew certain that from that sickness, however already bewailed, death by no means threatened him; that accordingly he should be of good cheer, that health would return sooner than could be hoped, because he must first strenuously serve the divine glory in a certain singular ministry. Bartholomew, to whom the Virgin's soul was inwardly known, hesitating not at all, gave credit to her words, and at that same hour cast off fear and disease.

[363] Master Brother Luis de Bilbao, likewise for fourteen years the Virgin's confessor, who labored under a dangerous disease, had ceased to fear for himself, his fevers being lulled which he had believed extinguished: when the disease returned as from ambush much more violent than before, and brought him, relapsed, into the utmost dangers. Already the physicians clung perplexed and had ceased to apply drugs; already the sick man (to whom nature had given a sonorous and clear voice), from the distress of his obstructed chest and from weakness on both sides, could scarcely bring forth things that might be understood; nevertheless with what slenderness of voice he could, and by nods, he commissioned that his crisis be indicated to Rose, and bade her most freely report back to him what she thought about the course and outcome of this disease, so that, if he must die, he might at once prepare himself for that moment on which eternity hangs. For the rest, he besought the Virgin not to forsake him in this doubtful case, or to dissemble anything suited to his salvation; that this was, if any, the time for telling the truth, and that now above all he expected from her the holy services of filial benevolence.

[364] The Virgin, although she suffered with the anguishes of her spiritual father, she promises the return of former health, yet, terrified by no mention of the danger, answered in few words but with cheerful face: "To prepare oneself for that serious moment of the last breath with all effort, care, and solicitude is never untimely, and is always praiseworthy and salutary. Nevertheless that sickness is not unto death; the sick man will recover, and at the coming triumphal feast of the Most Holy Rosary he will speak eloquently from the pulpit before all the people. Meanwhile I shall send him my physician; let him have this continually before his eyes at the head of his little bed, and let him not despair of recovering his health." Then she sent to the father the short image of the little Jesus, seemlily clothed, which she uniquely held among her delights — her physician (as she said) — which she afterward asked back from him when he had recovered, announcing that without it she seemed to herself too solitary. Luis believed the Virgin's prophecy, devoutly venerated the physician, and, to the admiration of all, most entirely recovered his strength. One thing alone remained, about which he greatly hesitated: namely, not seeing how the office of preaching could now fall to him at the approaching solemnity of the Most Holy Rosary, since for that year this turn was not his but his Provincial's, Master Brother Gabriel de Zarate: for to him by lot (as is the custom there) this burden of speaking had fallen a month before. Nevertheless this too had to be fulfilled in Luis: since indeed the Provincial, being seized by sickness a little before the feast, could not preach, and, ignorant of the prophecy, committed the sermon to be delivered to Luis.

[365] and she asserts that a novice will be freed from the falling sickness. At Lima in the convent of St. Dominic John de Soto had obtained the habit of religion; but he had suppressed in silence the falling sickness to which he was subject. In his year of probation the fraud, being detected, moved Alphonsus Velasquez the head of the convent to determine secretly, by the counsel of the fathers, honorably to send back to the world a useless novice. The day of execution had already been decreed, and the dismissal enjoined upon Peter de Loaysa, master of novices; nor could any of these things have become known to Rose by human means. Yet the pious Virgin was there at first dawn, and through Brother Blasius Martinez the sacristan asked that the master of novices together with the Prior should come down to her in the church, before they should execute the design conceived. Both came, wondering what the Virgin wanted at an hour so unwonted and so early. She answered that she had come to plead for the novice now about to go out, and at the same time asked that the decree of expulsion be rescinded. One of the fathers, growing angry at this, replied: "You do not know, Rose, how ill you bestow this benefit of intercession; but know that the young man for whom you ask is utterly unfit for making profession." The most gentle Rose bore the harshness of this rebuff with equanimity, yet added: "The decree of the Most High will be seen to be different, and stronger than yours: for that novice will duly attain to solemn profession, and will remarkably illustrate the Order by an example of piety and religion." The whole came to pass as the Virgin had foretold.

[366] To certain maidens she assigns Three sisters by blood, Philippa, Catherine, and Francisca de Montoya, were being trained to piety by Rose's conversation and example. Of these Philippa and Catherine desired, spurning the world, to embrace the religious habit of St. Dominic and the institute of the third Order. Francisca alone clung a little more tenaciously to the world, and with all her heart shrank from a divorce from the age; the religious garment and its ragged simplicity displeased her; the fringed display of a brighter dress delighted her; a womanly love of her comely hair held her. Rose sometimes reproved Francisca's excessive zeal in curling her hair, and said: "These hairs of yours, which you now tend with so great an affection, I shall one day see cut off; do not doubt it." At last she foretold more openly that Francisca (though then resisting) together with her sister by blood Catherine would be a nun of the third Order of St. Dominic, but that Philippa, who then burned with desire of the same institute, would at last consent to an honorable marriage offered her. The outcome answered the prophecy: for Philippa's ardent desire of the religious state passed, to the astonishment of all, into Francisca; the one obtained a husband, the other with her sister Catherine the habit of St. Dominic: hair, pomp, and the world she abjured with unspeakable fervor and gladness.

[367] the state of life which they should afterward choose, Another noble pair of maidens, Maria and Joanna Urtado de Bustamante, although they enjoyed an intimate and familiar friendship with Rose, were thinking of anything rather than of embracing the state of Religion. Yet with these, one day, as Rose walked in the household garden, by a sudden impulse from above she addressed both thus: "Know, good sisters, that you both, together with your grandmother,

Ludovica, will be nuns in the monastery which we call that of the Most Holy Trinity, and I shall live to see that day and shall see it." Besides these there remained a third sister by blood, Francisca by name, whom on the contrary so great a desire of entering the third Order of St. Dominic had kindled that she scarcely cared to think or speak of anything else. Having at length taken counsel with Rose, she carried back from her an answer which the outcome afterward proved: namely, that she would be a nun neither of St. Dominic nor of any other Order, but the wife of a lawful husband. So it happened: for in the year 1615, that is, two years before Rose's death, the two sisters Maria and Joanna together with their grandmother were veiled in the monastery of the Most Holy Trinity, and the first took the name Maria de la O, the second Joanna of Jesus, the last Ludovica of the Cross. Francisca married Hieronymus de Villalobos.

[368] John de la Raya and Maria Euphemia de Parejas had an only son growing up, Roderick, and she forewarned the mother of a certain youth, whom from his tender years they had destined to be enrolled in due time in the sacred warfare of the Society of Jesus. The boy grew, but with no sign of religious inclination. Applied to studies, he seemed more manifestly to shrink both from the ecclesiastical state and from any literary exercises whatever, however much on the contrary both parents either openly wished it or more laboriously urged it. The afflicted mother went to Rose, hidden in her garden cell, set forth her grief, and earnestly demanded the aid of her prayers. Rose, as she was most prompt to hasten solaces to the sorrowful, at once pledged to Euphemia whatever her prayers might avail with God. Presently, looking a little while toward the heavens, and, after a brief pause, turning back into herself, she said: "Doubt nothing; your Roderick after very few months will put on a religious robe, but not that one which you alone wished, of the Society of Jesus."

[369] These last words wounded Euphemia; whence she replied: who desired that her son should give his name to our Society, "Ah, how deeply my husband will grieve with me when he hears that our son is not to be joined to that Society." The Virgin, gently compassionating, answered: "Rather do you adore divine providence, which willed these things to be settled for you in good time, so that you might gradually dispose your husband to a just equanimity, lest he vainly strive against the spirit which will breathe where it wills. Allow the divine will rather than your own to work in Roderick; and as soon as your son has embraced a regular institute, see that you tell me, so that I too may render thanks to the Most High for the benefit with which he has favored us." About three months passed when Roderick felt himself inflamed with an impetuous and sudden desire of the religious life, and now of his own accord urged his parents that, since it had so pleased them, they should without delay and seriously treat with the Fathers about his admission into their renowned Society. Rose learned this, and again said to Euphemia: "Most certainly you will see your son a religious; but it is equally certain that he will not be enrolled in the Society of Jesus: the rougher tunic of the seraphic Francis awaits him."

[370] Roderick then was thinking of nothing less; nor was Euphemia with her husband wishing anything less. Nay rather, with the leading men of the Society all things had already been thoroughly treated, concluded, prepared; the letters alone of the Father Provincial who was to consent were awaited; but (the Godhead so disposing) these were delayed, and meanwhile Roderick without his parents' knowledge went to the convent of St. Francis, that he was to be enrolled in the Franciscan Order, asked for the habit, obtained admission, and, his parents being admonished and at length bent to consent, eight days afterward was received with solemn rite into the poor Order of Friars Minor. His mother, sadly and anxiously doubting the novice's constancy, because she feared that the delicate boy would scarcely be equal to such austerities, again went to Rose, solicitous, faint-hearted, restless, especially after she had learned that her son was somewhat ill amid the rigors of Lent. But the Virgin, gently rebuking the woman's distrust, said: "Have you so little faith in the help of the Queen of the most holy Rosary, to whom I have commended the novice Roderick? Know that he will persevere in his order, and suppose that you already see him professed." Why say more? Roderick, as soon as he exchanged his linen shift for a woolen one, recovered; and, the year of probation being completed, he made his solemn vows, and long survived in the seraphic religion as a pious and exemplary priest.

[371] and to a concubine she foretells a lawful marriage, Maria Perez, the slave of a noble Spaniard, Leonard de Roya, was living secretly with her master in a damnable state. Being at length pricked with compunction, and about to look more healthfully to the salvation of her soul, when she saw no way by which either to extricate herself from the dangerous cohabitation, or, being pressed by her servile condition, to obtain a lawful marriage with a freeborn man, she confidently opened her calamity to Rose. The Virgin, compassionating, bade the maidservant hope well of God's mercy, that Leonard would duly take her to wife. The afflicted woman believed in hope against hope, and by a happy experience found that Rose had not vainly promised solace.

[372] and to another woman the return of runaway slaves. From Maria de Mesta, wife of Medorus Angelinus the painter, two Ethiopian maidservants had fled the house at the same time, and one of them, Antonia by name, had also carried off the keys of her mistress, then most necessary. She complained to the Virgin of her loss, and that, returning home, she was forced either to break open by force the clothes chest, whose key had been stolen, or to borrow the necessary garment for the next day from elsewhere. But Rose at once answered: "You will do neither: for when you have returned to the threshold of your dwelling, before you come out of the sedan chair, there will meet you at the door one who will announce that Antonia has returned to the house of her own accord from her flight; know that the other runaway will be brought back to you tomorrow." Mesta departed, and on the threshold of her house, before she descended from the sedan chair, she found her husband in the doorway coming to meet her, announcing that Antonia had returned with the keys. In turn Mesta replied to her husband: "And tomorrow will restore to us the other runaway." Both linked events Rose had foretold, and both Mesta saw fulfilled the next day.

[373] She foretells that her host, in a difficult business, The most excellent viceroy of the kingdom of Peru had determined to involve Gonzalo de la Massa, the treasurer, far from Lima, in an honorable but exceedingly arduous function, and one which demanded a man of the greatest experience, fidelity, and integrity. He therefore sent, to draw out Gonzalo's consent, a senator of the royal (as they call it) audience and the procurator of the treasury, to whom for the sake of honor and authority he added his own confessor. The treasurer, struck by the dignity of the embassy, and at the same time well understanding both the viceroy's serious intent and the difficulty of the business, asked for time as though to deliberate, especially because he was then, on account of the fleet shortly to seek the Spains from there, occupied with dispatching innumerable letters and with the accounts of his office, so that he could not be away from home even for one day: but in truth he pleaded these things in order that by a truce of longer delay he might escape that very work full of dangerous hazard. When the fleet had set out, the three above-said returned to Gonzalo not together but singly, and indeed several times: for the gravity of the business and the king's service pressed.

[374] At length on the 15th of April, being warned as though peremptorily in which the viceroy had determined to involve him, that on the next day at a fixed hour he was awaited by the viceroy for a conference in the palace, he easily recognized that there now remained no escape from the hated journey; whence on that very evening after supper, thoughtful and sad, he opened the anguish of his mind to his wife and Rose alone. His wife grew pale with fear; but by no means Rose, who on the following day, coming from the oratory, addressed the treasurer, now about to leave the house and present himself to the viceroy, with cheerful face: "Go," she said, "and do not fear; you will return to us from the palace more cheerful than you went out hence; and, not to detain you with superfluous words, be secure; that arduous business which you dread will be transferred to another, you will be plainly exempt."

[375] To the treasurer's wife as she doubted she inculcated the same twice and thrice most constantly, most certainly is not to be employed, adding: "Not even if you should see both your husband's feet set in the stirrup, or him already riding along the street, should you believe that he will set out. He will remain with you at Lima, nor will he be sent abroad to the danger of a most troublesome function." Wonderful thing: the treasurer, being suddenly admitted to a private conference with the viceroy, and detained by him in various conversations for an hour and a half, at that very moment of time in which he fearfully awaited the intimation of the adamantine decree, was courteously dismissed; nor did the viceroy, in the whole space of the serious conversation, touch upon that hateful commission by a single word, although for four whole months he had striven most efficaciously to persuade the unwilling treasurer to it through the aforementioned men. The same commission was long afterward laid upon another as though it had never been treated of with Gonzalo.

[376] Ferdinand Flores de Herrera, Rose's brother by blood, and to her brother, whose marriage far distant she foreknew, following military service after his father's example, had penetrated as far as the kingdom of Chile, where he also discharged the honor of standard-bearer in his company. To him, distant from Lima about five hundred leagues, his sister Rose wrote a letter (for she had learned divinely that he had in Chile taken upon himself the honorable yoke of marriage). In it she solicitously exhorted her brother that, since he had embraced this state, he should not neglect exactly to fulfill amid military noises the obligation of a Christian head of a household; that he should studiously form his house to the fear of God and the observance of piety; that he should busy himself to imbue with the best morals and to educate in holiness the children whom the blessing from above was to give him; and that the first fruit indeed of his marriage would be a little daughter, marked peculiarly by God upon her face, which namely the purple character of a conspicuous Rose should adorn. Her therefore, straightway from her birth, let the parent dedicate and offer to the most august Mother of God: since indeed this little daughter, by the purity and innocence of her life, was to please the Most High greatly. So it fell out: for after about two years there was born to Ferdinand this first offspring, and she brought with her from her mother's womb the type of a rose figured upon her face so prettily and exactly that it could not have been more gracefully painted with a brush.

[377] The little girl grew up with this mark, to the wonder of all who had formerly seen Rose's letter. she commends by letter the daughter who would be born of him. Diego Gonzales Montero, Christopher de Aranda Valdivia, and other centurions and prefects of the Chilean soldiery vied in going to Ferdinand's house to enjoy this devout spectacle in person: for the girl also (according to Rose's prophecy) inclined wonderfully from her tender years to exercises of religion and piety. At length, having prematurely been bereaved of both parents, she remained under a guardian's tutelage, until Francis Lasso de la Vega, governor and president of the kingdom of Chile, on account of the pious memory of Rose, then dead, celebrated even in Chile, took upon himself of his own accord the office and care of sending the orphan at his own expense from Chile to Lima, where with her grandmother Maria de Oliva (then already a nun) she lived most holily in the monastery of S. Catherine of Siena, and shone wonderfully by a singular example of virtues.

[378] She received divinely a knowledge of an unbaptized Ethiopian woman, The noble Matron Isabella de Mexia had an Ethiopian maidservant, Speranza by name, which she had of her own accord taken upon herself (as though she were a Christian). She, carried from a promontory of Africa (once called Hesperium, now Cape Verde ^b) from inner Libya ^c across the Atlantic sea into the Indies, had first served on the isthmus of Panama; ^d thence, brought to Lima, she had now for six years been maidservant to Isabella. It happened that she fell gravely ill:

wherefore Rose as suppliant besought both Isabella and her own mother that Speranza be granted to her, to be more conveniently cared for in her mother's house by her service. When she had been brought, suddenly the Virgin, muttering something perplexed to herself, at length openly said to her mother: "I feel that Speranza has not been baptized." The sick woman on the contrary, arming an evil shame with a worse obstinacy, contended stubbornly that she had been washed with sacred Baptism at Panama; and, to win credit for her lie, she invented the names of several persons whom she boasted to have been present; she made up godparents never born, the place, the year, the rite — everything but the truth.

[379] who had lyingly feigned herself a Christian, It was very easy for her to impose upon both her mistress and Maria de Oliva and the rest, so much so that they charged Rose as importunately troublesome. But the Virgin groaned, sighing again and again and openly bewailing the sick woman as unbaptized. There came in, the Godhead providing, after eleven days, Francis, the slave of the treasurer Gonzalo, who had been Speranza's constant companion from Africa to Panama and thence to Lima: he, being questioned, answered simply that he had always believed that assuredly within these six years Speranza had been baptized at Lima; for that Baptism had not fallen to her in Panama he held as most certain. Here at last, being convicted of the lie, but wondering whence Rose could have divined it, she began to speak thus before all: "When I came from Panama hither into Isabella's house, the other Ethiopian women there in mockery used to call me a MARE, ^e because I was not yet baptized; but I, impatient of the reproach, replied boldly that I was as much a Christian as they. From then on, lest I should be put to shame, I have tried to defend my lie with obstinacy until this present day. But now I confess that I have been detected by Rose (I know not how), and I demand Baptism." Straightway the Virgin summoned the neighboring parish priest of S. Sebastian, the licentiate Quixano; to him she set forth the course of the matter, the sick woman consenting; Speranza is baptized, and dies the next day.

[380] and she had the art of reading and writing infused from heaven. No one dared ask Rose, glad at this outcome, whence she had learned Speranza's hidden state: for that this could not have become known to her at Lima by human means was admitted by all: on the other hand, that abstruse knowledge was infused into the Virgin from heaven had long been established for her mother, who had found by grateful experience that, among other things, the knowledge of reading and writing had been sprinkled upon her under-age Daughter not by acquisition but by divine infusion. The matter at last came to light thus. The mother had taught her little daughter Rose to know somehow the several letters of the alphabet, and was already at the point of instructing the girl about combining them into syllables, and had at the same time given her on a little page a rough copy from which she might learn to form the characters with a pen. Rose preferred to give all this time to prayer; but her mother, suspecting that her little Daughter was after the manner of children fleeing the tedium and labor of learning, induced her confessor to reprove the young girl for her neglect in her presence. He did in good faith what he had been bidden; but Rose the next day, prayer having been premised, went to her mother, read most readily the book set before her, and moreover exhibited a page elegantly written in her own hand. Doubtless the unction had taught better than the Olive, and he who had poured from above upon holy Catherine of Siena the art of reading and writing deigned also to instruct Rose divinely by a like short-cut of infusion. Further, that we may not linger over these smaller matters, at length, being taught by this Master the day, place, and hour of her death, the happy prophetess sang beforehand to no one more sweetly than to herself and to her own funeral. But let that be more conveniently kept for the next chapter.

ANNOTATIONS.

\* or "of both"?

CHAPTER XXVII.

Holy Rose's foreknowledge of the diseases and torments which she learned she must endure about the end of her life.

When the Virgin had fallen into a grave disease, Whether the certainty of death or the uncertainty of the hour and day presses more hard, let it be a problem; there the decree, here the secret, afflicts mortals — save that to God's friends alone to die is gain, and moreover to some of these, by an exceptional favor of the Godhead, the secret of the day and hour is revealed. Hence also the feast of the divine Bartholomew (on which she foreknew that she would die) was every year so precious and dear to Rose; this she venerated more devoutly with singular zeal, and, not content with her own fasting, she induced some innocent little boys to fast with her on the vigil of this feast; and these indeed even after Rose's death went on to celebrate the recurring vigils of that same Apostle with a voluntary fast, nor did they know how to give any other reason for their pious custom than that they had been so instructed by Rose. Her curious mother wondered what so peculiar there was between her daughter and St. Bartholomew, until at last she heard from the Virgin that this day would one day be her nuptial day, on which she should be called to the bridal chamber of her Spouse.

[382] and to those standing by she seemed about to die shortly, There remained still about three years of the Virgin's mortality when, lying sick from a grave disease, she seemed to all to have already reached the utmost margin of life; no one doubted that within a very few days she would depart from among the living: the household bewailed her as though already dead, while from time to time they doubted whether she still breathed. There stood by, among others, her confessor Father Master Brother Luis de Bilbao, and he began to address the Virgin with tearful voice in those formulas with which the dying are wont to be more solicitously encouraged for the last agony. Rose, groaning, listened quietly and eagerly to the last solaces of her spiritual father, and, readily accommodating herself to his exhortation, repeated with easy effort now the most fervent acts of contrition, now the tranquil sighs of a most humble resignation, now the panting desires of the heavenly fatherland.

[383] she affirmed that her death was not yet imminent: But when she saw those standing about sobbing more freely as though the matter were lost, and her confessor himself unable to restrain his tears, she too could not restrain a rosy affection of compassion: and, in order to console the rest, she addressed the father thus: "Lay aside fear, drive away untimely grief, and be certain that I shall by no means die of this sickness, though it be bewailed by your judgment and that of all. Alas, the goal to which I hasten is farther off; I shall reach it at last, but not now. But if I should die now, I should have to die twice: for the day which is to bring me death last of all is far distant; nor is it to be supposed that this is the Spouse's will, that I should die twice." The confessor wondered that these things were uttered with such assurance and confidence by the Virgin, whom he knew to be accustomed neither to speak rashly nor to assert anything in a matter so hidden unless she had ascertained the day of her passing by divine revelation.

[384] for the time of her death, At length Rose reached the thirty-first year of her age, which she had long foreknown that she would by no means finish. Whence four months before her death, being strong and well, she addressed Gonzalo's wife thus: "Know, mother, that four months hence I shall certainly enter the way of all flesh. The pains of my last infirmity, which will finish me, will be most atrocious; but of all the most savage torment will be thirst, for the relieving of which then I earnestly and anxiously beg you from now. Remember not to deny me the water which I shall need, when with parched throat and dry bowels I implore your maternal bowels. Promise today, mother, that in that deadly burning of my last thirst you will not forsake me, but will give water to one who asks it." The matron, astounded at these words, and gazing attentively upon the Virgin, when she saw her suppliant so seriously and with bowed head, promised in good faith that she would give to her asking as often and as much water as she should ask. Meanwhile she grieved that Rose's decisive day was threatening so near.

[385] Further, she had foretold the place also (but a whole year before) to the same matron: the place in her host's house, for on a certain evening amid spiritual conversations Rose, suddenly and contrary to custom interrupting, her face opened out with a most pleasant look and modest signs of gladness, broke out into these words: "Know, mother, that nowhere else than here in your house, and in this place, shall I pay the debt of nature; and, if you should see me seized by my last sickness in my parents' house, do not doubt that here, not there, I shall be loosed from the knot of mortality. Now therefore by all the rights of our friendship I adjure you that, when I shall have expired here, you do not commit my little body to other women to be clothed and fitted to the bier; do you alone and my mother take this care upon you for the love of God; to you alone as suppliant I commend this last office of piety toward me."

[386] In the celebrated vision of the bows (of which above, chapter XVII) the kind Savior seasonably revealed to the Virgin, before the shining army of innumerable angels, the whole series of the monstrous pains and she had known beforehand the torments that would go before it, by which she was at the last to be mangled and prepared for blessed immortality: that these would be so sharp, savage, and manifold that the others which she had thus far endured, compared with these, would scarcely deserve the name of pain; that each of the members of her exhausted little body would have its own rack, so that none could either succor another or share the torment by a natural sympathy; that the same thirst which tortured the bloodless Redeemer on the cross would seize Rose's dry bowels and throat; that the inmost marrow of her bones would be fed upon with an intolerable burning; and that none of so many atrocious diseases at once would admit the accustomed order, period, laws, or intervals of nature, because it would be a preternatural and lawless heap of so many mortal torments.

[387] Rose, lest she should dread the cup of so great bitterness, in the chapel of the Rosary, as in the garden of Gethsemane, and had indicated to certain friends. ardently commended herself both to the will of the eternal Father and to the help of the Virgin mother, when, the Mother of God assenting, she there learned more openly that the day was near at hand on which all this wormwood of a deadly first course ^a must be strenuously drunk up by her. There came in by chance John

de Tineo Almansa, a familiar friend, who, greeting the Virgin in passing, commended himself to her prayers. In turn Rose, with flaming face (which that serious conversation with the Mother of God had vehemently kindled), demanded from him the aid of his prayers, interweaving perplexedly some things which were enough for John to understand that the exact day of her approaching death had then been revealed to Rose.

[388] Finally, three days before the fatal swoon ^b of her last sickness, Rose went for the last time to her parents' house, perhaps secretly to bid farewell to her garden cell there, the confidant of so many heavenly delights with her. After she had commended her mother to S. Dominic, There the Virgin, thinking herself alone and without witnesses, began swanlike strains and sweetly sang beforehand to her now approaching death. Her mother observed her unawares from a nearby corner, and heard her daughter with a shrill jubilation of flowing rhythms caressing the holy Father Dominic, to whom she earnestly commended her mother Maria de Oliva, frequently inculcating and repeating that she would shortly (when she herself was dead) remain alone; that accordingly he should bestow from heaven upon this bereaved and forsaken woman his protection, whom at last he should adopt as a daughter. A hidden horror struck the mother, and then indeed she dissembled, perhaps somewhat doubting whether things uttered in meter and by song were altogether serious, not because true but because obvious: until the third day (which was the first of the month of August) made plain that the dirges of the swan about to depart — or, if you prefer to say so, its jubilations — had been sung not poetically but prophetically.

[389] in the year 1617, on the Kalends of August On the Kalends of August, Rose toward evening, being well and vigorous, had shut herself in her chamber, to await there the promised pains of her last lying-down, whose forerunners and advance guard ^c she had already begun to feel. And behold, about the middle of the night she is heard wailing most piteously. The treasurer's wife runs up with her daughters and maidservants, and they find the sick girl stretched with her whole little body upon the floor; her limbs were rigid without motion; only the panting throbbing of her breast and the plaintive hoarseness of a languid voice showed that a spark of life was in the Virgin. The anxious matron pressed her: she asked where and what chiefly pained her; what evil in short she had; but Rose from the slenderness of her breath could then answer nothing else save that in broken words she said that she indeed had no illness, but that death itself reigned most freely in the inmost recesses of her bowels. Being asked whether she wished a physician to be summoned, she answered, "the heavenly one," and obtained him.

[390] she is overwhelmed by an unknown and deadly disease, Meanwhile, being lifted from the ground into her little bed, she could neither move herself nor rest; a cold sweat stood upon her pale brow; the faculty of breathing struggled as though pressed by a huge mass; the discordant beats of her arteries and temples contended for the palm of vehemence, and at uncertain intervals now swelling, now trembling wandered over her bloodless little body. Only in this was it well with the Virgin, when from time to time with free mouth she pronounced most tenderly the name of Jesus. When morning came, her confessors, being summoned, stood by the sick girl, wondering at that living and silent likeness of all pains. Physicians too were present, and at once, having explored the force of the warring diseases, they hung upon one another's gaze, drooping, confessing that the heap of so many torments seemed superior to all human patience, and that those pains were not altogether natural; that here deeper paroxysms raged which the experience of their art had not recognized. Doubtless this was that cup which the Spouse had drunk, which he had mixed for his Bride, and had so long before shown beforehand.

[391] which, since she could not explain it, One of her confessors asked the Virgin at least to set forth to the physician what she felt: as she hesitated, he compelled her by command, believing that her silence came from humble modesty, not from an excess of torments. When she heard the precept, obedience at once was stronger than her pains; and although Rose by most frequent experiences had learned the names of almost all diseases, yet, being able to explain this one (as being strange) only by periphrases of similitudes, she answered thus: "I know that I have deserved what I suffer; but I did not know that so much of punishment could fall upon a human body and be distributed through every limb; it seems that a ball of white-hot iron is being driven through my temples, and that from the very crown to the lowest sole of my right foot a fiery spit is being passed, by whose vehemence I am in a manner lifted on high; with a like burning a fiery dagger pierces me crosswise from the left side through the middle of my heart (let the reader observe that in this double and crosswise torment of burning the form of a cross is expressed); my head seems enclosed in a white-hot helmet, and there without intermission it is beaten on every side with strong prickings, as with blows of hammers; my bones are gradually dissolved into dust; my marrow has dried up like ashes; each of my joints is beset by its own torment, for which I find neither a name nor a torture to which I may compare them. By these indeed I find that I am gradually being brought to my end; but because to the intensity of my pains there will be added a certain extension over several days more, at the same time I vehemently sympathize with the labor and trouble with which I am about to burden this house longer than I would wish. For the rest, let the Lord accomplish in me all that has pleased his most sacred will; I shall refuse neither death nor these punishments harsher than death."

[392] These words increased the dizziness of the physicians: they wavered in mutual glances, confused, perplexed, astounded: for on the one hand Rose's well-known virtue and sanctity did not allow anyone to doubt the truth of her words; on the other hand there were lacking the signs which would confirm the suspicion of a deadly disease, since nothing febrile beat in her veins, nor did the unwonted vicissitude of so many alterations at once send forth any criterion ^d of any disease which the school of Aesculapius knew. and since she foreknew that the physicians' industry would be useless, For the rest, the Virgin secretly disclosed to her confessor Father Master de Lorenzana that the physicians labored in vain in exploring the species of this disease, since it was wholly beyond nature and sent from without, and tended by a manifold way from the circumference to the center on every side, and that by mutual encounters some paroxysms intersected others with the utmost variety of affections; accordingly that there was need here of no other than the incurable patience of Job, so that in some manner she might experience limb by limb each of the pains of her crucified Spouse. She therefore earnestly asked Gonzalo's wife that they would permit her at least for some days to lie thus without human speech, so that perhaps under this solitary silence she might more quietly steep her inward and inexplicable pains in the last pains of her crucified Love, to whom she felt herself fastened limb by limb upon the cross.

[393] But this quiet, such as it was, of the cross was interrupted by the coming of Rose's mother, yet at her mother's command who, being admitted, found her Daughter, to her great terror, weaker than had been announced to her; and so she troublesomely and anxiously pressed the sick girl to say in what part she was more gravely pained. Her Daughter briefly answered that it was ill with her in every part, save only that these were truly the pains of the cross. But her mother, by no means content with this answer, and perhaps persuaded that the aid of medicine was being delayed by the silence of her patient Daughter, wished each thing to be set forth to her in detail; and, seeing the sick girl struggle because she did not know where to begin or what names to give to a disease so nameless and preternatural, she more imperiously bound her Daughter by the virtue of holy obedience to utter secrets which she did not know.

[394] Rose, mindful that nowhere does a wider place lie open for obedience than upon the cross, borrowed from it strength and spirit for speaking, and by the same short-cuts of similitudes (since she could not more aptly) explained to her mother she set forth her pains by similitude. that she was pierced as though by a long fiery javelin from crown to heel with wondrous burnings, by which her whole left side seemed to be lifted up; that by a most similar brand she was penetrated crosswise from side to side; that by this scorching her bones were being burned to ashes (doubtless it was the holocaust of the cross), that her marrow and sinews were being plucked out bit by bit with white-hot pincers, that a most sharp frost wandered here and there through her fibers, and was more savagely provoked by the very counter-resistance ^e of so many little flames; that the hinges of her jaws, as though most tightly bound with a steel thread, were dislocated from their joint at every movement of the mouth; that her ears and temples were scorched here and there as though by a white-hot little disk thrust upon them; that her mouth and throat within were bloodily ulcerated with gaping sores; that her throat with the tonsils had withered like pumice from dryness and thirst (and why should not "I thirst" be heard upon the cross?); that her skull, like an anvil, was being abundantly beaten with most frequent and brawny blows; and that not one of all her tortures rested even for a moment. "These are the things," she said, "my sweetest mother, which I have been able somehow to sketch for you, that I might obey; the rest I cannot even rudely tell, nor, if I could, would you grasp them." Her disturbed mother wept, lamenting this most of all, that she had nothing but tears with which to anoint her Daughter's pains. But the Virgin, wounded by tenderness, tried to stop these useless tears of her afflicted mother, asking that her weeping be restrained, as though she said with the Spouse's words: "Do not weep over me."

[395] Then on the 17th day of August there rushed upon her Meanwhile the sixth day of August dawned, sacred to Christ's Transfiguration; but it found Rose not on Thabor but on the mount of Calvary, and fastened her there more firmly. The Virgin's inward pains seemed to have called into their aid the remaining cohort of natural diseases, lest either any kind of punishment should be lacking to so great a patience, or it should any longer be doubted that Rose's infirmity was deadly. The first to appear, summoned to this feast, was a paralysis of her left side, by which the left part of her whole body, unnerved from top to bottom, wasted away into a deadly numbness, so that from there Rose began to die by parts. Her tongue alone, by a singular benefit of God, remained untouched and vigorous for the use of piety until her last breath; the rest of the members on that side so grew numb that they never returned to their office, whatever of unguents, rubbings, and fomentations was in the end expended, more for the heaping up of trouble than for the winning of relief. Only from their weight did the sick girl feel that she still had an arm and one foot; for the rest, whether she was to be raised for a while in her little bed, or turned onto the other side, she needed others' hands, suffering more with the inconvenience of others than grieving from her own. There succeeded, or rather were added to, the paralysis various symptoms of lesser note.

[396] several diseases of different kinds, But on the 17th of August, the membrane of her ribs being inflamed on both sides, added a notable pleurisy; to this there gradually joined itself a hoarse asthma of her constricted chest, so that the burnings, which within roasted the remnants of her bowels as in an oven, admitted, not without a new torment, the relief of a rare sigh. The pleurisy was increased by a bitter pain of the hips, by colic, ^f by a dire convulsion of the hypochondria, ^g and by a knotty arthritis kindled in her right foot; then the caustic ^h distemper of a continuous fever confounded the distinction of the other diseases; and so powerful, varied, and heaped-up a burning was needed, that this one Rose might at last succumb to a fatal wasting; it is a wonder that she did not succumb sooner; but a most glorious kind of martyrdom it is to die slowly, nay joint by joint.

[397] The heaped-up piles of so many pains and diseases the serene and constant Rose esteemed and accepted which amid sweet sighs to God with resigned mind, as measured out to her by Christ's hand from that wonderful balance which she had most attentively observed in the vision of the bows, being secure that to such afflictions there would succeed as many heaps of graces — namely that eternal weight of glory of which the Apostle speaks, 2 Corinthians 4, whose name is Grace consummated. Hence that of hers amid the most bitter

torments a placid and sweet quiet of soul; hence that unbroken strength of confidence and hope which carried away many, and especially her spiritual fathers, into astonishment; hence those festive and winning soliloquies with her Beloved: "Lord, more, more: fulfill the adorable and holy good pleasure of your most just will; fill the balance, heap pains upon pains, but remember to increase my patience at the same time."

[398] She sighed from time to time, but without a groan: "Lord, come to my assistance: she most constantly endured, for without that I can do nothing." From time to time, when with pain of her sides she was driven to vomiting blood, she addressed her Spouse in a familiar rhythm of her own tongue: "Lord, only rebuke me not in your anger, nor reprove me in your fury, while you will that I wipe away my crimes with this gore." She was once heard to address with sweet tenderness the Crucifix, which she continually held in her embrace: "My Jesus, when I asked pains from you, I believed that those would be sent me with which from my earliest youth you exercised me; but now it has seemed otherwise to you: blessed be so copious an abundance of your mercy." To someone familiarly compassionating her on account of the rigid numbnesses of her paralysis, she answered with a wonderful serenity of face and mind that she had once treated with God about adopting a beggar boy whom she should educate in hope of propagating the Gospel among the barbarians (as was related above, chapter XXXIII), but that now two had been given her, of whom she had taken up one on her left knee and the other on her left arm to be carried and nourished. By this almost jest she pointed to the mass of her deadened knee and arm, upon which her paralysis had settled with a heavier weight.

[399] Gradually the wise Virgin somewhat feared (and not without cause) and in which she was always mistress of her mind, lest the continual and atrocious violence of so many diseases at once should snatch from her the use of reason and dissipate the whole balance of her brain; especially when so many days and nights plainly sleepless, so many vicissitudes of movements, so great an inflammation of the occiput, and so great an unquiet of the temples threatened almost certain darkness and an eclipse of judgment. And so humble Rose with trembling and tearful voice as suppliant besought the household to ask God with her that he would mitigate the force of the diseases at least in that part in which they could harm her mind and the free use of her reason. The divine kindness looked upon the humility of his little Handmaid, and by a peculiar prodigy preserved for her the whole vigor of a ready judgment and tongue immune, amid the constant faintings of an exhausted brain, until her last breath. Yet often amid these anguishes either the vehemence of her disease or an excess of contemplation drew the Virgin away from the use of her outward senses, so that she was thought to be gently lulled in sleep; whence it pleased some also to hope somewhat better of the sick girl's health, because they believed that she had slept a little.

[400] Beyond the rest her solicitous mother labored to persuade her Daughter that these were signs of returning health. But the Virgin, smiling and certain that she would die, replied she was forced to suffer the foreseen torment of thirst. that what they had seen was anything but sleep, and that her torments were not such as either could stand still for the truce of a single moment or could enter into even the slightest fellowship with sleep; accordingly let them not doubt that she would shortly be consummated, but that first this bitter cup of her passion must be drained by her to the very bottom for the love of her Spouse. The chief cupbearer of the cross, thirst, most savagely tortured — nay, scorched — Rose more vehemently day by day. And so, looking often upon Gonzalo's wife with a pitiable, downcast, tearful, languid, sorrowful gaze, she begged as suppliant that a little water be held out to her for refreshment, reckoning gall (to which she had long been accustomed) with vinegar as now among delights, if she could obtain it. The matron, although vehemently wounded by compassion, refused, saying that the physicians did not permit it to her. Rose pressed her: let her remember the faith given, by which four months before she had promised to her, when strong and well, that she would readily give as much water as she should demand in her last sickness. But the other excused herself, saying that she could not now fulfill her promise. Whence to the Virgin, torturingly parched, this alone remained: to cry out with her dying Spouse, I thirst.

ANNOTATIONS.

CHAPTER XXVIII.

The Saint's last illness, happy death, and the beautiful appearance of her corpse, and the great concourse of the people to it.

The Saint, having often confessed her sins, At length there came the acceptable time in which Rose, dried up by the burnings not so much of Sirius as of thirst, should put forth the thorns of her pains together with her life, to be reborn more pleasantly in the paradise of her Spouse. The deadly signs of her lying sick could no longer be dissembled, and they were most welcome to the Virgin, because by these, as by guarantors, a freer field was granted her, the care of the body being removed, for treating of her soul alone. Therefore, calling her confessors rather often, she expiated her most tender conscience most diligently by confession repeated several times: once indeed generally over her whole life; then more frequently, but more briefly, yet always accusing herself with sounding sobs and tears of an inward repentance; so that the groans heard pricked not a few, who wondered that a Virgin so sparing of groaning amid the greatest torments of her little body should now groan so bitterly and deeply in relating the lightest maladies of her mind.

[402] After these things, three days before her happy passing, with hands folded in the rite of supplication, she is fortified with the last Sacraments of the church, she asked with tearful voice for the divine Viaticum and Extreme Unction. When she heard that the Eucharistic banquet was being brought to her, being suffused with a lively color, she gracefully blushed like a flashing dawn; presently, unequal to her joy, she grew rigid in a most lofty ecstasy, ^a to the astonishment of all who were present, because nevertheless she answered aptly and readily the priest who, according to custom, holding the most sacred Host in his hand, asked what is wont to be asked in that article. Having received the divine Sacrament, pale and bloodless she stuck so fixed, with no movement even the least of her lips, that for a long time it was doubted among the bystanders whether she had passed the sacred Host into her stomach: at length Father Master de Lorenzana, fearing lest perhaps the Virgin, with her throat so dry and constricted by disease, could not swallow, asked solicitously in what state the matter was. Rose, suddenly restored to herself at her confessor's voice, answered that the most holy Host had now descended through her throat to her inner parts. But he, mindful of the admirable effects which this life-giving Sacrament was wont to work like a sun in the Virgin (as we related above at chapter XXII, she herself confessing it), most briefly exhorted her to enjoy now her Sun. Aptly; for on one and the same day in the zodiac the sun of the month of August was passing from the lion into the virgin, and the Eucharistic Sun, truly august, was for the last time filling the virgin Rose with his virginal body. Certainly this Virgin too was midway between disease and death, as between the lion and the balance: ^b for the one had, as a lion, so ground all her bones; the other was weighing out for the Virgin an eternal weight of glory in that balance of which chapter XVII. But to other matters.

[403] As motionless as she grew rigid while she received the sacred Viaticum in ecstasy, she professes the Catholic faith, so with a brisk service of all her senses did the dying girl receive Extreme Unction, truly an oil of gladness, by which she felt herself encouraged rather to a triumph than to the conflict of an agony, as being now so certain of salvation that she moreover knew that, without the touch of purgatorial fire, she would set out by a straight road to the nuptials of her Spouse. Often before those standing by she repeated with as loud and clear a voice as she could the profession of the orthodox faith, not without jubilation, and with almost a swan-song added, declaring that, as she had hitherto lived, so she was now dying a daughter of the holy Roman and universal Church: that she had always believed and did believe whatever the apostolic See, mistress of the faithful, proposes and teaches to be believed; that never (while she was mistress of herself) would she depart from the most solid firmness of this faith. Her next care was openly and devoutly to profess herself an offspring of her holy Father Dominic; whence she wished the white badge of her Order, which we call the scapular, to be continually and openly spread out before her outside upon the coverlets, both to see and to be seen, as the proper banner of the religious warfare under which she had served until her last breath: and this is that garment with which the Virgin Mother had wrapped the newborn Order of the Friars Preachers with her own hands, as in swaddling-clothes. ^c Further, Rose rejoiced when from Father Lorenzana her confessor she then first learned what she had never known, that this is a perpetual custom in the Order, that the sacred scapular is spread in that manner for dying religious. Hence Rose about to die kissed her scapular more tenderly, by which she felt as it were a milky way marked out for her to the empyrean seats.

[404] she forgives her adversaries or persecutors, Father Brother Bartholomew Martinez, prior of the convent of St. Mary Magdalene at Lima, a very religious man and there a watchful zealot for Dominican observance, to whom for five years the Virgin had been accustomed to open the hidden places of her conscience, had visited Rose when near death. By him the sick girl

with most humble prayers demanded that there be read out to her word for word a most exquisite and supremely efficacious formula by which she, dying, might beg pardon from God for all who in the course of her whole life had afflicted Rose with annoyances, injuries, or any kind of wrongs. The pious Father assented, and the Virgin followed the words of him who led the way, clasping in her hand an image of the Crucified; nor could she be satisfied with these most tender words: "Father, forgive them." At these she grew faint with the whole sweetness of her affections; at the repetition of these she burned to the marrow; nor was she wearied by the length of the prayer, provided she might return again and again to the same words. This office of piety being completed, she gently and sweetly gave thanks to the Father, because in a work so precious and serious he had by his reciting gone before her with a fitting method and way, by which she might in some fashion imitate the divine Lamb upon the cross praying at the last for his adversaries.

[405] she asks pardon in turn from all for her failings, Hence, turning back to herself, she humbly asked that the household of the treasurer Gonzalo be summoned; and although she had never offended any of them by a single word or the least nod, she begged of each and all with tearful and suppliant voice that it be forgiven her if in anything she had harmed any of them, whether by an ill-ordered example of manners, or by slowness in her services, or by the gloomy annoyance of singularity; she grieved that she would still be a burden to them for almost two days more, and asked that they be not willing near the end to lose the fruit of their long-suffering and the merit of their patience; that the hour was not far off which should free Gonzalo's house from the long disgust and useless weight of a stinking Rose. There was no one present from whom words of so great humility did not draw tears: for, that they should love their Rose most tenderly, it had been enough for each to have known her, and to have proved by such great experiences her sanctity, innocence, lowliness of mind, candor, and eagerness to serve.

[406] The treasurer knew that it was among the Virgin's wishes (inasmuch as she had lived under the habit and obedience of the Dominican Order) and asks for a place of burial with the Fathers Preachers. to be buried nowhere else than at the feet of her Brothers; but the prudent man feared lest perhaps after Rose's death disputes should arise between the parish and the convent of St. Dominic about the laying up of the treasure of so great a body; nor yet did he dare to disclose that honorable danger to the most humble Virgin. At length by an ingenious counsel he suggested to the Virgin that she should make known her lawful desire of obtaining burial among the Friars Preachers by begging rather than by bequeathing, through a writing already prepared by Gonzalo for this use. Rose readily consented and signed, thinking that it was a matter of an exercise of humility alone, and that this was the custom of her Order. Otherwise she did not so much as think about the care or the coffin of her body, being intent upon her spirit alone, so much so that she admitted the familiar visits of matrons more grudgingly than new increases of pains; since indeed, as she often asked with an honorable excuse that those be prevented, as burdensome and superfluous, so she rejoiced more and more that these be heaped up. Hence, amid the sharpest torments of her hips, that frequent utterance: "Burn, press, bind, Lord; do not spare; however much you prick or pinch, for my demerit it is little."

[407] Very many noted in the Virgin that by the same degrees by which her feeble little body was failing toward death, her spirit was raised in vigor and secure cheerfulness, Then she was carried into frequent ecstasies, so that she could not sufficiently dissemble by voice or face the almost hourly increases of her gladness, as though declaring with the Apostle: "When I am weak, then am I stronger." A certain religious man, compassionating her dire gripings, exhorted her to suffer bravely, saying that the end was now in sight, and that by this heat her soul was being happily purged of its crudity, so that it might delight the eternal palate of her Spouse. The Virgin answered: "But this is the very thing which I ask of my Spouse, that he should not cease to cook me thoroughly with exquisite burnings, until I ripen for him into a fruit which may deserve to be brought straight hence to his own table." Toward the end of her life the intervals of most sweet raptures were more frequent for the Virgin, in which she was already tasting beforehand with the tips of her lips the savors of the heavenly glory prepared for her. A few hours before her death, returning into herself from a foretaste of that kind, and unequal to her joys, she said frankly but secretly to Father Brother Francis Nieto, who was keeping watch there with others nearby: "Oh, Father! if the shortness of my remaining life permitted it, what lofty, what precious, pleasant, and exceptional things I should have to tell you about the sweetness of God, about his glad court, about the region of eternity! I go now with dancing to gaze forever upon that most beautiful face which through the whole exile of my pilgrimage I have sought, with the whole heat of my desires I have coveted."

[408] Her afflicted mother was present with her dying Daughter; her father was absent, and her parents having been summoned, whom his own infirmity, as he lay abed, kept at home; yet at the Virgin's request, who awaited the last blessing of both parents, he had himself carried to Gonzalo's house. Here at the first sight of his wasted and bloodless daughter there was a bursting into sobs and tears, nor was there in any of the bystanders such hardness of breast as the tenderness of that mournful spectacle did not soften into fellowship of weeping. Meanwhile, the cloud of weeping having somehow been dispelled, Rose placidly and with the utmost reverence kissed her parent's hand, and at the same time gently and calmly set forth that there now remained to her a very small part of the life which her parent had given; that at its last line she awaited with suppliant lowliness the blessing of both. When she had obtained this, looking with equal respect toward Gonzalo and his wife, since she had honored these too as second parents, she wished likewise to be fortified by their blessing for that arduous journey. Then, having called nearer her two brothers by blood who were present, she spoke a serious, grave, and sententious exhortation, and among other things most efficaciously commended to them a solicitous care, honor, and service of their parents; as though after the example of her crucified Spouse she had said: "Behold your mother." These things dispatched, she called both the treasurer's little daughters, whom on account of their innocence and upright disposition she had greatly loved; upon these she inculcated with wonderful energy the fear of God, zeal for virtue, and love of their parents, for whom they should busy themselves to procure a tranquil and glad old age. Nor with less emphasis did she address the rest of the household in order, fittingly admonishing each of duty and Christian piety; she seemed to be not a woman preaching, but an apostle.

[409] after pious admonitions she placidly dies. So great a spirit and vigor of preaching in Rose had persuaded Father Master de Lorenzana, her confessor, that she would at least not die that night. It was night, and the vigil of St. Bartholomew; ^d whence the confessor, about to be present at the solemn office of Matins at home, was preparing to depart to the convent, intending to return the next day. But the Virgin, knowing that not four whole hours then remained to her, earnestly demanded from him a last blessing, as being about to depart to the Lord a little afterward. But when he answered that this could more conveniently be deferred to the next day, that there would be no lack of time, that he would be present early enough the next morning, Rose, smiling gravely and modestly, added: "Know, my Father, that this night, with the beginning of S. Bartholomew's feast, ^e I shall depart to the everlasting feasts: I have already been invited from heaven to that splendid and solemn banquet, the hour has already been fixed, and do you not wish that I should go while the doors stand open?" These things she uttered with a face so serene and gracious, with a tranquility so secure and cheerful, as though she were already waiting in the vestibule of paradise with her lamp, until at midnight a cry should be made: Behold, the Bridegroom comes. And in truth, when midnight came, Rose felt herself summoned by this cry; with a most placid nod she asked for a blessed candle, and with the sign of the cross, as though about to undertake a great thing, she fortified her brow, mouth, and breast. To her brother by blood, still doubting what was happening, she signed that she was departing, and bade the pillow be drawn away, so that, with her head leaning against the bare wood of the couch, she might feel that she was dying upon the cross: finally, with her senses plainly entire, with full judgment, with her eyes fixed on heaven, with no sign, not the least, of dread or horror in her face, while she pronounced these last words, Jesus, Jesus, may Jesus be with me, she most quietly expired. Doubtless, as Rose in infancy had begun her first formula of praying from these words, so, dying upon these very words, she carried back unchanged to the threshold of the heavenly fatherland as it were the token of her innocence and childlike simplicity, the fifth month of her thirty-second year being scarcely begun.

[410] At the dawn of that same festal night Aloysia de Serrano, far off in her parents' house and wrapped in morning sleep, learned Soon after her death she appears to a certain woman in splendor, that Rose had then laid aside with S. Bartholomew the spoils of mortality. Between them there had been a compact that whichever should first depart from this light should, God permitting, inform the other of her passing. Rose stood by her promises, and on that very night, sweetly waking Aloysia in the form of a flashing light, indicated that she had then gone on to the region of light. But let a more copious discourse about Rose's luminous apparitions after her death be reserved for the Appendix. We must return here to the virginal corpse of Rose, which was believed to breathe when it had ceased to breathe. The lively color of her face, her reddening little lips slightly parted as though into a sweet smile, her eyes whole and shining with a bright pleasantness, long made Rose's death doubtful to those present, until, a mirror being applied, it became known that no breath remained in her. With Rose, as this was the last use of a mirror, so it was the first.

[411] While the pliant corpse is clothed, while it is fitted upon the bier, and affected the household rather with wonderful joy than with grief, while, sprinkled with flowers, it is carried out into the front chamber, her mother looking on, there was pressed upon all a mournful license of lamenting; nor yet did it please any of those present to indulge in laments: since indeed by a sudden prodigy a certain hidden sense of gladness so pervaded all that the whole house by an unhoped-for metamorphosis seemed to swell with devout solaces and almost to float upon a nuptial joy. What happened to her mother has already been related above at the end of chapter III. The same goad of inward and secret gladness clung to the rest of Gonzalo's household, the same to the strangers, as many as were present. Altogether nineteen freeborn persons, besides the household slaves of both sexes, had stood around the little bed of the dying Rose in sorrowful silence, and when the Virgin gave up her spirit, each found herself driven of her own accord from lament into applause by a certain hidden sweetness of spirit. One of those present, as she had seen the pallet of the expiring Rose surrounded by a numerous crown of angels, so she noted that now about the bier of the dead woman the same were dancing most festively with alternating concert. The same woman confessed secretly to the treasurer's wife that the very ample hall in which Rose's corpse lay exposed had gleamed wholly on every side with a luminous inflowing of heavenly glory; she asserted upon oath that it had been revealed by Christ to a certain religious person three days before Rose's happy passing that the Virgin's death would be admirable and her burial glorious; and moreover that he had forbidden that mourning cloths dyed with black color be placed about the Virgin's funeral, but white, snowy, festal ones, and such as should indicate not obsequies but a triumph. Finally the prodigious sympathy of rejoicing so far prevailed that, while the dawn of the shining day was awaited, some devout women there most freely delighted themselves by turns with the sonorous singing of sacred hymns, declaring that there was room there not for a dirge but for jubilation.

[412] At length a brighter day dawned, and behold, the treasurer's mansion was suddenly full with a concourse of people, and at once so great a multitude of the people though no one had called them. The household wondered whence, or in what way, the news of the dead woman

of Rose, still warm, could have been spread through the whole city at so untimely an hour. Nor could public criers, if sent out street by street, have filled the marketplaces and crossways with stentorian shouts and gathered so dense a people in the early morning as of their own accord flowed together from every street to Gonzalo's house, stirred by no human diligence. Among the first there was present that most grave man Father de Lorenzana, and, beholding Rose on the bier like one sleeping, he could not restrain his voice from openly exclaiming: "Blessed the parents who begot you! blessed the hour which received you at your birth! blessed are you by the Lord, most happy daughter of Dominic, who now enjoy the beatific face of your Creator! You have died as you lived; you have brought into heaven your baptismal grace never interrupted by any deadly fault, the spotless innocence of your whole life, the childlike purity of a virginal whiteness: follow, follow now the Lamb wherever he goes."

[413] flows of its own accord to her corpse, Meanwhile the noble and ignoble, strangers and citizens, Indians and Spaniards, poured about indiscriminately, vied in applying rosaries to the holy little body, and plucked away here and there the little flowers strewn upon the religious garment of her who lay there; one strove to kiss her hand, another her feet in haste; nor were there wanting those who by a pious theft assailed with ready scissors the hem of her tunic on this side and the ends of her veil on that, now secretly, now openly, so that shortly there was need of guards against a rapacious devotion. Those who had stopped farther off clung fixed upon Rose's snowy and gracious face, which a flowery crown and the whiteness of her veil most beautifully commended. The familiar matrons had tried several times, by drawing down the eyelids, to cover the eyes of the dead Virgin; but in vain: for they gradually returned to where they had been drawn from, and covered only the middle of the eyes: as though the Virgin loved even after death sweetly to gaze upon her people of Lima with dove-like pupils.

[414] so that the house had to be guarded with armed soldiers. The multitude of those running up grew, and with the multitude the importunity, so that neither did the doors of the house lie open wide enough for those rushing in crowded together, nor did those about to depart find an exit in so great a pressure. The confused throng had filled the whole hall, the passages, and the corners, so that Gonzalo had to open the back door of his house, so that by another way those might unwind themselves who were yielding place to those coming. For a while that remedy availed, until on that side too the inflow, most eager for the spectacle, began to attempt entrance, which gave room neither for the more distinguished persons to be let in nor to be let out. Therefore the most excellent viceroy of the kingdom of Peru swiftly appointed thither the praetorian cohort of his armed guard, and ordered them to stand at the gates of the house, lest the disordered collision of so many columns should blaze up into a tumult. The whole city wondered that it should so greatly of its own accord be moved as a whole to honor the funeral of a most poor Virgin, the humble daughter of obscure parents, and one who, while she lived, had so hidden herself from the eyes, knowledge, and applause of all; but that had to be fulfilled which had been foretold from heaven, that her burial would be glorious.

ANNOTATIONS.

POSTHUMOUS GLORY, FROM VARIOUS MONUMENTS WHICH LAWFULLY CONFIRMED THE COMMON OPINION OF THIS VIRGIN'S SANCTITY.

Rose, virgin, of the third Order of S. Dominic, at Lima in Peru, a province of America (S.)

By Leonard Hansen, FROM PRINTED SOURCES.

CHAPTER ONE

Posthumous glory from her honorable obsequies, from the later translation of her sacred body, and from its solicitous preservation.

§ I. So great and so confused a concourse of the people to the funeral of this holy Virgin that her burial had to be deferred to the following day.

The report of her death being spread through the city, It had already become known to all Lima, with rumor trumpeting it, that Rose's corpse was to be carried out toward evening from the treasurer's house to the tomb; and behold, some hours beforehand a poured-out multitude of the people had filled the streets, marketplaces, and quarters along which the way lay. The streets, spacious and ample in proportion to the city's dignity (from the treasurer's dwelling to the sacred church of the Preachers it was a journey of about a thousand paces), nevertheless did not sufficiently hold the numerous populace, gathered in good time along all the crossways; whom neither a crier nor the lofty bells of the churches, but each one's own singular devotion had invited.

[2] The most illustrious archbishop of Lima had come forth to bestow the honor of his presence upon the funeral procession, the prelate of Lima with his chapter, the religious Orders, but, despairing of struggling as far as Gonzalo's house through the densest myriads of onlookers, and the passage having been attempted in vain, he preferred to turn aside to the church of Lord Dominic and there to await the virginal funeral at the doors. Meanwhile, no otherwise than for a public supplication, the pious confraternities of various titles flowed together in long columns and by different ways to the treasurer's house, no one either bidding or asking or offering a fee. There came forth also the Orders of religious mendicants under their distinct banners; ^a presently the metropolitan chapter too was there of its own accord, beyond expectation and custom, since otherwise it is never wont (save when its own archbishop is carried out) to take part in the burying of bodies.

[3] Finally there came the most ample court of the senators to a service which it has scarcely been accustomed to render to any other save its own deceased viceroys. and the senate come together for the funeral pomp; Of the rest, who had flowed together with the same spontaneous devotion, the reckoning or number of illustrious men of every equestrian order could not be taken in the crowded multitude; and for all there was one argument of astonishment, that they saw themselves gathered there whither no one had summoned them. The same was the ambitious piety and ardor for seeing of the matrons and the rest of the female sex: wherever the funeral procession was to be led, on both sides numerous faces of onlookers had occupied the windows, balconies, and arches of the mansions and houses; from every quarter, from the porticoes, walls, and lattices, a hundred and a thousand eyes gaped from afar upon the coming spectacle; the very roofs of the houses, gently sloping, showed black from afar beneath the unwarlike and populous throng of every age. So great a matter, forsooth, it was that the poor daughter of an obscure and scarcely known soldier should be carried out to burial. Certainly never at any other time was all Lima seen to be so stirred.

[4] and they bear the sacred body by turns At length there came forth toward evening from Gonzalo's opened doors the funeral bier of the precious pledge, beneath which the metropolitan chapter first placed voluntary shoulders, with that service of honor which it is wont to render to deceased archbishops alone. Thence, when the first street had been traversed with grave and slow step, they came to a crossroads, where, the bier being set down, the senate of the secular court succeeded in the bearing of the pious burden. After this the chief men of the religious Orders most devoutly took it upon their shoulders, dividing the turns by streets and by the boundaries of the crossways. On both sides the armed guards of the most excellent viceroy protected the flanks of the bearers, both to open the ways by force and shouting through the dense multitude, and also to protect the virginal corpse from the devout rapacity of the people demanding relics: for as each in the tumult acclaimed Rose a Saint, so the more violent and stronger gaped everywhere at the coffin, eager and ready to pluck thence whatever they could, had not the halberds of the spearmen been set as a hedge.

[5] Certainly if this most covetous throng had been permitted what it pleased, to the church of the Fathers Preachers, there was danger lest a very small part, or none, of the sacred little body should reach the church. Nor yet, under so watchful and iron a guard, could it be prevented that, when they came to the doors of the church, portions of the garments, the crown, and the palm should be noted as lacking to the corpse, and that others had to be replaced there for those taken away. While upon the threshold of the church (which Rose while still mortal had trodden so diligently) she was set down, dead, for the sprinkling of lustral water, to some the virginal face seemed to grow cheerful with a new pleasantness — rosy in the snowy whiteness of the veil, and more beautiful in the bright serenity of her most pure clothing, flexible in neck and whole body, so that it was almost cried out: "The girl is not dead, but sleeps."

[6] When she had been carried into the greater chapel, a tomb raised by steps from the pavement received her; where so great a throng of the people ran together, but by a more illustrious portent the Virgin Mother of God seemed there to have received her Rose; for at almost the same moment, in another chapel, the face of the prodigious image which has its name from the Rosary suddenly gleamed with splendor, in the sight of all who had stood nearer. Presently a torrent of a vast people flowed thither, and, midway between dread and joy, openly dissolves into tears; the cry of suppliants grows strong, so that there were not wanting those who suspected that the image had moreover grown wet with a portentous sweat; but the matter having been more diligently explored, it was found that they were nothing but pure splendors, but unwonted, festive, kindly, with which the Queen of virgins herself publicly applauded the Virgin.

[7] But we must return to Rose, now more notable in her tomb, so that the obsequies could scarcely be celebrated, and shining again with a reciprocal sweetness of kindled countenance: for hither the whole backflow of the people pressed; but opportunely the Fathers of the convent, graver in dignity and age, had seated themselves around the tomb, both lest that treasure should be plundered, and that they might in seemly order bring near to it the feeble and maimed who were approaching with no vain hope of obtaining a cure. But of these in the Appendix. ^b A little farther off the spearmen of the viceroy's bodyguard had taken their stand, to hold back, if they could, the confused mass of the rushing people. Yet they scarcely could: for so great was the force of those pressing that the singers of the funeral dirge had to struggle up onto the step of the altar, in order somehow to complete the mournful office with the accustomed chant.

[8] There were present at the funeral rite the archbishop of Lima, the royal senate, and the burial of the virginal corpse, which they call the audience, the metropolitan and curial colleges, the prelates of the regulars, and a conspicuously numerous nobility of the equestrian order. And so, all things being arranged,

when the Office of burial had to be begun, by which Rose's body should be carried out from the church to the grave prepared in the chapter hall, suddenly through all the corners of that most spacious church there resounded so great a shouting of the mixed multitude, so wild and tearful a howling of those entreating, that from fear of confusion and tumult they had to desist and to refrain from the funeral procession, the people being informed that the burial of that most dear pledge was deferred until the following day.

[9] Under the solace of this promise and of a sure hope, many were persuaded to withdraw home, intending on the next day to return more conveniently to the spectacle of the tomb. Thus, the plebeian crowd having slipped away in columns and by degrees, a free approach began to be opened to the nobles, and space to draw nearer to the venerable body of God's Handmaid which still seemed to breathe, and to kiss her most innocent hands. Meanwhile the curious multitude again grew, and again impetuous troops were massed about the tomb; and when the archbishop saw them, by gesture and signs (for his voice could not be heard for the loud noise) he signed to the Fathers to carry the Virgin's body into the sacristy.

[10] her burial had to be deferred again to the following day. But not even there was it safe enough, the crowd following and pressing. Therefore it had to be carried to safer recesses shut off by several doors beneath the inner rooms of the novices, the archbishop accompanying with a few; the columns of followers pressed on, about to do violence to the doors, had not a wedge of religious and reverence for the place intervened. At length even from there it was carried into the last oratory of the simple novices, and there it passed the night under watchmen appointed by the Prior. Here at last the archbishop, solitude sharpening his pious fervor, fell upon his knees, several times fixed devout kisses upon the Virgin's hand, which he reverently took, and felt it pliant not only at the joint but in each of the joints of the fingers, as though she were alive. There were present some of the senatorial order, and they counted it great happiness to be able there to kiss on their knees the hem of her virginal habit; nor was there in any of these such firmness of breast as could restrain tears.

ANNOTATIONS.

§ II. On the next day the departure of the common people cunningly procured; after it the clandestine burial of the sacred corpse, and the obsequies afterward repeated more solemnly.

On the next day again in the church The next day, at the coming of the gray morning twilight, the guards, being bidden, brought back the venerable pledge from the novices' dwelling into the greater chapel of the church, where it had stood the day before, and raised it upon the resting-place of that same tomb. Then, the doors of the church being opened, the people admitted rushed in like a wave; they filled crowded together all the rails, benches, platforms, and seats; each thought himself happy if anywhere he could occupy a station in a higher place. But when the bronze bell earlier than usual gave the signal for the funeral Mass and the solemn Office of obsequies, suddenly the remaining space of that most capacious church was too narrow for those coming in: for not only the inhabitants (as on the day before), but also the more distant neighbors, had run up from six leagues and more, no one inviting them. The viceroy's guards again stood round; but they, if the day before they could scarcely restrain the assault of the populace, on this day could scarcely even do that.

[12] Every age and sex vied in pressing for approach; one held out beads of prayer, a huge tumult of the people arose, another waxen amulets of the Agnus Dei, another a napkin, a coin, little crowns, and whatever dear thing was at hand, in supplication, from afar or close by, that they might touch the sacred body. Hence a crowd of the languishing, or of those pitiable from a defect of maimed body, demanded access almost with quarreling, that by handling the bier they might lay hold of the hoped-for health; thence infants were sent aloft over the heads of those standing in the way to the health-bringing touch of the sacred corpse. Nor was so great a caution, watching, and guard of soldiers and religious sufficient to prevent the veils, hair, and garments of the dead Rose from being several times plucked away bit by bit by the more skillful, on the pretext of catching relics; so much so that before her burial she had to be entirely reclothed six times. Thereafter the whole care was to save that lifeless little body, lest before burial it should be torn apart by importunate pluckings: for it had already been noted that one finger was lacking to it, cut off secretly — whether by steel or by a bite, it is not clear.

[13] Amid these commotions, the monks being gathered into the choir, they proceed to the solemn sacrifice of the Mass, so that the funeral Mass could not be heard. the most illustrious Lord Peter de Valencia, bishop of Guatemala, ^a assisting in pontifical ornaments, who had come, admitted through the back door of the sacristy (for the approach through the church filled with the multitude did not lie open), to perform with his own hands after the Mass the Office of burial. The church resounded on every side with the continual voices of those proclaiming Rose a Saint, so that neither did the people outside hear the choir of religious singing, nor did the voice of the priest or of the ministers of the altar reach the choir: by a stroke and by little bells a signal was given to the choir when it had to answer the priest; but all was in vain, the shouting of the laypeople prevailing: at last the singers had to leave the choir and surround the very altar where the sacrifice was being offered, so that at close quarters they might in turn hear and be heard. Thus with difficulty at last, amid the sonorous noises of the church, the divine mysteries were completed as it were in a certain tuneful silence and by the nod of the rites. Then the prelate, having come forth from his throne to the bier, performed with seemly pomp the ceremonies of incense and of lustral sprinklings amid the accustomed measures of psalms and responsories, as though presently to gird himself for the last procession of carrying out and burying the sacred little body.

[14] But again the crowded throng groaned with new and stronger shouts; Then the common people, deceived by signs, readily believed again with a thickened wedge there was a rushing from every side upon the platform of the tomb; some most importunately strove for the last time to touch their Rose; others to give last kisses to her hands, if they could, or to her garments; others at least to salute her from afar with a last look; again there was labor under the eager rubbing of so many rosaries, crosses, and coins; again the Virgin's habit was assailed with scissors. Therefore the prudent prelate, in fear of further violence at hand, turning to the Prior and the graver Fathers, warned that the present danger must be averted by this second postponement of the burial; that the time by no means seemed to him fit in which that sacred corpse could be brought down whole into the grave through so many masses and hands of men. The Fathers assented to the counsel, and at once by nod, signs, and voices the crowd was persuaded that Rose's burial was of set purpose reserved, by the pleasure of the most illustrious prelate, for a more convenient hour. The throng received this announcement with most grateful ears, especially when it saw the bishop, having wholly laid aside his pontifical ornaments, mount his carriage and hasten home.

[15] that the burial of the corpse had again been postponed, There favored the confirming of the popular belief a public argument from the constant beauty and miraculous sweet fragrance of the virginal corpse — two things which as it were gave surety that there would be no danger of deformity or corruption or stench, even if the burial should be deferred for several days more. Thus far Rose's appearance in death lay open unchanged to the eyes of all, such as it had been from the first moment of her breathing out her spirit; for thirty-six hours there had remained the same comeliness of a most placid face, loveliness of lips, lively brightness of her half-open eyes, and whiteness of her hands; amid so many fumigations, breaths, and lights, in air so damp, warm, and dusty from the ebb and flow of those thronging together, no soot had settled upon Rose's face, no yellowness or dreadful pallor had stained her cheeks; in her jaws, in her nostrils, in her eyelids there was nothing flabby, discolored, sad, or emaciated; there had continued the same pliancy of her flexible limbs, the same pleasantness of her snowy face; in short, she seemed still not dead but asleep.

[16] and departs home in this hope. Further, the wonderful fragrance of a heavenly odor which breathed from the sacred little body did not cease even in the sepulchre; for after nineteen months (as will be narrated in the following chapter), when Rose was disinterred, she kept and breathed upon those present the same odor which indeed on the day of her burial some perceived as most like that of roses, others as composed as it were from a mixture of lilies, roses, balsams, and a whole gathering of flowers; but the wiser judged it loftier and sweeter than these, and to us, exiles of paradise, strange and unknown. Hence the people, now secure of the postponement, as noon drew near, streamed away from the church to their own houses. The church being somehow emptied, the doors were according to custom drawn to and made fast with bolts; nor could a more opportune hour for burying Rose be hoped for than that in which the whole convent of religious was supposed regularly to be dining. And so, when there was that little freedom from incursions, suddenly a funeral procession is arranged; the bells are silent, but the Brothers chant with subdued singing; the precious remains of the virgin Rose are carried into the chapter house; there, laid in a chest prepared of cedar, they are shut in with iron nails on every side; finally the grave is stopped up, and baked bricks, bound with tenacious lime, are laid over it. Thus at length, Rose's remains being placed in safety, and every rite of prayers and hymns having been performed according to the rubric of the Order, they went to their refreshment.

[17] But meanwhile it had been secretly buried, But the wave of the people did not long stand still, but after noon, as though from a truce, flowed more copiously to the church. But when, having sought there, it saw with its eyes that the dear pledge was absent, it rushed in troops into the colonnaded court ^b of the cloister, filled the chapter house, and, acclaiming Rose a Saint with most unrestrained shouting, since it could do no more, vied in carrying off the dust of the sepulchre and the earth in place of relics. Thence, in a continual train and traffic of carriages, for a month and more the more illustrious persons set out to Rose's father's house, to see and venerate the garden cell which the Virgin had inhabited from her zeal for solitude; inquiry was made everywhere with Rose's parents and with the treasurer Gonzalo whether any of her utensils, cloths, or most poor furnishings could be obtained, to be preserved in grateful memory.

[18] The devout frequency of the people about the sepulchre was increased by daily growth on account of the exceptional benefits of cures which openly multiplied thence; and the obsequies were repeated more quietly nor did it seem that satisfaction had been given to the honors due to so great a Virgin, so long as the more solemn obsequies (at which the viceroy himself had demanded to be present) had not yet been celebrated. For these, therefore, the 27th of August was appointed, as the day which seemed less hindered by his business for the viceroy. But because this was a Sunday, which (except for one presently deceased) ought not easily to be interrupted with mournful Offices, at the archbishop's urging a nearer and less hindered day is chosen. But this then was not free for the viceroy; and so, the day having been changed several times between him and the archbishop, at last both suddenly agree upon the fourth of the following September — which afterward was so much the more pleasing to both when they understood that this day, by the reckoning of the Roman Calendar, is dedicated to the anniversary honor of another S. Rose, of Viterbo, ^c and that they had lighted upon it in concord not by human counsel but by a divine impulse.

[19] Both were therefore present on the appointed day with the whole magistracy, both ecclesiastical and secular. on the fourth day of September, Again the whole city, moved from its seats, filled the church of St. Dominic. There a sermon was preached about the wonderful life and the praises of happy Rose; the ministry of the altar was performed with funeral pomp: the sorrowful absence of the sacred corpse tempered the sonorous unquiet of the confused people; but nonetheless briskly they went to their prayers, and while at the altar the priest commended the dead woman to the kind Godhead, with no unequal voice the people commended themselves to Rose.

[20] While these things were being done at Lima, the most celebrated report of Rose on which occasion this virgin's sanctity became known everywhere. with swift course passed through the towns, villages, and boroughs of almost the whole kingdom; everywhere with festive applause and signs of public gladness the new Citizen of the heavens was acclaimed. Potosí, three hundred leagues distant from Lima, had until then not known Rose even by name; but when it perceived the Virgin's blessed passing, it suddenly by a loftier impulse boiled up wholly into a common rush of congratulation; the bronze bells sounded in the towers, lights gleamed, voices and recitals of her praises grew frequent. Thus everywhere the region of Peru (even where Rose, while she lived, was utterly unknown) celebrated her dead with universal jubilation, acclamation, and prayers, because all in the popular manner promised themselves from her solace, protection, and intercession. Nor did their pious confidence deceive them, as will be summarily recounted in the Appendix.

ANNOTATIONS.

§ III. By the order of the archbishop of Lima, after a year and some months, her relics are solemnly translated to a more honorable and more conspicuous place.

Since S. Rose's body rested in a place too hidden; The last obsequies having been performed so magnificently and splendidly, it was believed that the people would gradually cease from thronging and importunity, as most things are wont to grow faint with the passage of time; but the contrary happened: for the very celebrity and multitude of the miracles daily summoned more and more to visit Rose's sepulchre. Nay, a common complaint murmured through the whole city that the Virgin's sacred little body was placed in a spot too hidden, where, on account of the laws of the enclosure, it could be visited neither at all hours nor by both sexes. Gradually the nobles and the chief men judged the same as the complaining common people; at length the prelates of the churches, the superiors of the regulars, the senators, and others of loftier note came by private votes to this opinion: that the constant wishes of both neighbors and inhabitants must at some time be yielded to; that serious thought must now at last be given to the translation of that precious pledge to a more celebrated place; that Rose, the common treasure of the people of Lima, the solace of the pious, the remedy of the afflicted, was owed to the public.

[22] by order of the archbishop of Lima But the dutiful judgment of the archbishop of Lima had to be awaited. He, being informed of the state of the matter and of the most ardent zeal of all, at once on the same 27th day of February 1619 ordered a decree of this tenor to be issued: "Before the most illustrious Lord Bartholomew Lobo Guerrero, archbishop of Lima, councillor of the royal majesty, etc., the petition was read and inspected, etc. He said that, having regard to the reasons therein related and to the universal and public acclamation with which in this whole city and kingdom Rose of S. Mary, a nun of the third Order of S. Dominic, is proclaimed a Saint, he granted the faculty of translating her body from the sepulchre which it now occupied into another seemly place within the church of S. Dominic, where it shall seem best to Father Master Brother Augustine de Vega, Provincial of the said Order. Signed by the same Lord bishop before me, doctor Ferdinand Vecerril. Free of charge."

[23] in the year 1619 still uncorrupted Therefore for the act of translation the very vigil of the holy patriarch Joseph is appointed, namely the 18th day of March; for the fabric of the new tomb with its adornment could not be finished sooner. As the Virgin's death had by several symbols expressed the death of Christ expiring on the cross, so also that her sepulchre would be glorious had long before been revealed. But now also a certain image of the Lord's resurrection came to life again; for as Christ had lain in the tomb for part of the sixth day, the whole Sabbath, and the beginning of the Lord's day, so Rose had rested in the sepulchre for part of the year 1617, the whole year 1618, and the beginning of the year 1619; in which it had also been granted her not to see corruption, and her body came forth thence as fragrant as it had entered. Only her virginal hands, worn a thousand times by so many kisses of the faithful (and perhaps assailed on every side by the steel or the teeth of the greedy), had lost something of their first whiteness.

[24] These things were noted by those who on the very day of the translation, early in the morning, dug up Rose's corpse and transferred it from the old wooden coffin into a new one, is translated with solemn pomp, likewise of cedar, but gilded within and without, and fortified with a double lock. And so, all things being duly ordered, on the day mentioned above, the household assembly of the religious, escorted on every side by a most numerous band of the other regulars, proceeded straight from the choir to the chapter house, the banner of the cross going before with a quaternion of acolytes and two thuribles, the Provincial following in a sacred double cope ^a with the sacred ministers, likewise richly robed.

[25] There was present a little afterward the archbishop with his people, accompanied by the ordinary judge of the Holy Office, Lord Felician de Vega, metropolitan canon, with illustrious men accompanying, and by the archbishop's vicar general. The prayers having been recited according to custom, and the sprinkling and incensing given, six priests in linen vestments, adorned with stoles and maniples, raised the cedar chest upon their shoulders; they went to the church, which was hung from top to bottom with purple hangings, all-silken tapestries, and veils of fine linen. The archbishop pressed upon the footsteps of the bearers, then the other nobles and illustrious men in order. When beneath the doors of the church the gilded coffin came into the sight of the mixed multitude, a festive shout resounded to the stars on every side, and the confused cries of those applauding, weeping, and imploring took away all hearing of the rest of the ecclesiastical chant. While the sarcophagus is raised before the chief altar upon a lofty tomb sumptuously adorned for this use, the archbishop sat down on his throne at the Gospel side; the Provincial, having taken the chasuble, approached the altar with his ministers to officiate; the precentors and singers began the measures of the symphony from the galleries arranged for them; but the people, intent only upon touching the Virgin's coffin with images and rosaries, labored about the tomb. Thirty waxen torches occupied its circuit; and about the coffin there stood, step by step, in twenty-nine silver candlesticks, as many two-pound candles; finally the whole framework of the structure ^b was covered by wall-hangings ^c of Phrygian work and by coverlets broadly fringed with swelling gold. In short, this whole scene seemed to be not so much of a funeral as of a triumph.

[26] After the Gospel had been chanted, there appeared in a higher pulpit the eloquent preacher, and after various ceremonies about to speak to the people. This was Father Master Brother Luis de Bilbao, chief professor of the university of Lima and censor in the Holy Office, who, as he had for several years received Rose's confessions, so had explored more than the rest her spirit, exercises, hidden lights, and the favors of her Spouse. You would have seen all at once grow rigid and motionless with ears pricked; and in the throng of so wordy a multitude a sudden silence represented the quiet of a deserted solitude, from the most ardent zeal alone of listening. There was spoken of the Virgin's baptismal innocence never violated by any mortal offense, of the unimpaired flower of her most pure modesty, of the austere hardness of her penal exercises, of her wonderful illuminations, of her seraphic ardors, and of whatever could be compressed within the compendium of an hour's sermon. Rare were those whom during the sermon the presence of the sacred corpse and the fresh and living memory of her deeds did not prick to the marrow; from many too tears flowed; by all, the name of Rose repeated in the pulpit was received with an open but silent gesture of reverence.

[27] it is placed in a more conspicuous place. The panegyric being finished and the solemn Sacrifice at the altar completed, the archbishop, taking the pontifical habit, went with crozier and miter to the tomb, with the sacred ministers and four of the worthier of the metropolitan chapter about him. The rest of the rite of prayers, antiphons, and psalms having been performed there, the Provincial with the other prelates of the religious Orders (a priestly stole clothing each) received upon their shoulders the coffin lowered from the tomb; and thus, the archbishop standing by, and the magistracy of the various tribunals and of the civil court standing round, it was carried into its own crypt to the right of the high altar, skillfully wrought for this use, which, being wholly overlaid with gold within, gave back the brightness which it received from the lights in its arched hollow. The same was fortified outside by an iron grating likewise gilded, and as open to the sight of the enclosed pledge as it was narrow and hostile to its plundering. Truly that nothing more welcome could have befallen the devout people than this translation, the concourse testified, which thereafter, as it was freer, so was daily more numerous; so much so that at length another translation had to be thought of, lest the ministries of the nearby high altar should be daily disturbed by the immodest concourse of the peoples, whom partly veneration, partly the frequency of miracles and graces drew.

ANNOTATIONS.

§ IV. On account of the excessive throng of the people the place of burial is again changed, and the public cult of the common people prudently hindered on account of the decree of Urban VIII.

[The place of the tomb is again changed on account of the crowds of the common people,] S. Jerome declared that he was for a while passing from altar to altar, when from his treatise on the altar of incense ^a he passed to writing his eighth letter to the virgin Demetrias. ^b The same seemed to be the feeling of those running to the virgin Rose: for from the greatest altar they were suddenly turned to the Virgin's nearby sepulchre, as to a second altar. Here there was a perpetual tumult of those offering vows, hanging up votive offerings, laying down crutches and staves: in short, other counsel had to be taken for the reverence of the sacred tabernacle standing on the high altar, lest to this the backs of those clinging to the Virgin's sepulchre should constantly be turned — which also incommoded the space of the presbytery: since indeed in the Order of Preachers this is wont to be built at the Epistle side (as they call it). Therefore for the placing of Rose's remains another and at last more convenient place was chosen: namely, that very

chapel of B. Catherine of Siena, far enough removed from the greatest altar toward the left. It seemed that this bosom of her seraphic Mother was owed for rest to so like a Daughter — if indeed it was to be called rest, about which so great noises and shouts of the devout populace daily resounded, though with less hindrance to the ecclesiastical rites, for which alone the space of the high altar had to be entirely free.

[29] Meanwhile apostolic letters arrived at Lima, by which the authorized commissary judges erected there a new tribunal after the formula prescribed by the sacred Congregation of Rites, and lawfully appointed judges for the purpose of examining witnesses concerning the life and deeds of the handmaid of God, sister Rose of St. Mary. And so a beginning was made of the examination in the year 1630, on the 17th day of May; but on account of the multitude of witnesses (there were a hundred and eighty-three) and various hindrances of delay, the inquiry lasted until May of the year 1632: for the completion of which there remained, according to custom, the visitation of the coffin and relics of God's Handmaid. Therefore there were deputed as inspectors John de Texeda and John de Vega, doctors of medicine, John de Valenzuela and Bartholomew de Tivico, secretaries, with Aloysius de Molina, surgeon.

[30] These, in the presence of Father Master Brother Gabriel de Zarate, then Provincial, examine the Saint's fragrant body, having opened the wooden chest, found the virginal little body, almost the fifteenth year after her death being completed, with its garments consumed on every side, but with the bones entire and still covered here and there with dry flesh. Further, they breathed out an odor, not such as is wont to be of corpses, but that with which Roses dried in the sun are fragrant. Yet the first of the physicians swore that at the same time it breathed forth a peculiar sweet fragrance, which not only wonderfully refreshed the smell of those present, but also suffused their minds with an unforeseen solace and soothed all with a hidden sense of devotion.

[31] Hence the same inspectors went to the chapter hall, to examine the Virgin's first sepulchre, and they visit her first sepulchre. from which the faithful vied in drawing dust for driving away various kinds of diseases. There each in turn, putting in his hand, explored the hollow depth of the small pit, from which only four or five pounds of earth seemed to have been dug out or carried away. For the rest, it was established from elsewhere by very many testimonies that several bushels of dust had until then been dug out of that very hole (which alone lay open, where the head of the dead Virgin had lain), and had been variously distributed through the kingdom. Whence there was no slight conjecture that, as to S. Raymond's, ^c so also to Rose's old sepulchre this had been divinely granted, that in place of the dust removed, other should perpetually spring up by a continual welling.

[32] It happened at length in the year 1640 that the Procurator general of the Order of Preachers in the Roman court, On account of the decree of Urban VIII the public cult is hindered, by private letters written to Lima, admonished the Fathers that the most exact account must be had of the apostolic Constitution of Urban VIII issued in the year 1634, on the 5th day of July, which begins: The citizens of the heavenly Jerusalem, etc. ^d The Fathers grieved that for almost the whole space of six years no copy at all — nay, not even the slenderest report — of a Constitution of this kind had until that day become known to the people of Lima: but what wonder, at so great a distance of regions, and through so many fleets of enemies, ambushes of pirates, and frequent hazards of shipwrecks? Nevertheless the Fathers, judging that they must obey suddenly at least at the first sight of that private letter, according to the norm of the said Constitution, abolished that very night whatever perhaps seemed to savor of an untimely cult of the venerable Rose.

[33] and the inhabitants of Lima were with difficulty persuaded, This sudden change seemed intolerable on the next day to the devout people; it sought Rose, its refuge and solace, in the accustomed place; it demanded back from holy Catherine of Siena this second Catherine of Lima; the chapel is filled with complaints, and — such as is the rashness of the common people, under the pretext of piety, in suspecting and judging — it is spread abroad that Rose's venerable remains had either been stolen by theft without the Fathers' knowledge, or, with their knowledge, secretly sent off to Spain. Thence the credulous and ignorant multitude is thickened by a concourse; the murmuring grows strong, and no light danger threatened the guiltless religious, while the rude and impetuous crowd, having fiercely proceeded already to revilings and threats, at the first address either did not grasp or refused to grasp the reason of the deed.

[34] that they should await the judges of the apostolic See. Slowly at last, and not without labor, the importunate were persuaded that this had to be done in view of the more illustrious honors which are hoped for Rose from the apostolic throne; that there was no loss in obedience to Roman decrees; that disobedience could not please the holy Virgin; that her precious remains were being kept for the people of Lima in a most safe place under the guard of her first sepulchre; but that concerning them (the mind of the supreme Pastor in such cases being now perceived) nothing must be dared or permitted outside the line of the sacred rites. With the greatest difficulty the force of the people acquiesced, content with this one thing, which it had received: that the relics of its Rose were safe.

ANNOTATIONS.

CHAPTER TWO

Posthumous glory from the Saint's illustrious apparitions and various miracles.

§ I. Frequent apparitions of the Saint, from the testimony of several persons to whom she showed herself to be seen.

The Saint after her death glorious Aloysia de Serrano (of whom I made mention above, chapter XVIII), as she had been familiar and dear to Rose while still mortal, so she deserved to be more familiarly honored by her when immortal with a frequent apparition. Among these this was the more illustrious, in which she saw before the divine throne the most august Queen of heaven standing and bearing in her hand a crown of wonderful brightness, as though she awaited a new guest to be solemnly crowned at the border of that throne. On the other side a snowy choir of white virgins, embracing in their midst Rose, then recently dead, was leading her in a cheerful and tuneful column to the Mother of God. Each of the virgins had palms in their hands and crowns upon their heads; Rose carried a palm like the rest, but not yet a crown.

[36] Aloysia, unequal to her joy and astonishment, while she gapes upon the rest of the spectacle of the crowning, to Aloysia de Serrano, the vision disappeared. But on the next day a third apparition of Rose heaped up her joy. Namely, Aloysia then saw Rose comelily surrounded by the same nuptial and most festive column of virgins as the day before, and distinguished not now by a palm alone but also by a crown of immense glory, to whom apart the ranged phalanxes of angels applauded, and a blessed band of very many Saints congratulated most sweetly with a public jubilation. Aloysia, restored to herself but not trusting herself, set forth both visions to the secret examination of her spiritual Fathers; and they from the effect concordantly decreed that it had been sent divinely and had lacked all danger of deception.

[37] To the treasurer Gonzalo de la Massa (who left this attested by word and writing before the apostolic judges) a man in those days famous for skill in mystical theology and for loftiness of contemplation secretly confessed to another anonymous person, that within the three weeks next after Rose's death, at least twenty-two times the glory of this Virgin had been visible to him, by a gaze now imaginary, now intellectual; but that among the other visions one purely intellectual had excelled, in which the virginal whiteness of her purity, with its inestimable dowry and most flowery aureole, ^a was shown without any bodily figure, and through the simple irradiation of a tranquil knowledge. This manner of revelation, as plainly purified and above sense, so he judged, and, as was fitting, esteemed, to be ineffable and exceedingly worthy of such an object.

[38] The doctor John del Castillo, a physician, in the fifteenth year after the Virgin's happy passing swore before the apostolic tribunal of the second examination to the doctor John Castillo that Rose had appeared to him by an imaginary vision in the midst of a certain most brilliant light, which represented the very brightness and appearance of the divine Majesty. In the most pleasant center of this Rose appeared, clothed in the habit of her holy Father Dominic, wonderfully white and radiant, whose incomparable comeliness he declared he could not attain in words. The Virgin's face gleamed with infinite grace and splendor; her body was surrounded on every side by white and purple roses without number; her right hand held a branch, the index of a most bright virginity; nor did dense flashes of glory continually sparkle less from the branch than from the roses. Nay, several times under a vision of this kind Rose sweetly addressed her beholder, setting forth to him many and sublime things about the lofty summit of her happiness, which cannot be uttered in the language of a human tongue.

[39] she often appeared, A certain one of the Virgin's confessors received from the mouth of the same doctor that more than fifty times a glorious apparition of blessed Rose had shone upon him from heaven. He himself of his own accord, in his last deposition of the year 1631 before the same judges, most solemnly asserted that for the whole space of six months, by day and by night, he was divinely admitted to the spectacle of so great a beatitude, and that as often as he raised his mind at appointed hours into the inner sanctuaries ^b of contemplation, Rose was shown to him among the ranks of the blessed. When this gracious frequency of apparitions gradually ceased, Rose nevertheless did not cease, by the law of courtesy, to commit her turns for some days thereafter to a heavenly youth. It was an angel, in the tender form of a boy of twelve, visiting the doctor daily in Rose's name, and always setting forth something new about her ineffable glory. And thus at last a courteous end was set to these visions.

[40] and she was seen by others Further, it was granted by God to several to see the same Rose in the paradise of her Spouse encircled flowerily with blooming roses and bound with a golden diadem, especially to a certain widow, then most celebrated for the fame of her virtues, to whom Rose several times presented herself visible in a heavenly light, not without the dutiful company of myriads of angels. Once the virgin addressed her thus in an imaginary vision: "One must labor, O mother: for the heavenly reward is a very great thing. To me indeed it has here been abundantly repaid for that which I labored." She spoke with her face festively opened out into a serene smile, and exceedingly beautiful in the snowy brightness of her Dominican habit. Sometimes Rose seemed to her

to walk pleasantly in the empyrean gardens with Christ, who sent the Virgin on a few paces before him. Sometimes she was beheld taking her delight among gilliflowers ^c and lilies, as though contending with them for the unfading prerogative of flowery pleasantness.

[41] the kingdom of Peru I judge worthy of no perfunctory consideration what I read to have been ascertained in these visions about Rose's affection and solicitude toward her native land. The above-said widow, a few days after the Virgin's death, was praying privately in church, and as a suppliant was commending the city of Lima and the kingdom of Peru to Rose, whom she had several times beheld in the choir of the Blessed. Presently, being caught up, she beheld by an intellectual vision Rose flashing with divine light; and she heard her gently answering her: "It shall plainly be so, O sister, and whatever shall be consonant with the glory of this most sweet Godhead which I enjoy, that supreme goodness will grant at my asking. I well remember those things which were commended to me to ask."

[42] With this vision agrees another, which is related in the Process from the sworn deposition of sister Catherine of S. Mary; and to commend the city of Lima to God, namely, that happy Rose had rather often appeared (but in sleep) to a certain pious person, teaching her in what a pleasant and good state her affairs were. Twice, however, she appeared to her brighter and more illustrious than usual: first, when she had come to strengthen her mind amid the adversities which she was then suffering most grievously; secondly, when above the Virgin's sepulchre she manifestly saw her in the air, with bended knees interceding after the manner of suppliants with God for Lima, her beloved native land. Nor is it a wonder that on these two occasions Rose shone more glorious than usual: for whereas in the former it was a question of patience, she had to be shown adorned with the same special privilege of patience as her seraphic Mother; in the latter, which concerned her native land, her most ardent love toward her fellow citizens had assuredly to shine forth more brightly after death. Further, that the sincere truth of the vision might be asserted, there were found in the woman by the skilled the true criteria of a divine revelation: a deeper humility, a recognition of her own nothingness, a deep tranquility of mind, and a spiritual joy inflamed with new burnings of divine love.

[43] More prodigious, and pregnant with the beneficent concurrence of several signs, is what I shall relate. and, appearing to a certain Christopher de Ortega, There lay sick in the convent of the Most Holy Rosary at Lima, and was already preparing himself for his last agonies, Father Master Brother Augustine de Vega of the Order of Preachers, then Provincial of Peru. His life had been despaired of, medicines had been given up, and the sick man was abandoned by all the physicians; Rose alone, now secure of her own place in paradise, transferred to herself the whole care of the sick man. Far off in his own house Christopher de Ortega, a layman and of less than middling fortune, was sleeping; to him in the dead of night Rose presents herself clearly visible; she commands that at first dawn he go to the convent, meet the dying Provincial, and announce to him that from this infirmity, however bewailed, he would by no means depart from among the living; that he must first sweat for a while under an episcopal miter for the glory of God, before he should be stripped of the troubles of this mortal life.

[44] Having said these things, the glorious Virgin disappeared. But Christopher, too suddenly bereft of the wonderful sweetness of so great a presence and of the heavenly address of that gracious condescension, she bids the dying Provincial of the Fathers Preachers broke out into cries: "Ah," he said, "the holy virgin Rose has now departed from me." His son Thomas de Mesa, who was sleeping nearby, being wakened by this outcry, learned from his father the whole course of the matter; but, incredulous, he adjured his father with many words not rashly to believe the emptiness of dreams. His father replied that he had both seen and heard Rose seriously enjoining these things upon him, not through dreams, but with his senses free and unhindered. His son urged that meanwhile he should at least give himself back to rest and sleep. Christopher said he could not; thus, most intently occupied in ruminating upon the vision, he awaited the day with wakeful impatience. When it dawned, his wife, admonished by her son, said and did everything to prevent her husband from leaving the house to report the vision; interrupting the man now with entreaty, now with quarreling, lest by the most foolish narration of a deceptive dream he should draw down mockery upon himself and his family; that nothing would be more certain than that he would be charged with febrile enthusiasm ^d or delirium.

[45] But Christopher, as tenacious of his purpose as he was undoubting of the truth of the nocturnal sight, went with cheerful confidence to the convent, to be assured of a longer life. greeted the sick man, and set forth what had been enjoined with such firmness of brow and security of mind that shortly the very briskness of the speaker shook out of the doubters all fear of believing. Wonderful thing! manifest proofs did not delay to win full credit for his words: for from that very moment in which Christopher had ceased speaking, the sick Provincial began to perceive by slow indications the departure of his disease; then, commending himself to the virgin Rose, he wholly recovered; and finally, having been raised to an episcopal miter in Paraguay, ^e full of life, he fell asleep in the Lord.

[46] S. Rose was also seen by several persons; The doctor Balthasar de Padilla, canon and penitentiary of the metropolitan church of Lima, had by his archbishop's mandate gone with a notary to the house of a certain widow, to receive under the pledge of an oath what should be reported about Rose's life and prodigies. While therefore the examination is being carried out, there appears to the widow a shining Rose, with cheerful and familiarly pleasant face, but with gesture and nod of exhortation, as though encouraging the woman to say what was asked, and by approving ratifying each thing which was entered in the records concerning her praises. This the widow afterward disclosed apart to the apostolic judges in the year 1630, adding that the Virgin was then visible to her in that fashion of garments in which she had been wont while living to be recognized and covered, but with a face much more joyful and open, as though breathing thanks for the service.

[47] who appeared before the apostolic judges To another person, diligently given to spiritual exercises, it fell to behold elsewhere by an imaginary vision B. Rose in that place which the deputed judges had then appointed for receiving the answers and depositions of the witnesses about her. The Virgin herself seemed to walk about the chamber, to look round upon everything with care, to arrange, polish, and adorn each thing in order with her white hands, and at the same time she indicated that she was doing these things because there on that day she was to receive from mortals the just tributes of honor and truth. Most similar is what Lady Maria de Usategui, wife of the treasurer Gonzalo, relates, adding this: that the glorious Virgin was seen in that function briskly to arrange the writing instruments themselves for the notaries and to set out the paper, declaring the joy with which she was soothed by the juridical proving upon earth of the divine benefits toward her. But whether this vision is different from the one above, or the same, I could not easily distinguish.

[48] for the sake of rendering testimony, But here that must not be kept silent which in the year 1631 befell Maria de Bustamante, a professed nun in the monastery of the Most Holy Trinity at Lima, she herself relating it upon oath. She had in good faith set forth before the apostolic judges in the cause of the venerable Rose all that she knew. But since that sex easily trembles at the severe religion of a public oath, and, as amid the thunderbolts of censures, fears for its conscience, after the examination grave scruples invaded the anxious Maria, lest perhaps either through unskillfulness in answering, or through a stumbling of tongue or memory, she had said more or less than exact truth and the rigor of that tribunal had demanded. The poor woman wavered between the rock and the sacrifice; on this side unquiet of mind urged her to moderate or retract some of the things she had said; but, together with her reluctance, the greatest modesty stood in the way, because she did not determinately know what in her sayings she was bound to correct; on the other side her mind told her that no retraction was needed; but meanwhile a secure tranquility was lacking to her delicate conscience.

[49] Amid these straits, while on a certain night she had fallen asleep alone in her cell, to promote the cause of her Beatification, she felt herself wakened from sleep by another's movement and command, but without any terror, most gently. Being wakened, she sat up in her little bed, and, all sleep being easily shaken off, silent and attentive she wondered to what end, whence, and by whom she had been called back to waking at that hour: and while she thus turns over everything in her mind, listens, and hesitates, behold, a soft and most sweet voice glides to her as she sits, saying thus: "Doubt nothing, Maria, and be not distressed: for Rose is truly holy." Wonderful to tell! at the same moment Maria felt herself freed from her scruple; her unquiet and anxiety of fear vanished, and a most tranquil calm returned to her heart, so that she could pass the remainder of the night in the placid silence of a glad security, certain that so great and so sudden a quiet of mind could not have been infused into her from any other source than from above; she knew, moreover, that the gnawings of her scruple had been known to none but herself and heaven; and whereas most of all in the hours of night she was wont to be terrified at every strange noise, at the aforementioned voice she was not only not terrified at all, but was plainly refreshed.

[50] More things of this kind would remain; but let Didacus Hyacinthus Pacecus of Seville ^f set the coping-stone, and upon a copyist laboring in the same cause who, living at Lima on the daily small gain of the copyist's ^g art, was employed by Didacus Morales, notary in the cause of the venerable Rose, in copying and transcribing the volumes of the Processes or Acts. And so he was ordered to complete by writing two thousand leaves in the aforesaid cause within a certain space of time, and that indeed on this condition, that he should not use that flowing, loose, and easy hand to which he had always been accustomed, but another more painstaking, square, and cramped, which there the common run of copyists calls the BASTARD hand. The writer obeyed; but on the first day on which he began the labor, from the difficulty of the unaccustomed hand he despaired of ever being equal to writing out so many leaves: since indeed (as he himself expressly deposed before the apostolic judges under sworn faith) his fingers so wearied amid writing, his arm grew numb, his sinews were strained apart, that he often exclaimed that he feared lest from so great a straining of his wearied pulse he should himself fail and lose the use of his hand sooner than he should finish the work enjoined.

[51] Therefore on a certain day, when from first dawn until evening he had labored at writing, supplied him in a wonderful way strength for writing swiftly. being enormously wearied and in pain through his whole arm, he betook himself to bed, doubting whether perhaps he would rise the next day useless for further writing. Falling asleep in that weariness, he saw happy Rose coming in to him with a placid and festive step, with a propitious and glad face which could by no means terrify; and, that it might be more certainly known who she was, she appeared in that likeness, habit, and adornment in which our scribe had some days before beheld her skillfully painted upon a panel. Both were silent; but Rose, gently approaching, courteously took the right arm of him as he lay between elbow and fist, gripped it strongly but by degrees, and long held it thus, and only after quite lengthy delays most placidly let it go, and at the same time disappeared. Pacecus, waking, and ignorant of the mystery, turned over in his mind what this sweet apparition might mean, what the seizing of his arm, what that long and tenacious gripping. "Has she perhaps," he said, "aware of my instability and of the disposition by which I am wont easily to run from one city to another, from kingdom to kingdom, admonished me of constancy and commanded firmness?"

[52] Amid these changes of thoughts

as he dressed himself, he felt his right upper arm nimbler than usual; but, not yet suspecting what the matter was, he applied himself again wholly to continuing his writing, as on the day before. He wrote from dawn until the evening ringing of the Angelic Salutation, with no weariness of fingers, no torment of sinews, his arm most light and beyond his wont ready. From that time he recognized the timely benefit of the health-bringing apparition; he went on to spend all the remaining days upon laborious writing without labor; he found that an untiring strength had been implanted in his hand by the virginal touch of the imaginary vision; and thus he completed the work of two thousand leaves, which now seemed few to him for the admirable ease of his writing. When the volume was finished, all who knew Pacecus were astounded, and considered his square hand spread swiftly, fluently, and untiringly over so many sheets. Hence we must pass to greater miracles.

ANNOTATIONS.

§ II. Spiritual benefits by which the holy Virgin led great sinners to penance, and other lukewarm persons to a more perfect life.

By the intercession of S. Rose after her death What and how great an undertaking and work of divine omnipotence the conversion of a sinner is, and how far it exceeds the creation of heaven and earth, likewise when it is to be reckoned miraculous, let him read who will in St. Thomas, 1a 2ae, question 113, articles 9 and 10. From these to Rose, the celebrated advocate of sinners with God, that they may be converted and live. The Presented Father Brother Nicolas de Aguero, in his encyclical to the whole Peruvian province of the Order of Preachers (over which he then presided as Vicar general), written on the first day of September 1617, while he briefly announces to his brethren Rose's admirable life, death, and prodigies, relates among other things that at the mere touch of the virginal little body on the bier very many were so struck by a sudden goad of compunction that at once, there before the whole multitude, they began with raised voices to detest their crimes, to bewail their past life, to dissolve into groans and sobs, to be humbled before the Most High in a tearful confession of their offenses, while the innumerable throng of bystanders heard, watched, and wondered.

[54] Some (as happens) of a freer life, led by a spirit of curiosity alone, great sinners repented to gaze with others more closely upon the most beautiful dead Virgin in her coffin, at the stroke of the first glance blazed up into a sudden and inward sorrow for their sins, bedewed their faces with tears, declaring that they were now departing with another spirit than that with which they had come, and that thereafter they would give effective effort to the amendment of their life and the correction of their manners. Perhaps for this reason God, the father of mercies, had provided that for almost two whole days the little body of his Rose should lie openly exposed unburied upon the tomb, so that her thorns might be for the salvation of so many: for according to honey-flowing Bernard, "You are never more happily pricked than when you are pricked with compunction."

[55] The Virgin's mother, Maria de Oliva, in the year 1618 on the 15th of February, before the deputed judges, recounted among other things (add to these lukewarm religious roused to fervor) that after her Daughter's obsequies there had come to her at successive intervals several devout persons, even from the households of the regular Orders, before entirely unknown to her, who, as they had approached to relieve her notorious poverty with some liberal support, so each professed that in this way they were paying mere tributes of gratitude to the virgin Rose, to whose intercessions they knew that they owed the best change of their life; glad that they were now other than what they had been, and asserting that they had attained to that happiness only after imploring Rose's intervention in the heavenly court. Certainly it is a more laborious and perhaps rarer miracle that a spirit languid and lukewarm in God's service should suddenly be raised and strongly kindled to serious zeal for religious perfection than that a criminal should be recalled from the enormity of his wickedness to some fruitfulness: since indeed the latter generally knows his own danger, while the former sleeps more deeply in sloth and false security.

[56] Worthy of wonder beyond many is what Father Brother Bartholomew Martinez, once Rose's confessor and then superior of the convent of the Friars Preachers at St. Mary Magdalene's in Lima, disclosed to the same judges, in the same month and year, from his own certain knowledge (as he declares), about a certain notable sinner. as is proved by the singular conversion A certain man of ruined conscience did indeed constantly, with others, frequent the life-giving sacraments of penance and the Eucharist, but only to the death and destruction of his soul: for never in the whole course of his sacrilegious life had he confessed duly or wholly, and through a very long series of years he had rotted in this mire. Crimes were heaped upon crimes; but every remorse ^a seemed to have grown callous; nay, day by day he grew more brutish, and, being fallen into the depths, his impiety despised. Yet another's piety was not lacking, which commended the most wretched man to Rose, then recently buried.

[57] of a certain obstinate sinner, Presently he, as though waking from a lethargy of many years, began to feel within the whisper of that thin and most powerful breeze with which God breathes upon the hearts of the obstinate, that they may melt like wax. The unhappy man shuddered when he looked about himself and saw himself plunged in a labyrinth so filthy and inextricable; but the divine goodness, together with the sharpest goads of penance, thrust upon him a confidence of mercy. Why say more? He made a general confession of the offenses of his whole life with a most bitter sense of sorrow; of his dreadful misdeeds, exceeding all measure and number, he kept silent about none; and the fear of the Lord softened his conscience, which a callus had overspread, into such tenderness that thereafter he felt with the greatest fear even the least excesses as though they were very great, and hastened to wash them away.

[58] and as before the apostolic judges The same Father Martinez in the same examination solemnly asserted that it was clearly established for him, not only by his own experience in receiving confessions, but also from elsewhere by the concordant testimonies of very many confessors, that after Rose's help in heaven had been implored, innumerable persons both at Lima and in the whole kingdom had emerged from the lowest abyss of crimes into the harbor of true penance, and had expiated their souls by sincere confession and tears. Already before (namely on the 11th of December in the year 1617) Father Antonio de la Vega Loaysa of the Society of Jesus, once commissary of the Holy Office and successively Rector of various colleges, had indicated the same to the judges; who also noted that it must be singularly weighed that this kind of benefit is deservedly reckoned, by the common opinion of the holy Doctors, among the stronger and more excellent arguments of solid sanctity. To the same report Father Brother Francis Nieto and Master Brother John de Lorenzana, both formerly the Virgin's confessors, of whom above, expressly subscribed in that tribunal.

[59] various confessors testified in general terms, With these Father Brother Peter de Loaysa agrees in all things, and adds two things worthy of note: the first is that within a few days of the Virgin's death so great was the frequency of conversions of this kind that at Lima in the public shops, wherever twisted scourges for the disciplines, girdles of bristles, and hairshirts of various sorts were sold, these instruments of mortification and penance suddenly failed on account of the multitude of buyers. The other, that he himself, out of the very many then converted to serious repentance, had known two notable sinful women whom the wanderings of a shameful life had most tenaciously entangled in the knotted nets of hell; but both, being pricked with compunction at the fragrant fame of Rose, and being commended by her powerful prayers before the throne of the Most High, happily put off the knots of impurity and set a constant foot upon the path of virtue. It was not possible — nay, nor was it fitting — to proceed, in noting these cures of souls as in the miraculous cures of bodies, so far as the particular names of the persons.

[60] Let it suffice that the ministers of sacramental penance at Lima and elsewhere in the whole region of Peru, having compared their indications in general, whom experience taught that amendment of life. were astounded at so great a change of manners in the people from the day on which Rose in the paradise of her Spouse began to act as advocate of her fellow citizens. You would have seen women vying, the luxury of dress cast off, in displaying at home and abroad the habit of a simpler modesty; you would have heard in the colonnaded courts and cloisters of the regulars at night, through every corner, penance, like a drummer, declaring war upon sloth and lukewarmness with the bloody blows of scourges; you would have found the seats of confessors everywhere besieged with lamentation and groans. In short, so publicly known and so commonly frequent was this prodigy that the aforenamed Martinez, a most grave man and famous among the outstanding for the report of his religion and piety, by no means hesitated to assert upon oath in the said tribunal that it seemed to him that from the time when Peru was discovered and lay open to our people, no preacher had ever been famous who impelled those nations to virtue with so many and so great goads, and roused so universal a spirit of penance and so bright a conflagration of devotion. A wonderful thing, that the health-bringing thorns of one Rose availed so much for the compunction of so many.

[61] It happened (the wife of the treasurer Gonzalo relating it before the judges) that two matrons sat down in passing to converse. The Saint kindles a woman to the love of God, One of these, having taken up a little book which chanced to lie open beside them, saw that it contained in brief the life, deeds, and death of the virgin Rose. She began therefore to read at leisure, the other listening; but to the latter there happened almost what once happened to two courtiers reading by chance curiosity the life of S. Antony the abbot: ^b for while the one read as though to beguile the time, the other was kindled as though torches of heavenly flames had been set beneath her; she felt herself gradually becoming unequal to burnings so unwonted and plainly divine; yet she dissembled, lest she should untimely break off the fiery sweetness of the precious reading. Meanwhile the flame of charity grew, nor could the hidden conflagration be concealed any longer; she cried out

the woman, unaccustomed to melt and boil thus in God. Both wonder that in those rosy little leaves of the short pages so much tinder had lain hidden; but he who first said it, Philostratus, ^c did not sufficiently understand that a Rose is deservedly called the lamp of love.

[62] Father John de Villalobos of the Society of Jesus, for our John de Villalobos, Rector of the novitiate or house of novices at Lima, a man most practiced in the ascetic wrestling-school, recounted these things about himself to the same tribunal of judges: that he had been present with Rose as she drew her last breaths, near her death, and on that occasion had secretly asked of the dying woman that, as soon as she should reach the heavenly bridal chamber of her Spouse, she should busy herself to obtain for him from the Godhead that gratuitous and singular gift which he then had in mind. The Virgin in her agony fearlessly promised, and a little after she had expired: "I found," he said, "by manifest indications that that gift had been wonderfully imparted to my spirit on account of Rose's intervention in heaven."

[63] But the treasurer Gonzalo affirms upon oath that several persons, both secular and Regular, confessed to him and she obtains for others the gifts promised, to whom the Virgin, being asked, had promised the same in her agony, that immediately after her happy passing they perceived from the heavenly perfume-box ^d of the Holy Spirit hidden unctions of their heart, unwonted sparks of lights from above, white pebbles of a new name, which (as we are admonished in Apocalypse 2, verse 17) no man knows save he who receives. Doubtless these were the parting gifts ^e which Rose had promised when, as she was dying, she said that she was being called to a solemn banquet. These things Father Antonio de la Vega of the Society of Jesus, praised above, and others confirm (but briefly). But let us return to the softenings of obstinate hearts wrought by Rose's mediation.

[64] and in favor of a certain Francis, To Francis and Alexander de Coloma, brothers by blood, their maternal aunt was Maria de Xuara, a very rich and opulent woman, but implacably averse and obstinate in mind toward her nephews. The same Francis was supporting at his own expense at Lima six nieces and two nephews; but the stubborn woman was moved toward none of these, so much so that she did not deign even to speak to them; nay, when she made her testament, she most studiously took care to bequeath nothing of her means to any of the aforesaid (although the eight latter were notoriously in need), but did not even mention them. It happened at last that Francis and Alexander had a necessity of setting out elsewhere for a while, leaving meanwhile at Lima so many needy nephews and nieces.

[65] who had implored her patronage, Here Francis, grieving bitterly for his orphans and not knowing whither to turn, implored Rose, the sole Ariadne ^f of his perplexity, and found her: namely, on the night immediately before his departure, anxiously commending to the Virgin (whose likeness he had before him) the whole distress of the wretched children, he besought her that by her intervention with the almighty tamer of hearts she would soften the stony hardness of that averted heart, would implant a sense of blood and of humanity in his stubborn aunt, and would succor the innocent children who were about to be endangered by the slipperiness of poverty. Wonderful thing! The next day very early in the morning the aunt summons Francis, whom for a whole space of twenty-eight years she had refused to see; to him as he came she set forth that she had passed a most unquiet, sad, and sleepless night, with the desolation of her nephews and nieces continually before her eyes; whom she considered to be as needy as they were destitute of all human help; and so, let him return home as quickly as possible and bring into her sight that whole band of calamitous children — that she wished to embrace them all in order and to support them honorably in her house.

[66] she changes the testament of the obstinate aunt. Moreover she enjoined upon Francis that he should at the same time summon a public notary, saying that before him she would make another testament, the former being annulled. Francis, not containing so many joys at once, and silently venerating in his aunt his mother Rose, obeyed swiftly and gladly, and brought the wretched band. Here there was a going into kisses, into sweet tears, into tender embraces; the eight needy children are received into the household; the unnatural testament is at once changed; the nieces with the nephews are written down as heirs of the whole wealth in full; finally to Francis himself (for he was a priest by order) a hundred and forty patacoons (as they call them) of annual income are assigned under the title of a chaplaincy, certain houses being made over as security. Dioscorides ^g obscurely hints that roses have the power of a love-charm for subduing, soothing, and reconciling hearts; our Rose of Lima has shown it more clearly.

[67] A woman who shrank from the Dominican institute, Ludovica Barba was turning over in her mind anything rather than to take the white habit of the holy Father Dominic. To her confessor Rose, while she lived, had once foretold and certainly asserted that Ludovica would altogether be clothed in that very habit — nay, that she would most ardently seek it. When this became known to Ludovica from her confessor's mouth, she began anxiously to fear the outcome of the prophecy and to abhor that habit from her heart: nay, if any mention of taking it flew by from afar, or any thought of it glided in, she grew stiff with fear as at the sight of Medusa, ^h resisted in mind, and hardened her heart. Meanwhile Rose closed her last day; and, as though the death of the Prophetess were the death of the prophecy, Ludovica began to empty out her useless fear, secure that such a purpose could never fall into her mind, and that the fabulous metamorphoses of the poets would come to pass in fact more easily than such a change of her hardened heart.

[68] But the woman was deceived by that very confidence in resisting and certainty of her stubbornness: she brings to the third Order of S. Dominic, for behold, suddenly after the Virgin's death that strength of obstinacy grew faint, the horror of many years vanished, and the door of her heart lay open of its own accord to a heavenly inspiration. She cried out with Paul: "Lord, what do you want me to do?" Thence she went to Rose's sepulchre, and as suppliant commended her cause to the Virgin, that she might obtain for her from her Spouse a salutary choice of that state which would most fit her for divine service and advance her on the way of eternal salvation. Nor was there delay: Rose heard Ludovica, and God heard Rose; and suddenly there rained upon her heart a fiery but strange desire of the sacred Dominican habit. Suddenly the woman glowed, boiled, and burned with that effect which she had always fled; and if she had ever feared even lightly to think of it, now she feared more gravely lest the opportunity of executing her pious purpose should slip away or be delayed. She was tortured with a suspicious anguish, as though the happy hour could not draw near which should make her mistress of her wish. Therefore, having caught sight of her confessor from afar, she ran up in haste, poured out her heart, and with many tears obtained that the grace be hastened by which at once, on that very day, she should be enrolled in the number of the Tertiary Sisters, taking the name of Ludovica of S. Mary. Further, as soon as she looked upon herself in the white habit of her holy Father Dominic, she was wholly steeped in copious solaces from on high, nor could she explain the utterly contented delight of her mind, grieving at this one thing only, that she had so long stood in the way of so great a happiness with a fearful and obstinate heart.

[69] Ludovica de Mendoza, wife of Alphonsus Gonzalez de San Martin, and another doubting her sanctity a little after the holy Virgin's death, seeing her celebrated by the people with so many encomiums, being incredulous, whether from a feminine sweetness in resisting or from a stubborn chill of pious affection, either could not or would not conceive a belief in her sanctity. For how small a degree of perfection (she thought) could a frail girl attain in the space of so short a life, having scarcely passed the thirty-first year of her age? Whence, to Rose, born and brought up among plebeians, supported by the labor of her own hands, dwelling and dying as a member of a household in a secular house, was there open a school of such great virtues, or a school of such sublime contemplations at hand? Let the miracles cry out; but Ludovica doubted; let the peoples acclaim, she grew the more deaf: therefore she who had thus armored her heart against believing had to be struck with a stronger battering-ram, that she might surrender.

[70] She was seized by a sudden anguish, so that she thought herself maimed in hands and feet. she punishes with disease, and presently, when penitent, heals. Nor was this enough: she felt a graver storm in her spirit; gloom, dread, and tempest had beset her mind; her troubled heart was shaken as by a certain earthquake. Here at last she, evidently recognizing that these paroxysms came from her stubborn unbelief alone, suddenly gave in her hands, laid aside her hardness, and, her mind being tremblingly raised to God, declared as a suppliant that she believed, that she confessed with her whole heart, that Rose is truly a Saint. And suddenly the dreadful commotion grew quiet, the tempest fell silent, a serene tranquility returned. Thus for his Bride's honor that Spouse was zealous whom the winds and the sea obey. But from spiritual to bodily benefits we must at length here descend.

ANNOTATIONS.

§ III. By S. Rose's patronage a dead girl is recalled to life, and several of tender age freed from infirmity.

A six-month-old girl, dead, Although Father Antonio de la Vega Loaysa of the Society of Jesus in his most eloquent Answers expressly and often admonished the deputed judges that Rose's whole life from her earliest cradle to her last breath must be reckoned and held in the place of a continuous and perpetual miracle, nevertheless it seemed good to them to proceed to more particular things, which shone forth after her life in the benefit of others. The first place among these is deservedly claimed by the raising of the dead six-month-old little daughter of Magdalena de Torres. Her father was Gregory de Torres, a farmer, her mother Joanna Michaela, both living

by rustic work in the suburbs of Lima on the road to Melambo. When in the year 1627, in the month of October, these were living in the country near the city on the estate of Balthasar de la Cona, there a fever with diarrhea ^a invaded their tender little daughter, and at last extinguished her between her mother's arms. The remedies applied according to the capacity of that age had profited nothing, nothing her mother's solicitude and tears; death tasted away the little soul of the dear offspring in the arms of her afflicted mother. From that evening until the clear light of the following day the lifeless little body lay without warmth, without motion.

[72] Already the hoe stood ready to dig a sepulchre for the tiny corpse, whose mother had implored the help of S. Rose, and little flowers were being gathered to be woven into a small garland. But the mother, in the deep silence of that very night, remembering that she had with her some relics which had touched Rose, shook out the little chests of her poverty, and found a small piece of a garment with a little branch of broom ^b (on which the Virgin had once slept): with these she hastened to the cold corpse, and began with long and anxious prayers to invoke Rose to her aid; then, being now stronger in faith, and as though about to draw forth the life-giving odors of Rose from the relics, she placed coals in a pan, and upon these the little branch and some threads of the other piece; presently she fumigated her dead little daughter. The living close their eyes at smoke; the dead girl opened hers: for behold, at that moment in which the fumigation touched the infant, she came to life again; and, parting the little eyes which her grieving mother had closed the day before, she looked upon her, glad. There were present at the spectacle the infant's father, her sister, and another young man, who, falling together upon their knees and unequal to their joy and astonishment, with voices raised to heaven praised the Lord in his so fragrant Rose. Meanwhile little Magdalena, having eagerly drunk a little water into which her mother had sprinkled dust from B. Rose's sepulchre, sat up whole where she had lain on her back, nor did any trace of her past infirmity remain in her.

[73] In the year 1631 Antony Bran, slave of the young lady Joanna Barretta, lay sick from fevers and a distress of the chest, and a slave who was believed dead, and now for three months and more the stubbornness of the disease had eluded all the force of various medicines, and little hope remained. He was watched by his wife and his cousin, who, while by night they kept vigil about the sick man, both suddenly noted that Antony lay without motion, without breathing, and with no vital sign even the least: they called the sick man by his own name, plucked at him, struck him, but drew from a body now icy nothing but the answers of death. His wife, heavy with horror and grief, ran to her mistress, and with wailing very briefly indicated that her husband had breathed out his soul. The lady, terrified, leapt from her bed (for it was just midnight), and with Lady Ludovica Barretta, her sister by blood, hastened to Antony's bedside; there Antony's cousin at the head of the little bed was lamenting the dead man, and met the women as they entered with mournful voice: "Do not," he said, "trouble yourselves: for our Antony has already rendered his spirit to his Creator." Joanna approaches nearer, examines, touches, cries out; but when she finds him stretched out, cold, and rigid, as though sure enough of her loss, she said to her sister: "Now God has taken from me this servant too, so useful and necessary; blessed be his name."

[74] Then, turning to the head of the little bed, she saw hanging there a paper image of the venerable Rose, of those which had been printed at Rome with the permission of Superiors and carried to the Indies. by the patronage of this Saint come to life again. Hence, having conceived a vast confidence, she began to invoke Rose with sounding voice, and freely to demand the raising of her slave. Presently, having taken the image, she reverently placed it upon the breast of him who lay there, and with the other three there awaited the outcome in sad silence. Thus half an hour was passed with silent prayers about the little bed; when behold, Antony, who for the whole space of two hours had lain cold, pale, and motionless, with a deep sigh (such as is usual with those quite wearied) opened his eyes, looked about, and, wondering that his mistress stood by him at that inconvenient hour of the night, asked what was going on. Presently, when he had perceived what had happened, he sat up encouraged in his bed, and felt himself not only unharmed but also sound and vigorous; nor did the fever thereafter return: yet at the urging of the women who were present he took the medicine prepared beforehand, though now superfluous, rested, and after two days, bidding farewell to his bed of sorrow, went to Rose's sepulchre, and there passed the whole day in thanksgiving.

[75] Elizabeth Duran, a widow, Elizabeth Duran, widow of James Carlos, had for a long time carried a withered and useless arm wrapped in bandages, by whose not only inert weight but also continual pain she was vexed. When therefore she heard that Rose's virginal little body, placed upon a bier in the church of the Friars Preachers, was being made ready for burial, full of faith and attended by two daughters, she hastened thither as she could; she flung herself of her own accord into the multitude poured about, in the hope of somehow penetrating to the Virgin's tomb: she reached it, her daughters and others opening the way; by the same helps having with difficulty struggled up onto the steps of the tomb, she applied her arm twice and thrice to Rose's face, and presently at that same point of time cried out: "Well done, my arm is healed, and my arm has come to life again." And, to win credit for the miracle, she then flung her upper arm about in every direction readily, vigorously, and swiftly, while a most crowded people watched and applauded. But beyond all others Melchior de Amusgo, a physician, was more vehemently astounded, who chanced to be present in the crowd and had for a long time applied various but fruitless remedies to the woman's arm, confessing that it could not have been cured by human means. Further, Elizabeth, glad at the outcome, was thereafter for several years openly seen to use her arm for any duties whatever, as though it had never been feeble. That miracle had there as many witnesses as Rose then had beholders upon her bier.

[76] a certain Ethiopian servant, An Ethiopian servant of the licentiate Didacus Ayala (I have nowhere found his name expressed) had long lost the use of his right arm and hand from a contraction and drawing of the sinews; having heard the report of the dead Virgin, he made his way with others to the church of St. Dominic, commended himself to Rose's prayers, and at once, in token of the health obtained, carried his arm, raised high and stretched out, about the whole church, the old wrappings of cloths being thrown off. The whole people watched; and while on this side one voice of all bursts out into public praises of God, while on that side mingled shouts of those congratulating him arise, some who had known the servant more familiarly kissed his hand, festively seized, before the crowd, and with pious curiosity examined the old marks where the contraction had once most tenaciously curved the Ethiopian's hand with his arm into folds.

[77] Georgius de Aranda, a priest, But from the right to the left arm. The priest Georgius de Aranda Valdivia had, before his clerical state, received in the Chilean wars against the unbelievers several wounds in his left arm, which afterward, being ill treated, had gradually drawn on corrupt matter, convulsions, and swellings, so that now from the inflation the arm could neither be extended nor be judged sound. A most troublesome swelling had crept as far as his fingers, so that the most afflicted priest could neither at Mass handle the divine Host conveniently enough, nor raise the one arm without the support of the other. Therefore on the very day on which Rose was buried, toward evening, helped by his brother by blood, a religious, he crept into the chapter house, prayed at the Virgin's sepulchre, implored help, and at once obtained it. For suddenly, wet with a cold sweat, while in succession he tries his fingers, hand, and arm with a very gentle motion, he found all sound, vigorous, and flexible.

[78] Presently, trembling with religious awe and gladness, he rushed into the church (where then by chance Father Brother Christopher de Azevedo, Prior of Panama, had stopped with very many laypeople), recover the lost use of their arm. and there before the altar of the Most Holy Rosary he fell down with raised voice in thanksgiving. Those who were nearer run up to the sight, and among these Bartholomew de Toro, a royal scrivener. And Georgius, not suffering himself to be asked much, before them (and both he himself and the wonder of his arm had long been most well known to very many) faithfully set forth the whole course of the matter: at the same time the notary and witnesses, being asked, before anything was entered in the records, explored the miracle most thoroughly; they bade Georgius raise himself upon his feet; they inspected the arm free from all swelling, which the priest rolled up, down, to the right, to the left, and to every side with the same agility as the right, without pain; he opened and closed his hand most readily; he clenched, spread, and moved his fingers most swiftly; nor, as long as he lived, did he note in these any trace of his former feebleness.

[79] Alphonsus Diaz, a beggar then most well known to all Lima, Alphonsus Diaz, a beggar, leaning upon a low prop, and dragging along the ground his hand and foot made useless by contraction, did not walk but crept upon the earth, tearfully seeking alms from house to house. He, on the very day on which the burial pit had covered Rose, came panting to the church of St. Dominic, wept there for some while most bitterly, and, inquiring about the place of burial, at last crept as he could into the chapter hall, lay prostrate upon Rose's sepulchre, and for an hour thus prayed, groaned, wept, and at length sweated, unaware that he had already been cured. There came in the man whose charge it was to cover the Virgin's sepulchre with a baked tile: he bids Alphonsus withdraw from the place; the latter denies that he can; both contend, but the former, being with his whole strength stronger than Alphonsus, embraces the man, drags him off as he resists, and gradually but gently raises him upon his feet.

[80] Here for the first time Alphonsus felt that he had been cured; most well known to the whole city of Lima, nevertheless, from long disuse of standing, leaning against the nearest wall, and having briefly wondered at himself upright and without a prop, he broke out at once into shouts and into tears, rejoicing and crying out: "Blessed be God! I am well, I am sound: what for about four years I could never do, now I can: I stand upon my own heels; the soles which had grown unaccustomed to know the earth I now set upon the ground; let the Lord be praised in his Saints." Meanwhile he was still sweating over his whole body, and because beneath his soles softer flesh had grown in place of callus, he trod the ground with somewhat suspended steps; and others, thinking this weakness, strove to help him as he went by putting their arms beneath him. He refused, declaring that he now abundantly sufficed for himself. A concourse is made, and amid the hymns of those applauding, Alphonsus is led back into the church, to be gazed upon by all. He walked with dignity, who had never walked either more festively or more notably.

[81] and two Ethiopians While Rose's corpse lay exposed upon the tomb, there crept up an Ethiopian boy more than twelve years old, better known through the city for the defect of his contracted feet than by his name; and while he prays beneath the platform of the bier (since indeed he could neither raise himself a palm's breadth from the ground nor struggle up the steps to the touch of the sacred little body), suddenly he came forth brisk, upright upon those feet which before, only creeping, he had most wretchedly dragged along the ground, when he was not even allowed to use crutches, but only to sweep the ground with half his body. He then leapt up sound, and confidently mingled himself in the midst of the crowds, again and again calling upon his liberator Rose with loud voices. Thereafter for eight days he was seen daily to go to the Virgin's sepulchre to pay thanks openly and as of debt.

[82] are wonderfully freed from a contraction of the feet. After his example another boy, likewise an Ethiopian, and afflicted with a most similar weakness of the feet (save that with crutches he somehow balanced himself from

the ground, yet not without the support of walls), after Rose's funeral had been buried, approached beside the grave, threw himself into a corner of the chapter hall, prayed, and lay there as a suppliant for more than the space of two hours. At length in the sight of the multitude which was present he slowly raised himself, crying out: "I am sound; it seems to me that I can walk; I feel that my legs are free from hindrance; nay, they itch to run." One of those nearer answered: "If it is so, rise upon your feet, walk, and give proof of the grace obtained." Nor was there delay: the boy, neglecting his crutches, rose, stood, walked, and, not containing himself for gladness, leapt up, danced, and finally asked the most crowded throng to withdraw a little to one side and give him room for running. He obtained it, and ran up and down through the hall like a light roe. Those who had known the boy before scarcely believed their eyes; the voices of those praising God are raised on high; the religious run up, lead the boy into the church, and tuneful thanksgivings resound through the whole temple.

[83] Several boys Joanna de Castillo, a widow, had a little son two years old, Francis Fernandez de Sigura, who for a whole year had been frequently and dangerously tormented with cataleptic seizures ^c and palpitations. Human remedies were empty and vain, until recourse was had to Rose, then recently buried. Hither therefore the afflicted mother brought her little one, set him at the sepulchre, and prayed. Meanwhile the little son of his own accord laid himself upon the sepulchre face down, and there presently began to grow cheerful; and when after an hour and a half he was asked by his mother whether, being wearied with lying, he wished to be raised and led away, he asked to be left there yet a little while. At length he rose of his own accord, glad with signs of health; nor from that time until the seventeenth year of his age (in which together with his mother he testified these things before the apostolic judges) was he assailed by this or by any other infirmity whatever.

[84] oppressed by various diseases Rufina Brava had borne a little son, Peter Tamayo. The infant had scarcely reached the fifteenth day from his birth when he was found to be suffering wretchedly from a hernia. ^d Day by day the torn peritoneum ^e was more loosened; the bowels hung down, and only with great labor and danger were they thrust back within, presently to come forth again. The little one wailed continually, unequal to so great a pain, and often for three whole days, being nauseated, wholly rejected his nurse's breasts. Almost two years were spent in applying remedies at great expense, with no profit. At length, two days after the earth had received Rose, deceased, he was carried to her sepulchre and sat there quietly for nearly two hours, while his mother with kinswomen remained in the church, commending her offspring to God and to the virgin Rose. When the little son was restored to his mother, with the sac closed and the bowels replaced, he was found to be without the hernia; only in memory of the benefit there remained a conspicuous scar, which nevertheless also strengthened the soundness of the repaired peritoneum, so that it could no longer be ruptured.

[85] Peter de Vega had a little daughter of five years who for four months had lain gravely sick with fevers, by the intercession of the same Virgin nor did a certain most harsh condition of a peevish disposition disfigure the little one more mildly, being likely with years to grow dangerously into a vice. Her, in her fever, her anxious parents carried to the platform, that she might touch the virginal corpse of Rose, not yet buried: she touches it, and at once, the febrile paroxysm being driven off, she recovered before all; nor, being brought home, was she tried by new attacks of the disease: nay, that inborn harshness of disposition also, being corrected by the same miracle at the same time, passed into the utmost gentleness and sweetness.

[86] By these prodigies Rose seemed to cry out from the tomb: are restored to health. "Let the little ones come to me." They came assuredly, and were passed eagerly from hand to hand, so that at the health-bringing touch of Rose the sick innocence of the peoples might reach her, and be carried back with health to their own. Among these Francis Cardoso, a tender infant of nine months, who for three months, by a continual vicissitude of fevers, was now shivering, now burning, suddenly, as soon as he was brought to the sacred corpse, laid aside at once his crying and his fever, the people wondering. Nor this only, but on the next day the infant, being clasped in the arms of an Ethiopian maidservant, indicated by nod and gesture that he wished to be set down upon the ground: he had scarcely touched the earth with his little soles when he began to walk alone through the hall, nor from that day did he need help or the arms of a bearer. Doubtless the day before Rose had breathed such great strength into a little boy cooked by such long fevers and exhausted to the marrow. Certainly out of the mouth of infants and sucklings he perfected praise for himself. Let us return to grown persons.

ANNOTATIONS.

§ IV. Very many grown persons of both sexes, the help of this Saint being implored, are snatched from dangers and diseases.

The Saint to Peter de Vega, In the year before Rose's death Peter de Vega had by a headlong and heavy fall loosened the joint of the bone in his shoulder-blade, and at the same time had thereafter lost the use of his arm on that side, and complained continually that his upper arm remained to him for nothing but pain and burden. At length on a certain night, remembering that he had in his house a rosary which a little before had touched Rose's lifeless body upon the bier, he devoutly applied it where the sense of pain was sharper. At once the torment ceased; Peter fell asleep in quiet, and, waking in the morning, noticed that strength had returned to his useless arm — which, with no other remedy applied, so grew that within a very few days he perfectly recovered, and perceived no remaining difference between the agility of the left and the right arm. The same Peter on another occasion was invaded by an atrocious torment of the hips, and at the same time one of his legs had swollen with a painful inflation. Pressed by these evils, the unhappy man could neither take food nor take sleep. At length, mindful of Rose and of his little rosary, he rubbed the places of pain, rested, and, waking at the next dawn, found himself sound in every part; and the troublesome swelling of the leg had so subsided that you would have sworn it had never swollen.

[88] to Helena, an Ethiopian woman, Helena, an Ethiopian, the slave of John Merini, had been so drained of strength by the continual and copious welling of worms springing up (which they call "of Guinea" ^a) in a seven years' flux, with her blood discharged and her bowels eaten away, that her life was altogether thought to be at an end, especially four days before Rose's death, when to so many diseases a most burning fever and (a deadly sign) an inflation of the ankles and legs had been added. Through the whole seven years medicines of every kind had been tried; but these, by provoking the disease, with new destruction day by day helped not the sick woman but the sickness itself. At length her mistress, not bearing the loss of a most useful slave, advised and persuaded Helena to make a Novena at the monument of Rose, buried two days before (thus they commonly call a nine-day station with fixed prayers). The sick woman, most desirous of life and health, undertook the work with greater courage than strength.

[89] who had been ill seven years, But presently on the fourth day she declared herself unequal to completing it: for, being wearied by a long disease, bloodless from bloody and frequent discharges, burned up with fever, destitute of breath, and with swollen feet, she wholly despaired of being able on the remaining days to go to Rose's sepulchre. Nevertheless, hope on this side and her mistress on that encouraging her, she took heart again, and on the remaining days continued her approach, though most difficult, in the way she could, no sign of recovery meanwhile appearing even from afar; nay rather, day by day she poured out a greater quantity of worms with blood. Until at last the final station of the ninth day at Rose's sepulchre in a moment wholly wiped away the whole ill humor ^b of so many diseases. Helena returned home plainly another woman, namely empty of worms to the last one, sound in her feet, a stranger to fevers, wonderfully restored in blood, vigor, and bodily substance; and thereafter, conscious of none of these symptoms, she possessed entire and lasting health.

[90] There sailed with Father Brother Dominic de Leon of the Order of Preachers a servant, and to a certain dying servant and companion of his journey, John, a youth of fourteen years, oppressed by a quartan fever, which then the very tossing of the sea had more dangerously kindled, so that on a certain day the violence of the paroxysm was believed to have beaten the soul out of the boy: for suddenly Dominic was called down by a shout from the upper deck of the ship, to attend his dying servant; and while he descends into the covered hold of the vessel, he met a married man, Francis Flores, who asserted that John had already expired. Yet the solicitous Father went on, but found his servant without speech, color, or breath, lying on his back and motionless; doubting whether he lived, he several times assailed both ears of him who lay there with strong shouts: but, seeing that he awaited vital signs in vain, he fled to Rose's protection, as a suppliant asked life for the boy, and promised a Novena: and behold, at that moment John breathed again, sat up, and took food, to the astonishment of the religious men who were present at the sight, Father Agnellus de Oliva of the Society of Jesus, Father Brother Lawrence de Texeda of the Order of S. Francis, and not a few laypeople of both sexes. All who were in the ship were astounded, especially when a little afterward they saw him appearing upon the upper deck sound, unharmed, and restored to entire health without human remedy.

[91] Beatrix Gaves was for four continuous years vexed by the constant dripping of a most troublesome humor, and to another woman she restored health. and this, being provoked worse by remedies, had taken away the hope of a cure. Therefore, destitute of counsel, she penetrated with the rest of the crowd into the house of the treasurer Gonzalo, where Rose then lay exposed upon the bier, now about to be carried out; there she commended herself to the Virgin with the whole affection of her heart, touched the coffin, and returned home sound, nor

did she ever thereafter feel herself troubled by that defluxion.

[92] In the year after Rose's happy passing, Brother John Miguel of the Order of Preachers, She frees a certain Dominican Brother from danger, for the sake of household management and business, was riding through the valley of Xauxa; ^c but as he was passing by the pastures of cattle, near the place Verastegui, a bull unexpectedly bursting forth pursued him fiercely. John was terrified, and, clapping in his spurs, took to flight, with loud voices commending his danger to God and to B. Rose; but the bull, being swifter, was now close at hand, and was not more than fifteen paces distant from the man. He was lost, had he not again and much more ardently invoked Rose. Wonderful thing! At Rose's name the monstrous beast, as though driven back by a thunderbolt, stopped, gazing grimly upon John, who was lifeless with weariness and dread; nor did it move from the place until he had gone far off.

[93] Something else, but more amusing, befell the same man at the river which flows past the place Misque, ^d she favors the same man as he fishes, and abounds in fishes (but chiefly in bocas, or whiter sprats ^e). Hither he had gone fishing with a religious companion, Brother Jerome Jambrano, and another man, an Indian. Jerome and the Indian cast their nets alike, and the latter drew some catch, the former growled at his empty net. John urged him to cast again, and at each cast said with raised voice: "Come, in the name of blessed Rose, may it fall happily." Jerome obeyed, but the fishes did not; since indeed, when the net had been cast more than twelve times, he caught none. Here John, suspecting what was the case, said: "I beg you, my Jerome, say freely: does not your heart hesitate, unbelieving, about the sanctity of the virgin Rose?" He answered angrily that there were so many certain Heavenly ones to whose name these casts might more usefully have been dedicated, and that there had been no need to flee to uncertain names. But John replied: "But do you, my brother, take care to conceive an undoubting faith about Rose's sanctity, and so in her name plunge in the net again and seriously, and you will behold wonders." He did so, cast, and suddenly drew such a quantity of bocas and armadillos ^f that he could scarcely bear the weight of the filled net.

[94] to a monastery a runaway slave, Let it be permitted hence to turn aside very briefly to a fishing of men. In the year 1630 within the monastery of holy Clare at Lima there served Christina Angela, an unwilling slave. It happened that the back door of the convent chanced to lie open to her for flight, through which, like a little fish slipped out of a wicker trap, she silently rushed out, and hid herself outside in the city. Raphaela de Esquivel, a nun, was then discharging the office of doorkeeper; and she, embracing the damage, offense, and disgrace of that flight in one confused fear at once, when after a search of several days the runaway was found nowhere, fled to Rose's help; and, commending her distress to her, demanded that the lost slave be restored to the monastery. Further, on that same night Raphaela saw in sleep Rose, glorious in a white garment and with shining face, saying to her: "Tomorrow morning Christina will be recovered." The nun, waking from the joy of that most beautiful vision, again (having now conceived a vast hope) devoutly commended the matter to the Virgin, and slept again. When morning came, the maidservant was found, apprehended, and brought back about the fifth hour before noon.

[95] and to others a lost receipt was restored. By no less, though a dissimilar, benefit of Rose the brothers by blood Alexander and Francis de Coloma recovered a lost thing. They had duly paid an annual rent of five hundred crowns to the monastery of holy Clare at Guamanga, and according to custom had received from the steward a receipt in witness of the payment. After an interval of time that very debt is again demanded; the brothers by blood plead payment, the receipt is sought, but appears nowhere. Francis was certain that he had put it back in a certain compartment of his little chest; he feared lest perhaps, having been filched thence by another's fraud, it had disappeared; then there was a returning a hundred times to the same little chest, all the papers shaken out one by one, drawn forth, put back: everything was there except the receipt. And so the anxious Francis with a brief prayer has recourse to Rose's protection, most well known to him; then, full of hope, he asks Alexander to go over the little chest with his eyes on every side with a new and final diligence: the latter answers that the labor is wasted. The other insists, demanding that this at least be granted to his solace, that he should search again. He searched cursorily, as though the matter were desperate, and behold, in that very compartment where both had sought so often, the receipt is found openly upon the other writings, seemlily wrapped in a most beautiful inscription by a strange hand, no otherwise than as though at that moment it had been secretly brought back to the chest. But we must return to the sick.

[96] Father Brother Didacus de Arrasia of the Order of Preachers, setting out in the greatest heat from the Convent of Panama to that of Lima, Didacus de Arrasia, a Dominican, had from the change of climate contracted a double tertian fever, which by short courses shortly set him in the vestibule of death, the physician ordering the Sacraments to be hastened, especially because the sick man's belly had swollen high from an excessive drinking of water, and whatever remedy was applied either to the belly or to the fever increased the disease. And so Father Master Brother Gabriel de Zarate, then Provincial, warned the sick man of his extreme danger. But Didacus had secretly conceived suppliant prayers to Rose and vows to God, and now swelled higher with hope of health than with waters. There remained a last remedy to be tried for drawing off the belly, but a violent and sharp one, for the enduring of which Didacus, doubting that he would be equal, implores Rose again and most urgently: and behold, that remedy being omitted, the belly subsided, the fever rooted in a possession of two months departed, and, to the astonishment of all, Didacus leapt up glad to fulfill his vows.

[97] Isidora de Montalvo, heavy with age, was moreover for eight months burdened with a continuous and quite violent fever. and several of both sexes The physicians denied that an old woman burdened with so many years and worn out in strength could be freed from the disease by methodical remedies. Therefore, being abandoned by them, she appealed to Rose for life and health, and at that point of time most entirely recovered, and long survived unharmed.

[98] Josepha de Torres was scorched over her whole body by an erysipelas ^g from putrid blood inflamed by fevers: burning with fevers, shining blisters rose everywhere, and in the space of three weeks had brought the sick woman to such a state that, lying motionless before her household without speech and without pulse of the arteries, she was thought to have breathed out her soul. Those standing about, terrified, briskly implored Rose that she would obtain for Josepha a space in which she might at least confess her sins to the priest now summoned. But Rose granted more than was asked: for suddenly the sick woman returned to herself, duly made her confession, and shortly recovered entire health.

[99] Maria the Indian, a girl of twelve, sprung from the kingdom of Chile, or with another kind of disease and serving at Lima in the monastery of the Incarnation, was by shiverings, torments of the stomach, and finally by spasms, constrictions of the throat, and convulsions brought to such a state that she could neither be refreshed with food or drink, nor swallow the least thing. Despaired of by the physicians, she was being fortified with the last Sacraments of the dying. But at the very Extreme Unction she was admonished by the priest and the nuns to commend her anguish to the virgin Rose with the greatest faith and affection she could. She obeyed, and without any other human remedy whatever she began from that moment to recover, and within a very few days returned to the accustomed offices of her service.

[100] To Antony de Umbela, a workman, a long-standing paralysis had contracted his arm and hand, and laboring under bodily inconveniences, so that they could never be unbent by any remedies. Having heard the prodigies which daily flashed forth at Rose's sepulchre, he at last betook himself thither, laid his arm upon the sepulchre, prayed briefly, and at once sweetly opened his long-closed hand, presently unbent his arm also, and, being sound, resumed the exercises of his craft. A chance fall to the ground had so afflicted Maria Sanchez, nine years old, that thereafter, her legs being contracted and all use of her feet taken away, she could neither stand nor sit anywhere; nay, she had to lie continually in her little bed. Three whole years were vainly given to remedies. At length both parents, a Novena at Rose's sepulchre having been promised, have their little daughter carried thither and laid face down upon the virginal monument. The coming of the ninth day brought health to the girl and joy to her parents: for, as she lay upon the sepulchre according to custom, she suddenly raised herself sound upon her feet, walked, and ran to her father, who, taking her by the hand, long led her about through the cloister and thence home. His daughter ran on before of her own accord, as though she had never been feeble in her feet.

[101] holy Rose being invoked, Maria Farsan, a girl of three years, when in the year 1617, being dangerously stopped up with undigested crudities, she was treated by her mother with an infusion of quicksilver (which another woman had suggested), presently, her legs being inflated, lost the power of walking, so much so that, being as it were dead from the navel downward, she crept with her hands alone, dragging her legs along the ground. For six whole months she languished thus, halved, until, Rose's little body having been raised upon the coffin in the church of St. Dominic, she was carried thither: where, as soon as she had touched the dead Virgin's face twice or thrice, suddenly the swelling subsided; and the little one, restored to her parents, after two days ran sound through the house, no other medicine having meanwhile been applied.

[102] promptly and wonderfully Agnes de Figueroa (a most dear friend of Rose while she lived) was torn with a monstrous torment in her hips; and, ignorant what the evil was, she had already come to this, that for three whole days she could not empty her bladder. The long bitterness of her pains had almost overthrown the woman's mind, when, at her husband's suggestion, she began vehemently and with many tears to commend herself to the intercessions of her dear Rose; and at once, as though she sat upon live coals spread beneath her, she glowed all over most fervently, and suddenly, within the space of a single Angelic Salutation, she brought forth a stone of the size of a hazelnut, pointed with sharp points on every side. At the same moment the pain ceased, and Agnes rested lulled in sleep, who for a long time had been able neither to sleep nor to lie down. The surgeons and physicians, as many as saw the stone, testified that it could have been thrust out only either by death or by a miracle.

[103] they experience her help. Louis Rodriguez, a Mexican, a tailor by trade, in the house of the widow Joanna de Vargas suffered from a painful contraction of the sinews, so that for two months he could never either walk or set his foot upon the ground. The surgeons, being called in, after they had applied cheaper remedies without profit, declared that the man could not be cured otherwise than by a masterly unction, ^h which would have had to be prepared at no small expense. Louis's mother wept bitterly, aware that her own and her son's poverty would be far unequal to such expenditures. And so, at the widow's suggestion, with bowed head she looked up to Rose, promising together with her son to perform a Novena at her sepulchre; and when she had begun it the next day, returning home she found her son now standing firmly upon his contracted foot and walking a little. The last day of the nine-day term had not yet dawned, and Louis, now perfectly healed, was going out of the house and visiting the Virgin's sepulchre. By a most similar benefit the aforenamed widow herself also suddenly recovered from a dire inflation and torment of both feet, as soon as she tearfully invoked Rose as her helper, promising a like nine days or stations, which on the next day, laden with votive gifts, she began, and briskly performed with sound feet.

[104] She snatches from danger a woman in labor, To Isabella Morales in childbirth (and she had already brought forth the child) the afterbirth ⁱ had remained in the womb. The midwife was terrified, and omitted no remedy to draw out the membrane. For three hours they labored in vain, and, matters being now despaired of, Isabella, feeling herself dying, asked to be carried back to bed, that she might die there more seemlily. There came in meanwhile, being called,

her confessor, and, when all things were turning for the worse, Isabella is admonished to have recourse to Rose's protection in a crisis so bewailed. She obeyed, and at that point of time, other remedies being omitted, the afterbirth came forth of its own accord; and the whole danger was suddenly dispelled.

[105] Christopher Perez, secretary of the criminal court, with his wife and household had withdrawn to his estate in the valley of Lurigancho; Christopher Perez, fallen into a deep ditch hence on a certain day, making his way to the neighboring hills most pleasant with verdure, the earth being wet and slippery from rains, he fell with his horse into a ditch sixteen palms deep. His frightened wife runs up with the household, and saw the horse lying upon her husband. Softer earth had followed them as they fell, and almost covered both. While the horse (as he was spirited and young) strives to shake off the earth, while with great efforts he tries to rise, he presses Christopher more heavily by falling back, and sometimes strikes him unawares with his hooves. For a quarter of an hour Perez lay thus, nor, being knotted and feeble in hands and feet from arthritis, could he help himself at all.

[106] Meanwhile above the ditch the household wailed, his wife lamented, along with his horse, and finally all called Rose to their aid. Christopher heard, and he too began, beneath the weight of the horse and the earth, to invoke Rose. And behold, straightway the horse rose upon his feet, the man being untouched: the servants descend into the ditch, Perez is drawn out unharmed, whom others had freely cried out would die within an hour. But he himself professed that by Rose's benefit alone he was so unhurt that he permitted neither a phlebotomy nor any fomentations to be applied to him.

[107] Of Antony de Terrabia, an aged slave, as the fall was more pitiable, a certain man already near death, so the raising was more wonderful. Beside him as he labored almost in the last agony, Maria de Oliva, Rose's mother, was sitting alone in the dead of night. Antony, while he tries to change his wearied side, fell from his very narrow bed onto the pavement. The anxious woman, because neither the dying servant nor she herself had strength by which he might be lifted again into the bed, implored from heaven the mighty help of her daughter Rose; and at once, full of faith, she put both arms beneath the ponderous burden, and, alone, lifted from the ground into the bed Antony — old, corpulent, half alive — as though he were an infant of three months, settled him, covered him, and only then, wondering at her own work, trembled all over, having found that her own Rose had been with her.

[108] Let Rose close this chapter, the heavenly charmer-away of poison. and another to whom poison had been given to drink. At Lima a cruel woman (whose name is everywhere kept silent in the Process) hated her husband extremely, and, in order to take him unawares out of the way, secretly mixed poison for him in a drink — but a very powerful one, which within a short delay would kill the man before remedies could be looked for. Scarcely had the husband drunk the plague when, his breath being cut off, he swelled like a drum; presently, seized by a swoon, with his bowels loosed into a flux, he sweated cold, trembled, and with distorted eyes breathed nothing but the last anguishes of death. But as he was thus in peril for a quarter of an hour, there opportunely fell upon him the remembrance of Rose; and while the venom crept through his bowels toward his heart, gathering himself with a last effort, he broke out loudly into these words: "Holy Rose, come to my aid, and I promise a Novena." His poisoning wife was terrified at the invocation of Rose, and, now despairing of the effect of her poison, wounded herself with a deadly wound. The husband, having struggled out the poison without any other antidote, ^k the next day left his bed, and, mindful of his promise, hastened to the Virgin's sepulchre.

ANNOTATIONS.

§ V. Paralytics and other sick persons wonderfully healed, and women helped in dangerous childbirth, the relics of the same Saint being touched.

A headache, Let us begin that chapter with a healed disease of the head. Eleanor Ruiz de Saudosa was tortured with an atrocious headache; ^a but, lest she should lose the gain of the jubilee, she had to go from Rose's sarcophagus (who had been buried the day before) straight to the metropolitan church. She went; but first she had placed upon her sick head a piece of Rose's garments, and, having begun her journey under the confidence of this helmet, after she had sat a little in the high church, she noticed that she was utterly freed from all pain of the head. Philippa de Vargas, from the intolerable heat of fevers, was at the same time incessantly pricked over her whole crown as with dire stings: at length she applied to her head a piece of Rose's relics, and fell asleep. Waking, she found herself utterly freed not only from the pains of her head, but from the whole vexation of the fevers.

[110] Lucia of the Most Holy Trinity, prefect of the monastery of holy Catherine of Siena, or pain of the head, was tortured on the right temple ^b with a grievous pain of the skull, with a distemper of the brain and a gouty defluxion; but as soon as she applied a small strip from Rose's habit to the affected part, at that very instant it stayed the distillation and put the pain to flight. The same woman, being once in the dead of night tortured by sudden convulsions of the stomach and almost lifeless, at once, as soon as she rubbed the said piece upon her breast, allayed the gripings. Maria de S. Joseph, a discalced nun, by an unforeseen fall to the ground had gravely hurt the sinews of both her eyes, so that she could turn her eyes neither to the right nor to the left, and at the same time a continual pain raged in them. At length she seized a fragment of Rose's relics and said: "I shall find out whether that sanctity of Rose which is everywhere proclaimed is real." The same was the moment in which the fragment touched her eyes, and left them mobile and sound; nor did either numbness or pain ever return to them.

[111] The maiden Lucia de Montoya from her earliest childhood was blear-eyed with a foul and running decay of the eyes, bleariness, not without danger of blindness. The weakness of her sight and the continual pain of her eyelids allowed the girl neither to go forth into the open daylight nor to come nearer to the light of candles. A perpetual headache increased the disease; and while on a certain day she was burdened by these inconveniences more troublesomely than usual, she sought a remedy from Rose's clothing with vast faith, and found it. She had at home among her more precious treasures a piece of the mantle which had clothed Rose while still mortal; this Lucia reverently applied to her head, and with the same rubbed her eyes, and at that point of time wiped away, together with her bleariness, all pain of the head; and, in proof of the miracle, on the very day of her cure she took up a needle, and before evening finished by sewing four squares of a finer cloth; nay, from that time she always had eyes so limpid and clear that she seemed never before to have been blear-eyed.

[112] and other evil affections of the eyes, With Isabella Mendoza there was a three-year-old little girl, Margaret by name, whose blindness was darker. She was wholly blind in one of her eyes (upon which a little cloud had settled), and with the other saw dimly, scarcely a little, by blinking; and, since eye-salves ^c profited nothing, it was believed that she would gradually lose all faculty of seeing. Her mistress (for the girl was of servile condition) often declared that death would be more useful for her little Margaret than life: since indeed for a year and more, unable to bear the clear light, she wandered through the house generally with closed eyes. On a certain evening, as she was about to go to bed, the household women commended her to the heavenly Rose, and bound with a bandage a piece of the virginal garment between the girl's eyes, and so, bandaged, laid her in her little bed. When morning came, while, the bandage being drawn back, they inspect Margaret's eyes, first they note that the little cloud had vanished; then they wondered at the clearness in the other eye; finally they found that on this side blindness, on that weakness of sight had been utterly taken away: for the little one thereafter with sight firm and unaverted on both sides gazed upon the clear air and light with delight.

[113] torment of the teeth, and other diseases A biting salt rheum from the head had filled the gums of Joanna de Velasco; thence a most bitter pain of the teeth allowed the poor woman neither to take sleep nor to remain in any place. The growing evil spread, the languishing Joanna was distressed, until, remembering that she had a piece of the virgin Rose's linen veil, she applied it to her mouth, and suddenly all pain departed, sleep followed, and Joanna, waking in the morning, wondered that she was sound. The falling sickness had killed two children of the widow Ludovica Faxardo, a boy of seventeen years and a girl of ten months. There survived a little son of three years, Francis de Contreras by name, whom the same disease was preparing for a like destruction; for the boy sometimes lay for fifteen continuous hours without speech and sense, foaming at the mouth, throbbing monstrously in arms and legs, and sometimes dashing the back of his head against the ground. His anxious mother, now distrusting every human remedy, at last had recourse to the heavenly apothecary's shop of Rose, obtained a piece of her scapular sought from elsewhere, judging that whatever smelled of Rose would profit her son. And truly it profited: for when she laid the piece upon the trembling breast of Francis, then foully foaming, in the twinkling of an eye the boy grew quiet, returned to himself, sat up in his little bed, asked for a draught of water, and recovered; nor was he ever thereafter assailed by this disease.

[114] at the touch of S. Rose's relics About seven years having passed after Rose's happy departure, Aloysia de Escobar, a nun of S. Clare, was tortured with an unstable torment by an erysipelas, wandering now over her temples, presently over her cheeks, then over her eyes and other parts, not without danger. Long and variously did they sweat over remedies; but always with greater harm and with no fruit at all. At length the abbess brought out from a chest a piece preserved from Rose's tunic, and, a prayer having been premised, gently bound it upon the face of her as she lay, and so bade her rest through that night. The next day, loosing the bandage, she found Aloysia's whole face free on every side from burning and swelling, no otherwise than the palms of her hands, with no trace even the least of yesterday's evil remaining. To the same Aloysia a tertian fever had once brought dire and most vehement pains of the stomach, so much so that from the anguish of convulsions she believed death imminent for her: but at once, when, omitting any other medicine, she fled to Rose and applied the said piece to her stomach, together with the pain the fever departed.

[115] The same help against erysipelas ^d Maria de Jesu, a discalced Carmelite, had earlier experienced; are suddenly put to flight. her whole face, inflamed with this disease, had swollen, and at the same time fevers were burning up the rest of her little body. At length, when a small strip from Rose's clothing was applied to the sick woman, the swelling subsided, the hostile heats grew tepid, so that the sick woman could presently take sleep, from which she woke sound, the fevers being extinguished together with the erysipelas. In the year in which Rose was transplanted into the heavenly paradise of her Spouse, an inveterate asthma was almost suffocating John Rodriguez Samanes, a painter, by its constricting. For three years the fierce evil had settled heavily and tenaciously upon his lungs and bronchi, and granted his oppressed breast nothing but coughs and hoarse whistlings and a most painful faculty of breathing. Opportunely Maria de Mesta offered certain relics of Rose (from which she herself had several times drawn health) to her sick servant when he labored more sorely. These the young man applied to his breast with devout faith, and slept most quietly, with his chest free and without wheezings; on waking, he felt the bonds of his lungs loosened on every side, nor did he thereafter find in himself any trouble or oppression of heavier breathing.

[116] Brother John Garzia, a lay brother of the Order of Preachers, A wound inflicted upon a hand, on the fourth day after Rose's death had by the order of his Superiors entered the Virgin's garden cell, to carry from it a small stool upon which Rose while she lived had been accustomed to sit in solitude. But the narrowness of the little door seemed to deny the stool an exit: whence the lay brother with a blade which he had brought began to cut the obstructing wood into splinters; but while he presses on hastily at the work, he incautiously plunged the iron into his left hand to such a depth that, together with the torn skin, the flesh hung from the joint. The atrocity of the wound terrified those standing by: for the gore flowed abundantly, and from the gash it was doubtful to the onlookers whether perhaps some of the sinews or veins had been severed with it. Only the wounded John was not terrified, being aware of a present remedy: "I have," he said, "an efficacious and certain poultice which will heal my hand for me at once." And at the same time he brought forth from his bosom a piece cut from Rose's linen veil, with which he straightway wrapped his left hand and bound it with bandages, with such faith, security, and constancy that he presently returned thence into the little cell to complete the rest of the work. He had scarcely spent a little hour there when, providently coming again to those who were waiting, he of his own accord untied the bandage and showed his hand sound on every side, unharmed, and no longer needing the help of any surgeon.

[117] Maria de Mesta, wife of the painter Angelinus Medorus, had for about twenty days been drained by a quite dangerous flux of copious blood. a dangerous flux of blood, Remembering at last that she possessed relics of Rose's white garments, kissing these reverently and vehemently commending herself to the Virgin's intercession, she escaped the danger, being at once restored to her former strength. To the same woman at another time a running distillation from the head plucked at her shoulder-blade with immense torments, and no less briskly did a headache rage in her occiput; but by the benefit of that same piece, Rose's help having been implored, both diseases were put to flight. More grievously at another time the sharp pain of a swollen leg afflicted the woman, so that for a fortnight and more she could neither remain anywhere by day nor by night taste even the briefest sleep; recourse was had to the accustomed plaster of Rose's power: and, the virginal relics being applied to her leg, the unquiet and the pain gave way, and, together with a most placid sleep, perfect and stable health followed.

[118] and a long-standing contraction of the limbs In the valleys of Chincha, ^e Magdalena Chimasso, an Indian, of the noble stock of the petty kings of Chincha (whom they call Caciques ^f), joined in marriage to a Spanish man, Francis Morales, for three years and more so languished from the waist downward with a contraction of the body that she could sit only upon a woolen fleece, nor could she otherwise be dragged hither and thither than with it, and had to be carried by the hands of the household for the necessary offices of the body: never without these was she seen to change her side, never to raise herself of her own accord. At length, after huge expenses had been vainly laid out upon remedies, she had herself carried from Chincha to Lima into the house of Peter de Vega, because she hoped for more skilled physicians there. Nor did her opinion deceive her: for she had scarcely lain thus at Lima for a month when the odor of the sanctity of Rose, then recently buried, and the public fame of her miracles, daily greater, penetrated to this sick woman. Having thence conceived confidence, she asked as a suppliant that some relics of Rose be brought to her. There was brought a very slender little branch from the palm which the Virgin had borne in her bloodless hand upon her funeral platform; likewise two pieces of her white scapular and veil.

[119] are at once cured by the same remedy. These, together with a little dust from the sepulchre, Magdalena bound most tightly upon herself with the faith and devotion which was fitting. Thus, her pains being suddenly lulled, she also passed the whole night most quietly, contrary to her custom, in a pleasing slumber. On waking, although she felt vigorous strength in her revived parts, she nevertheless would not remove the relics, as though most willingly granting the rest of that day to the fullness of the health-bringing effect. But the next day, however her servants resisted, however her household cried out against it, she sprang robust from her bed, asked for her clothes, and constantly asserted that by Rose's benefit she was most entirely sound. While horror and a cold astonishment fixed the bystanders motionless, Magdalena was already standing upon her own feet; presently, with no one helping, she was walking with entirely free steps through the chamber. At length, when she had obtained her garments (to which she had almost grown unaccustomed), she went out of the house with an honorable company, and hastened straight with firm steps to the church of St. Dominic, where, having visited Rose's sepulchre, she returned home thence after a month to her own people in her native place, another woman than she had gone out.

[120] Also other sick persons, Maria de Morales, widow of Marcus Antonius, was for a whole five years most bitterly vexed not only by a contraction of the sinews, but moreover by various torments of her other limbs: nor did the remedies profit a whit which she had sought out in great number at so great an expense of time and money. At length she seized with brisk faith and hand a piece remaining to her from Rose's clothing, and with it suddenly loosed her sinews from the bond of contraction; then, carrying the same about over her other limbs, as she went in succession over the places of pain by touching them, the feebleness and torment at once fled, until at the last she wondered that she was wholly sound on every side. Andrea de la Massa, lawful wife of Alphonsus Bravus, had her tonsils and throat dangerously inflamed by an atrocious quinsy, and the rest of her body by most burning fevers. There had been added a vehement itching, by which her nail was always in the sore and sleep never appeared in her eyes. She had at home a shaggy little skin which once had wrapped Rose's apoplectic arm. This therefore she seized with reverent confidence; she applied it to the troublesome itching where it burned more strongly; she drove this away from her whole body in succession, and by the same rubbing at the same time quenched the burnings both of her fevers and of her quinsy.

[221] Francisca del Pulgar, wife of Basil de Bargas, who labored with various kinds of diseases, was after childbirth suddenly tormented most grievously by the ulcerous swellings of piles. ^g Neither was a remedy found for the evil, nor rest from the evil. At length she owed her health to a ring of bone which she had received from Rose; for as soon as she put it upon her finger, straightway the disease vanished, nor in her other childbirths (for she bore children often thereafter) was she subject to any biting of piles. In the house of Didacus de Requena his son lay sick, almost deprived of life by the heat of fevers and a continual pain of the crown of his head; the parent had at hand Rose's girdle, with which the Virgin in the last years of her life had bound her tunic. This he gave to his son, when the paroxysm was raging, to be placed about his temples. He obeyed, and girt his head where it was more sharply pricked, and by this one salve ^h drove away the fever together with the headache. Andrew Lopez was for a long time pressed by a most troublesome though hidden infirmity, nor is the kind of the disease expressed in the Process, save that it afflicted the sick man much and long. But when he fled to Rose's healing gum, ⁱ and, prayer having gone before, applied to himself the latchet of her shoe, the disease at once departed.

[122] Lord Antonio de Contreras presided as governor over the province of Guailas ^k in the kingdom of Peru, and women and by that title dwelt in the village of Jungai with his wife Blanca de Zuñiga. She, being pregnant in the eighth month, perceived by manifest indications that the fetus, motionless in her womb, had ceased to live. While amid those crises and dreads Blanca wasted away most wretchedly until the fifth day, opportunely there are brought to her husband the governor from Lima some relics of Rose's garments, which Didacus de Cantoral had sent as a gift to his old friend soon after the Virgin's death. These Antonio suddenly bringing to his imperiled wife, he easily persuaded her (a devout invocation of Rose being premised) to lay them upon her belly. Scarcely had the relics touched the woman's womb when, within the short space which would suffice for reciting once the Angelic Salutation, she brought forth an infant dead and wholly livid with a putrid greenness. A little afterward she also brought forth the afterbirth, with a stench accompanying it which almost deprived the bystanders of life. Blanca, unburdened of these plainly deadly loads, breathed again; and she who, having received the sacrament of penance, had already prepared herself for a most certain death, within a very few days, the fever being driven off, left her bed, and long enjoyed the benefit of entire health.

[123] The same woman on another occasion, when by a more unhappy birth she had miscarried a four-month fetus, in childbirth the afterbirth being retained in the womb, for two months and five days thrust forth from her bowels so great a quantity of corrupted blood that she thought her life almost at an end. Mindful therefore of the help which Rose had rendered at another time, she looked again to her with suppliant devotion, promising to perform a Novena at her sepulchre at Lima and to publish both miracles by a public testimony. And behold, on the next day, with a huge flow of stinking gore, the afterbirth, now putrefied, came forth at the same time, and Blanca perceived that she had again been snatched from death; and, having set out for Lima, she discharged her vow.

[124] in peril More happily did Bernarda de la Sierra, wife of John de Quixano Zevallos, experience Rose's help as a midwife to her in childbirth. She, dwelling with her husband at the port of Callao, ^l on the very day of the obsequies of the dead Rose, in the year 1617, had begun to be distressed by the savage pains of childbed, by whose force the offspring, being driven crosswise in the womb, while it could neither be retained nor be sent forth, entangled itself together with its mother in the noose of a most immediate death. Already the intestine had come forth (an evident indication of impending death), and still the twisted crookedness of the infant stood in the way of its own birth, and found destruction nearer than deliverance. In vain had the frightened midwives tried the last resource of their art, whereby they might fit the offspring for its exit; already Bernarda amid the greatest torments was auguring that day the last both for herself and for her offspring, when unexpectedly John de la Massa, meeting Bernarda's husband at the house, said that he was bringing from Lima a very few pieces of Rose's garments. Straightway the whole house is raised into hope; the woman in labor's sister by blood, Maria de la Sierra, having received the relics, flies to the peril; she hastily sets forth to Bernarda what she brings; a firm confidence in Rose's help is conceived, a brief prayer is poured forth, the pieces brought are laid upon the belly of the imperiled woman, and suddenly, with no aid of the midwives, the offspring is directed of its own accord in the womb toward birth, and is born with a most prosperous ease; it lived, throve, and grew up; and the boy's name in baptism was Peter de Quixano. Nor must it be kept silent that upon the right eyelid of the newborn a Rose appeared conspicuously figured to the life, and long remained as an indelible seal of the benefit.

[125] felt a like power of the sacred relics. The merchant Basil de Vargas of Seville, while on business he makes his way from the emporium of Lima to Potosí, is burdened along the road by continual drippings from the crown of his head, whose sharpness gradually threatened a gangrene ^m in his nostrils; and already for the space of five months the biting humor had so far prevailed that it broke through the bone of his nose, and began, not without torment, to feed upon the cartilage. Nor was any remedy found for the devouring evil, until an anxious devotion knocked at Rose's apothecary's shop. Basil had, by his wife's gift, a little wool from the cushion upon which Rose had been accustomed to spin or to embroider flowers with the needle. When he had bound this, wrapped in coarse paper, upon his forehead, he utterly dried up the fountain of the corroding defluxion, and fully recovered. This Basil had a money-changer, Didacus de Burguinas, a Cantabrian ⁿ by nation, who in the year 1619 in the same town of Potosí, from a certain distemper of an unknown flux, felt his throat constricted within and swelling without. No unctions profited, no gargles split the most tenacious phlegm, so that on a certain night, his breath being almost cut off, he was near suffocation. Therefore he asked from Basil a handful of the wool (of which above), bound it about his neck, and, Rose's help having been invoked, rested the remainder of the night. In the morning he was found by his housemate with his throat entirely free from catarrh; every swelling had subsided, an open faculty of breathing had returned; and at once his wool was restored to Basil — concerning which this among other things is worthy of note, that of what shag or fleece it is cannot be discerned: in its native color it resembles neither silk nor cotton, but gleams thread by thread with scattered flashes of gold; finally it is believed to be from that cushion upon which the tiny little Jesus was once wont familiarly to sit beside the spinning Virgin.

ANNOTATIONS.

§ VI. The prodigious dust dug from the place in which the Saint had her burial, driving away pains of the head, fevers, and other diseases.

Prodigious dust, Some things must here be repeated from somewhat further back. The convent of the Most Holy Rosary at Lima, as it abounds in a number of religious (generally more than three hundred are counted), so for burying the corpses of so many Brothers dying one after another the space of the single chapter house would be too narrow, had not such earth been brought thither of set purpose from elsewhere as most swiftly consumes the buried bodies, so that they may yield place to those that follow. For this use a soil brought by ships from the territory of Panama, far off, filled deeply the whole pavement of that chapter house — an earth soft, fine, loose, and sandy, but by an innate warmth subtly devouring; whence it comes that it presently strips the flesh from the bodies laid in it, and at once dissolves the hardness of the bones. Such was that which received there Rose's virginal little body. But wonderful to tell! in that one and whole space where that sacred corpse was laid, the soil changed its nature, and, compacted into itself with almost the solidity of pumice, hardened, so that there alone it cannot be rubbed or broken with the fingers and a light hand, but there is need of iron for it to be dug out. Not so the rest of the ballast of that cemetery, most easy to rub, tractable, loose.

[127] dug from S. Rose's sepulchre, Further, that in this cenotaph of Rose there lay hidden, for the perpetual benefit of the human race, a living spring of health-bringing dust, this was an argument: that in the year 1632, after basketfuls of earth had been carried thence and distributed through the whole kingdom (and that indeed only from that part of the pit where the Virgin's head had been placed), scarcely three or four pounds seemed to have been dug out of the hollow little trench: and although Father Brother Bernard Marques a very few days before had thrust his whole arm into the hole, a little afterward, the dust growing up within, he could scarcely plunge in his whole hand. Now to the history of the cures.

[128] profited very many sick persons, Rose had bought a ten-year-old Ethiopian girl for fifty pieces of silver for the household services of her parents. Her mother shrank from the useless slave, as being subject to various weaknesses, and especially to a frequent dysentery. But Rose bade her be of good cheer, saying that a time would come in which the girl would by a divine benefit entirely recover. It certainly came, but after Rose's death, when dust asked for from Rose's cenotaph was given to the little maidservant to be drunk with cold water. She drank, and was at once healed of all her diseases. In the six-year-old maiden Josepha de Zarate an atrocious quinsy had inflamed the muscles of her throat on every side, so that she could neither swallow food nor open her mouth without torment. The surgeon Ortega is called in, who, having inspected the ulcer, found that a gangrene had insinuated itself into the sore, and denied that the girl could be cured: for the eaten flesh fell away from the ulcer bit by bit, and the evil crept on day by day. Her anxious mother ardently commended to Rose her little daughter's health, exceedingly bewailed; then a little of the earth which from the Virgin's

sepulchre Josepha's grandmother had brought for this use she dissolved in water, and poured it out for the sick girl with a spoon. The girl, having swallowed a single draught most easily, at once opened her mouth with an entirely free gaping, and now affirmed that it was well with her, and asked for food. Her mother, when with the grandmother she inspected the open throat more diligently, found the gangrene mortified, and wondered at the size of the sore. Meanwhile Josepha, refreshed with foods (which she briskly swallowed), recovered without the aid of any other remedy, and faithfully discharged the promised Novena.

[129] In the monastery of holy Clare at Lima, Sister Grimaneca de Valverde, having been snatched from herself by the burnings of a double tertian as is proved by the sudden healing and by a copious flux of blood after a sleepless unquiet of fifteen days and nights, was most wretchedly raving; a lucid interval of mind alone was awaited, that she might be fortified with the last sacraments of the dying; for the physicians constantly asserted that only eight hours of life remained to her. Therefore the abbess Isabella de la Fuente, judging that recourse must be had to the protections of heaven, fixed her hope in the wonder-working favors of Rose alone; with vast faith she brought forth dust scraped from the Virgin's sepulchre, and signed to the confessor to shake it into pure water and hold it out to the sick woman to drink. It was done, and behold, Grimaneca, suddenly restored to herself, first perceived that the bloody fluxes had utterly dried up, then that the fevers too were cooling; and thus, with no other remedy attempted, after a placid slumber she was on the next day sound in mind and body.

[130] In the same place sister Raphaela de Esquivel, parched with a bilious heat, both of women, and moreover straitened by constrictions of the throat, while she is drained by excessive phlebotomies and evacuations, had at the same time lost the soundness of her judgment and mind. Being despaired of by the physician, she was ordered to be carried from the common infirmary into another chamber, so that, being free from more frequent conversation, she might more quietly be fitted for receiving the last sacraments (if it could be done). There her solicitous attendant held out to her dust from Rose's sepulchre, diluted with water, to be drunk; and suddenly, the frenzy being dispelled, Raphaela came to her senses, asked for food, ate briskly with free throat, and without any other remedy most entirely recovered.

[131] Father Brother Ferdinand de Esquivel of the Order of Preachers, Subprior of the convent of St. Mary Magdalene at Lima, and of men, having suffered a dire rupture on both sides of the peritoneum, was most bitterly vexed by a hernia (which they call an enterocele ^a), so that he could neither preach nor make a journey, with however many trusses and bandages he tried to confine the bowels hanging down into the scrotum. Half torn by this distressing torment, but no less brisk in faith, on a certain evening he went to Rose's tomb, prayed devoutly, and applied to his groin earth taken thence; nor from that moment of time could he note any trace of his former pain: nay, having resumed the office of preaching, he hardened more vigorously to labor; and, being about to ride, he swung himself most nimbly from the ground into the saddle, and stoutly accomplished four thousand leagues by land and sea without hindrance or feeling of the hernia, free from bandages, though he had bound himself to the votive task of a daily prayer.

[132] who, affected with various evils The maiden Anna Cortes, from a continuous fever of two months, was at the same time pricked deadly by a pleurisy in the membrane of her ribs and by livid pustules scattered over her whole body (which they call epinyctides ^b): a grievous nausea had destroyed all appetite ^c for food and drink; hope of slumber and rest was absent; she was going with loose steps toward death. Her mother, with one of her daughters, Laurentia Cortes, human remedies having been tried in vain, looked at last to heavenly ones; she drew from a chest the dust (which once, when she had gathered it from Rose's sepulchre, she had noted to be most sweetly fragrant), and, again perceiving that same sweet fragrance, rose up stronger in hope of obtaining help. Both fell upon their knees before the sick woman's little bed, and in honor of Rose recited the Lord's Prayer with the Angelic Salutation. Then the mother gave the dust, poured into water, to the languishing girl to be drunk. She drank, grew warmer than usual, rested, and the next day, the pleurisy dispelled, the fever driven off, the pustules wiped away, Anna rose unharmed. A chance fall had broken Stephen de Cabrera's rib: the sick man's shaken side swelled, a horrible pain raged with increase and took away sleep. But as soon as he laid the earth of the Rosy sepulchre upon the injured part, being placidly lulled asleep, he gave the whole night to rest. In the morning, when he felt himself free from pains, having inspected and felt his side, he found with gladness that all swelling too had fled.

[133] or oppressed with pains, Catherine of S. Mary, a Tertiary nun of the Order of S. Dominic, had for four years been occupied almost limb by limb with various kinds of grievous diseases. Torments of the ribs had grown, pains of the hips; her heart daily labored seven or eight times with its own torments; her stomach twice a day drooped into a swoon, so that suddenly at dawn it had to be restored with a hasty breakfast; a slow heat scorched the rest of her bowels, and especially her head was kindled with frequent burnings; and finally a stubborn and scorched heaviness from a deep melancholy was gradually turning into a wasting. Pressed by these evils, Catherine on the third day after Rose's burial came to the tomb, poured forth prayers with tears, and drank up the dust crumbled into a cup; and first she felt, the wasting weight of melancholy being driven off, her heart grow cheerful and be strengthened; presently the burnings of her head too were quenched, which she was then suffering most intensely; at length in the same hour that whole college of manifold diseases yielded to the Rosy dust, and left the woman strong and perfectly sound. A most similar help from this dust was experienced by Isabella de Peralta, a professed nun in the monastery of the Most Holy Incarnation at Lima, whom for twenty years, besides constant pains of the heart, an apoplexy (especially in winter time) daily harassed; but as soon as she applied a little of that earth to her throbbing heart, she found herself freed from both diseases.

[134] reverently received, In the same place Beatrix de Montoya, a nun, having suffered indigestion ^d of the stomach for twenty years, was at last hastening to her end from the atrocity of convulsions; and she had already fortified herself with the last sacraments, certain to die, had she not, by swallowing a draught of that earth into her stomach, at the same time broken by a miracle the whole rack of her inveterate pain. The priest Mauritius Rodriguez, confessor of the said monastery, was vexed by an importunate dizziness of the head and a headache, and omitted no kind of remedies from the apothecary's shop; but at last he learned that for his disease Rose's sepulchre alone was an apothecary's shop. From there therefore he not only drank the dust brought to him, but also rubbed it upon the crown of his head, and put to flight both dizziness and pains at once. In the maiden Lucia de Montoya a deep sore gaped in her navel, of the size of a silver Philip; ^e but when Lucia sprinkled upon it a little earth from Rose's sepulchre, in the space of three days the sore closed, only a scar being left in memory of the benefit.

[135] At Cuzco, to Father Brother Blasius a Costa, a Portuguese, general preacher, returned to their former health. there had been committed a funeral sermon to be preached on account of Rose's happy passing (which had then become known there). To him, while incautiously he ruminates the theme of the sermon to be delivered during dinner, a morsel athwart in his epiglottis had shut off his breath. There ran to the peril Father Brother John de Aguero, Presented, and Father Brother Thomas Marcos; and when neither by pouring in liquids nor by strongly shaking his back was the morsel at all moved, they drew him half alive from the refectory and urged him to give signs of penitence, so that he might receive sacramental absolution. He fell upon his knees, striving to confess; meanwhile Aguero offered a little of this health-bringing earth to the panting man in a small vessel of water, which having been taken, he at once spat out the fatal morsel, and by coughing it up escaped death, with whose cold sweat he was already wet.

[136] To Catherine de Arriaga, in the year 1618 on the 21st day of March, in the presence of several matrons, this is further confirmed streams of blood welled from her nostrils by a prodigious flux; the flow seemed to be about to end only with her life, so widely had the ceaseless gore empurpled the pavement. At length one of the women bound a handful of that earth upon Catherine's forehead, and at that moment, at the first touch of the sacred dust, the blood stood still, the spring dried up, nor did this evil thereafter return. There were present at the miracle a notary and one of the judges deputed by the archbishop for examining Rose's prodigies.

[137] In the year 1631 in the monastery of the Most Holy Incarnation there served an Ethiopian girl of about twenty-four years. by several examples of those A quinsy had inflamed her throat, livid pustules had covered her whole flesh; moreover, being inflated in her whole body and face, she had swollen more like a drum than a woman; from mouth, nose, and eyes a foul corrupt matter flowed abundantly; and if she was touched even ever so lightly in any part, she was flayed, the torn skin following the hand. For her, thus rotting, no hope of life remained; whence, having been expiated by confession, fortified with the sacred Viaticum, and anointed with Oil, she awaited only the hour in which through so many ulcers she should send forth her soul. But her confessor, aware in himself of Rose's benefits, exhorted the sick woman to commend herself to so great an inhabitant of heaven, saying that he would send dust from her sepulchre, and that from this, by the Virgin's help, she should hope for health: the sick woman most devoutly drank the dust which was sent, with liquid poured over it, and in the very vestibule of death recovered.

[138] At Lima an unmarried girl had wrongly preferred the pleasure of the flesh to modesty. who, being exposed to danger of death, When childbirth was at hand, having confessed her fault to her mother alone, while she lacks midwives, in order to conceal her crime she underwent a crisis of life, being able neither to bring forth nor to retain. Her frightened mother asked two religious who chanced to be passing that way whether they carried with them any dust from Rose's sepulchre. The dust which was brought, the daughter, impatient of her pains and of delay, licked up dry: at that same point of time she brought forth her offspring; and she believed the danger of life wholly dispelled; but the mother had noticed that the afterbirth had remained in the womb of her who had given birth. Therefore recourse was had to the same dust, and at once the girl brought forth the afterbirth also, rejoicing at safety for herself and her infant. In the same place (long afterward) an Ethiopian herb-seller labored for many hours in childbirth with a doubtful and almost bewailed outcome. By chance Mauritius Rodriguez, a priest, learned this as he was passing through the vegetable market, and urged Eleanor de Villa-forte to bring quickly to her imperiled companion earth sought from Rose's tomb. It was done, and at once, as soon as the earth laid on touched the belly of her who was giving birth, the fetus came forth with a brief and most easy struggle, and freed the mother at once from danger and from her burden.

[139] or languishing with a long disease, In the year 1631 Brothers Antonio Montoya and John de Estrada were being sent to Guamanga to be initiated into sacred Orders. On the way, for the sake of lodging, they had turned aside to the chief of the place Guando. And behold, about the fourth hour after noon one of the inhabitants was there at a headlong run, and with sonorous wailing asked the Brothers (whom he believed to be already priests) to run quickly to an Indian Cacique's ^f wife, who in a neighboring house was at the point of death, that they might at least expiate the dying woman with the sacrament of penance: for no other priest was then present in the town. The religious grieved that they were not yet marked with that order to which the power of absolving is annexed; nevertheless with some Spanish laypeople they followed the Indian, that at least (since they could do no more) they might attend the woman in her agony, recite the litanies, prayers, and commendation of the soul over her as she departed, and drive off the assaults of demons with lustral water. Having entered the house, they found the Indian woman without speech or motion, lying on her back, stiff, horrible with a bloody foam upon her lips, and liker to a dead than to a living woman. Every counsel seemed in vain; the Indian women standing about lamented; the husband sobbed with the afflicted household; but Brother Antonio, remembering that he had with him some dust from Rose's cenotaph, having first spoken a few words to the bystanders about the Virgin's

worth and grace with God, about her frequent prodigies, about the confidence to be conceived of an immediate help, at length seized a spoon and with laborious effort poured the earth, diluted, into the mouth of her who lay there (which had to be forced open with iron), and went away, urging the household meanwhile to implore Rose's succor more ardently. After two hours, having returned with his companions to the sick woman's dwelling, he found the husband with the whole household in jubilation; entering the chamber, he saw the Cacique's wife cheerfully sitting up in her little bed and eagerly eating; she herself confessed most expressly that Rose, unknown to her, had been her salvation, and that to her she owed her life; nor was the feeling any other, both of the strangers who had come with Antonio and of the inhabitants.

[140] in the healing of wounds, Another woman, in the emporium of Panama, an inflamed putrefaction of her ulcerated bowels with a discharge of blood had brought almost to her end; no remedy remained from elsewhere; she drank the same dust, and in the twinkling of an eye saw herself most entirely healed. Didacus de Moreno Costilla of Quito had once in the Chilean wars received in his head a monstrous wound from the striking of an iron club, upon which gradually, from unskilled treatment, a spasm, ^g suppuration, and numbness grew. Coming therefore to Lima, in order to submit himself to better surgeons, he labored for six months in vain in the hospital of S. Andrew under various unctions and plasters. At length, being stirred by the report of the prodigies which daily flashed forth at Rose's sepulchre, he went thither, and, devout prayers having been poured forth from his knees, he loosed the covering with the bandages from his head, and, the emollient plaster ^h being drawn off, sprinkled upon the wound earth dug out in that place; and, feeling himself better from that moment, he hastened home briskly, and after two days found that the wound had firmly closed and had put on sound skin.

[141] The abbess of the monastery of holy Clare in the city of Trujillo, in the legs, for about twenty years had been most wretchedly tortured by an inflation of the leg, in which more than forty mouths of ulcers gaped here and there, of the size of a chickpea; nor was a fit Chiron ⁱ found for so old an evil, especially when there followed upon the affliction of the leg a distemper of the rest of her blood with a most troublesome vicissitude of febrile shivering and burning. And so the sick woman, being informed of Rose's most frequent miracles, drank with faith in water the dust brought to her from Lima, and suddenly extinguished utterly the fever then raging with cold through her marrow. Glad at this success, she likewise rubbed her leg with the same dust, and at once the inflation began to subside and the gaping openings ^k to close, only blackish marks being left in memory of the benefit; and for the washing away of these from the outer skin the surgeon John de Lezana suggested a water distilled for this use. But when this had been applied, the inflation presently returned with pains; the gaping fistulas again lay open; the sick woman was terrified, and, understanding well enough that the completion of the miracle was to be expected not from a surgeon but from Rose, she again sprinkled the same dust upon her relapsing leg; again it subsided, and by drying closed the ulcers on every side. This threefold prodigy instilled health into the abbess, astonishment and joy into the whole monastery, and into the citizens of Trujillo a new devotion with an affection of congratulation.

[142] A certain soldier, by office and rank a standard-bearer, confessed to his confessor Father Brother Francis Nieto and in the feet, that once his leg had swollen like a small cask, but that, having heard the signs and powers which day by day multiplied at Rose's monument, he had gone thither with others, and, having prayed briefly, had seized earth of the sepulchre and rubbed it in passing upon the monstrously swollen calf of his foot, and that at the same point of time the most troublesome swelling had plainly subsided. A little boy of three years, Alphonsus Cortes, was so feeble in his feet that, creeping with his hands, he dragged them along the ground like a useless weight. Him his mother Francisca de Leon with full faith set at Rose's tomb, and made him put his feet by turns into the trench from which the health-bringing dust was dug; then also at home she rubbed each of the joints of his little body with the same dust, and thus, commending him to the Virgin's intercession, laid him in his little bed. In the morning the little one leapt up sound, walked, and ran readily about the house, as though he had never been feeble in his feet. Isabella de Peralta was for several years tortured by a monstrous pain of the gums from a sharp dripping of the head; and especially, when one of her molars had cracked in the middle, and neither the art nor the courage of surgeons sufficed for drawing it out, it vexed the poor woman day and night, so that she could neither sleep nor chew food. At the admonition of her confessor she applied the said dust to the tooth when the pain raged most, and at once removed every torment, and with free gums ate all solid foods.

[143] In the monastery of the Most Holy Incarnation the novice Joanna de Ulloa, and other afflictions her year of probation being almost completed, grieved anxiously that she could not attain to solemn profession, because her hard father (who lived far off at Potosí) delayed to resolve about his daughter's dowry. Often Joanna admonished her parent by letters, urged him, pressed him in tears; but he, harder than the Marpesian crag, either refused answers, or most skillfully evaded by the obscure windings of empty words the point to which he had to answer. Joanna, destitute of counsel, at last fled to Rose; then, having seized a pen, when she had written a last letter to her father, she sprinkled with great faith upon the page the dust of the Rosy monument, so that, if the arguments written there should not soften her father's heart, the dust cast upon it might perform the office. Wonderful thing! Suddenly there came from Potosí an answer than which none sweeter could have been desired; her father, being softened, granted the dowry and whatever his daughter had asked; and the nun, the long delay being happily snatched away, acknowledged that she owed it to a little dust that she had attained to making her solemn vows.

[144] and inconveniences of body, Further, it would be lengthy to recount here one by one in distinct paragraphs the fever-sufferers whom a draught of that same dust recalled from a sometimes extreme danger of life. It is enough to touch upon the names summarily and in passing. Joseph de Castro, as soon as he drank, vomited up all his harmful crudities and grew well. Peter de Vargas's kinswoman Joanna de Mendoza with her little daughter drove off fevers by this remedy. Her maidservant put to flight the most acute pains of her teeth. Father Brother Didacus de Palomino, of the Order of Preachers, drove off a double tertian. Maria Velasquez, wife of the centurion Didacus Ruiz de Campos, a continuous fever, and together with it a deadly flux of blood; Ursula from the land of Felutpa, maidservant of Mariana de Sea, a fever with diarrhea; Francisca, maidservant of Angela de Aguirre, a tertian with an inveterate asthma — these they without delay proscribed at a peremptory term. A tertian with asthma was destining John de Palomares for death; a little afterward the same evil, with frequent vomiting, had seized his wife, seven months pregnant and therefore, by the canons of medicine, incapable of drugs; and finally, a single month after the birth, the same disease set his little son Jerome upon the threshold of life; but successively to each of these a draught of that same dust restored sudden health. The same help the boy John Ascensius, the maiden Beatrix de Zuñiga, and the grown man Antonio de Umblea proved, with a uniform effect but in different places. From Catherine the Indian, a girl of fifteen, a febrile heat had taken away all sense, speech, and hope of life; moreover, her jaws being clenched, it had shut off the entrance for food; her mouth had to be opened by iron to a gape, so that as a last remedy the dust taken from Rose's tomb might be poured in, while she knew not what was being done. The next day very early in the morning Catherine, breathing again, found and confessed that she had been snatched from so many evils at once.

[145] experienced the same medicine of this dust. Finally, that by patching many together in a mass I may make a compendium and an end: John Lobo, a priest, affirmed upon oath before the judges that in the most different places — at Chuquisaca, ^l at Potosí, at Oruro, ^m and elsewhere — he had given to sick persons of every age, sex, and condition indiscriminately, when they asked, a drink of this life-giving earth, and that by this one pill so many kinds of weaknesses had been cured openly in the sight of all, so many fever-sufferers daily had carried home entire health, that the excessive multitude of these overcame all diligence in noting their names and rendered vain the labor of a catalogue. Let the harp-playing King here exclaim in astonishment: "Shall the dust confess to you, or declare your truth?" I say it, and go on.

ANNOTATIONS.

be corrupted. It could nevertheless be that the place called Oruro or Horuro is here designated, of which John de Laet, book 11 of the West Indies, chapter 9, makes mention toward the end. But we shall await this information from Spaniards more skilled in those places.

\* add "movements," or something similar.

§ VII. Many miracles wrought through painted or carved images of this Virgin, and benefits conferred upon the sick.

Through images of S. Rose that had been touched Let this chapter be a head-washing ^a for the treacherous iconoclasts of our age. It was a common zeal of the faithful of Peru, in memory of her prodigious power, to have Rose's likeness everywhere in their houses; nor at Lima only, but through the whole kingdom the practice prevailed, and not uselessly; for first of all, Maria de Vera, widow of Aloysius Nuñez, being brought to the very vestibule of death by a flux, a fever, a pain of the stomach, and a deadly vomiting, had prepared herself with the last sacraments for departing, the physician judging that she would by no means survive to the following day. Meanwhile from a neighbor, the wife of a tailor, Mariana the Indian (who had been brought up with Rose from tender years), she asked for a likeness of the Virgin painted on canvas; when it was brought she applied it to her face, kissed it devoutly, and at last, being sweetly lulled to sleep in its embrace, when she woke in the morning, wondering that she was sound in every part, she asked for refreshment, leapt from her bed, and, that she might more festively venerate the image, placed it seemlily upon a small altar spread with a cloth, and lit lights; for she believed that this was owed both to her private benefit and to the common gladness of that day; since indeed on that morning, with the solemn jubilation of the whole city, apostolic letters were being published in the metropolitan church, by which the faithful everywhere were being compelled to testify about Rose's known prodigies. And behold, the image, which had always represented Rose's pale face, at that moment gracefully reddened in the cheeks, as though serenely rejoicing together with the public dancing of the city. Didacus de Requena is summoned with his wife Apollonia, and long stood astounded at so conspicuous a miracle.

[147] (the color of some of which is wonderfully changed) A most similar thing happened in the port of Callao on the same day about another image of Rose: this the maiden Petronilla de Quisano, in the house of the centurion Alvarus de Lugares, had adorned by placing about it ribbons and flowers, as being about to appear on that day in the pulpit of the chief church, while the above-said compulsory letters were read before the assembled multitude. Until that hour the face of the image was such as Rose's had been when pale upon her funeral bier; but suddenly the bloodless pallor passed into a lively color beneath the eyes of the onlookers, and kindled the minds of all with the winning brightness of its cheerfulness. Yet more beautifully did the same shine forth everywhere in the benefit of so many sick.

[148] two girls, In the year 1631, in the month of December, a foul and festering scurf ^b had for almost a whole year encrusted the whole crown of the nine-year-old girl Maria de los Reyes. Remedies having long been tried in vain, at last she is brought to the church of St. Dominic; there, falling down before a wooden image of Rose, she took a linen headdress from her head and applied it as a suppliant to the virginal likeness, and put it upon her head again. After two days, at home Melchiora de los Reyes, uncovering her little daughter's head, found in it no trace of the hardened scurf; the little skin shone sound everywhere, a thick head of hair gleamed; the girl seemed not so much to be free from scurf as always to have been free from it. In the month of November of the same year, another Maria, an orphan infant of ten months, Jerome de Soto Alvarado was rearing in his house, dreadfully spotted over her whole little body with a deforming leprosy; in curing her all medical art had despaired; but a household maidservant, Bernarda, found in Rose's wonder-working perfume-box an efficacious poultice for the infant: in the church of S. Dominic she had gathered the little leaves of dried roses scattered over a wooden image of Rose: when these had been brought home, she secretly covered each of the leprous little girl's sores, and thus, having carefully bandaged her, laid her in her little bed for sleep. In the morning Bernarda informed Jerome that the girl had been cleansed of all leprosy. He flew to her astounded, and, not believing his own eyes, exhibited the tender Maria before the apostolic judges to be looked upon, and ordered that she thereafter be called Maria de Rosa, as a perpetual monument of the benefit.

[149] When a dire abscess had grown under the arm of Michaela de la Massa, and some other women the surgeons rubbed in cantharides; ^c the woman, though unequal to the most biting pain, lay subject to the torment for no less than twenty-nine hours: but when on the next day she had to return to the same torments, having seized a paper image of Rose (of those which had been brought from Rome into Peru), she laid it upon the painful sore, and thereafter, whatever sharp substance was sprinkled on, she lacked all sense of pain, although for several days more the harshness of that treatment had to be continued. Mariana de Requena was oppressed by an intolerable pain of the heart, which had a perpetual fuel from a certain disordered sadness and from the ponderous heaviness of melancholic blood, which was followed by a violent frequency of sighs and a painful difficulty of breathing. Whatever medicine had brought forward for relieving the trouble fell out vain; until, having taken up an image of Rose and covered it with devout kisses, she pressed the same in a close embrace upon her heart. Thereafter she felt that she had no need of other remedies: for the likeness of Rose alone both wiped away her inveterate sadness and removed the torment of her heart-pain. ^d From the monastery of S. Catherine of Siena at Lima, sister Angela de Haro was for three continuous months torn with heart-pain, or a convulsion of the stomach; but when, every other medicine having been despaired of, she pressed the same image to her breast, the pain departed.

[150] A woman of servile condition, Francisca, being seized by the same disease and moreover burdened with an addition of fevers, are snatched from diseases, roared at night, unequal to the torment; and while in the very dead silence of the night she was more grievously tortured, her mistress, rising, brought to the languishing woman an image taken down from the wall, bade it be laid upon her stomach, and implored Rose's help. Francisca, after embracing the image, being overwhelmed with sleep, when she had slept most quietly for two hours, woke sound, nor was she thereafter troubled in this way. Sebastiana de Vega once, being about to set out abroad with her husband, the doctor Cyprian de Medina, advocate of the royal tribunal, to Succacara, while, standing in the stirrup, she strives to mount the saddle, the mule drawing back, she straddled apart, and, the bone being dislocated about the groin, suffered intolerable pains, so that she could neither change her side in bed nor put her hand to any stronger work. On a certain night, the torment of the bone raging more sharply, she asked that a paper image of Rose, printed at Rome by permission of the Superiors and brought thence in multiplied copies into Peru, be brought her quickly. While she embraces this with religious affection, she falls asleep amid her prayers; and, waking in the morning, she attested the miracle with a sudden cry, indicating to her husband that she was perfectly freed from her pains.

[151] and three women in childbed The maidservant Elizabeth Biafora, pregnant and near her delivery, was being pricked with a monstrous pleurisy of the ribs, burned with fevers, vomited gore and corrupt matter from her mouth, and at last, being abandoned by the physicians and fortified with the sacraments, was hastening to death with extreme danger to her mature fetus. At length, when she obtained from the monastery of holy Catherine of Siena a paper image of Rose, she held it spread all night upon her painful side. In the morning the physicians, returning to take counsel, the mother being despaired of, at least for the offspring about to be born in whatever way they could, find the maidservant sound, strong, and asking that food be brought her. Then, when she sprang vigorous from her bed, on the third day afterward she happily brought forth an unharmed infant.

[152] in dangerous childbirth In the year 1632 Angela de Albildo, wife of Francis de las Cuentas, was carrying twin girls in her pregnancy; but when it came to the birth, on Sunday the 16th of May, two hours before noon, one of the offspring came forth alone, the afterbirth remaining within the woman in childbed together with the remaining fetus. The women standing about muttered that this was deadly for her who was giving birth, and already her husband, about to say a last farewell to his most dear wife, was seeking entrance; but, being hindered, he lamented outside. In this calamitous perplexity a Roman copy of Rose is brought in, but on canvas, and is set opposite the imperiled sick woman, so that it might conveniently be seen by her. Scarcely had Angela, having conceived suppliant little prayers in her mind, devoutly looked upon the image, when suddenly, pressed by new pains, by a most swift birth she poured forth the remaining offspring with the afterbirth upon the bed on which she lay, there being no space of time in which to summon the midwife by a nod. They were twin little daughters, sound, beautiful, plump, and in baptism they received the name of Maria and Francisca de Rosa, in memory of the benefit.

[153] are prodigiously helped. Anna Maria, daughter of the widow Maria Morales, carried a womb laden with a dead fetus, and anxiously bore about one buried before it was born. The pains of birth rushed in, but the offspring, lifeless without motion, cold, ponderous, stood in the way of nature's efforts, and entangled the mother likewise in the last crisis of life. Thus the wretched woman for two days struggled with her anguishes, and, feeling herself slowly dying, had expiated her soul with the sacrament of penance. Already, pale in face, she was wasting away with deadly swoons, every pulse of her arteries had ceased, hope of life had fallen away, when her afflicted mother brought to her dying daughter a paper taken quickly from a little chest, roughly drawn with Rose's likeness. Then there was a going into prayers and tears; and behold, in a moment Anna poured forth the dead little boy, and finally the afterbirth also, and at once, the danger being dispelled, she breathed again. The fetus, rather large in body, with a soft skull, a flabby little chest, and black feet, had already begun to rot in its extremities, and breathed forth an intolerable stench, and would undoubtedly have killed the mother, had not Rose's image come to her aid.

[154] Through like images apoplexy, An Ethiopian girl, Maria by name, in the house of Didacus de Requena had been wholly pervaded from top to bottom by a most impetuous flux of apoplexy; her sinews being numb, her arms and legs throbbed monstrously; already for four days her speech had fallen away, sense was absent, and in the physicians' opinion the last hour of life was at hand. But the mistress of the house brought forth a page likewise of paper, on which was an image of Rose; with this she covered the sick woman's face, and at the same time implored Rose's help. And behold, suddenly the distorted agitation of feet and hands grew quiet; the girl, restored to herself, rose, ate, and indicated that the whole force of the disease had vanished. Didacus, admiring this power of the sacred image, made trial of it upon himself. Beneath his right knee a painful humor had hardened, by which his faculty of walking was much hindered: he therefore gently laid that very image of Rose upon the pain, and at the first touch felt himself free forthwith. Didacus's wife Apollonia by no other poultice than this of a most simple image stayed a most biting dripping of the head, which had eaten away for her almost the roots of the teeth on both sides. The same was a medicine for the nun Anna Maria of Jesus against long and most acute pains of the teeth.

[155] In the autumn of the year 1630 Francis Gutierrez Magan, arthritis with dysentery, a priest of Seville, pressed by a grave pain of the hips, while he trusts too much in hot plasters, forced the provoked humor to descend into his right foot, where it most vehemently kindled the arthritic torment from which he suffered; his veins swelled, his leg reddened, burned, swollen and dreadfully inflamed, so that he could bear neither a coverlet nor the thin covering of a blanket: and because at the same time a bloody dysentery was draining the wretched man, he asked for the last sacraments, the physician consenting: for both were persuaded that his life was at an end. The sick man demanded, for his last solace, that there be brought from the monastery of S. Catherine of Siena (whose confessor he was) an image of Rose painted on canvas; when it was brought, he bade it be hung within the curtain of his little bed, and, the curtains being drawn, so to gaze upon the absent Rose in the likeness present

he addressed: "Holy and glorious Virgin, who have so great power with the Most High, whom you blessedly enjoy, look upon me, who, if I have never deserved anything else of you, am at least the confessor of your mother; to her, that she might be received to the sacred habit in the monastery, I was a timely helper; her solemn profession I sanctioned by the blessing of the black veil. Do you therefore entreat your Spouse that, forgetful of my faults, he may restore me to the health by which I may be able to serve him." Having said these things, with great force but with a stronger faith he placed both hands beneath his swollen leg, and, having begged pardon, lifted the most painful weight as far as the margin of the picture; and after the brief delay of a very short contact he let it down slowly upon the mattress, and (what he had long been unable to do) rested for half an hour in a placid slumber. Waking, and having summoned the household with a cheerful cry, he showed his foot, unwound from its bandages, free from gout, swelling, and redness, and in no way unlike his left foot. Entire health had returned, nor thereafter did savage arthritis command Francis, as before, to use a staff.

[156] The same Francis was godfather of Louis Cortes, the little son of Mariana de Sea. fever with pleurisy, Him, a boy of five, in the month of August of the year 1631 fevers were cooking and a pleurisy was depriving of life. Unctions, phlebotomies, cupping-glasses, and clysters were applied; potions harmed the boy more: for thence he spat blood from his mouth and had pains in his ribs, ears, stomach, and liver. The physician Francis Ximenes came in, and at first sight held the little one, without dissembling, as beyond hope. Francis Gutierrez came in, and, an image of Rose having been brought, he led the sick Louis in words by which he might vehemently commend himself to the Virgin. When these had been pronounced with what effort he could, a sweet sleep seized the sick boy for about half an hour; and, when this was shaken off, he asked that the sacred image be brought nearer to him, because he desired to reverence it with a kiss. Devoutly saluting it, when it was brought near, with an innocent kiss, he at once received strength, the pleurisy ceased, the fevers vanished, and in a short space of time, with the help of no other medicine, he recovered perfect health.

[157] pains of the head, Catherine de Vera for twenty continuous days endured most atrocious stabbings of the brain and temples, so that, being able to admit neither food nor sleep, she was thought shortly about to pass into the jaws of death. This was the opinion of the viceroy's chief physician and of another physician, Rocca. And so, her sacred confession being made, Catherine earnestly asked Francis de Coloma, a priest, to bring her for a while the likeness of Rose which he had at his house. He brought it, and placed it within the curtains of her bed near the sick woman. Presently she, reverently kissing the picture as she could, while she brings her neck, temples, and face to it in succession, drew from the sacred image sleep (which she had lacked for almost three weeks of days), and with sleep a truce from her pains, and finally perfect health. Anna Maria de Torres, no otherwise than as if a brand or a fiery stake covered her skull, was afflicted with sharp pains in her head; the keenness of her eyes was darkened, her kindled temples beat, the sky seemed to burn; nor did the woman remain sufficiently mistress of herself. Nevertheless, necessity pressing, as though aware of her danger, she was wise in this, that, every other medicine being omitted, she sought a remedy in Rose's image alone. She found it, and indeed an immediate one: for when she embraced the copy and applied it to her head, she was suddenly freed.

[158] and other diseases are put to flight. Anna de Herrera, as much as she had once fought with obstinate unbelief against Rose's miracles, so much afterward, having proved the benefit in herself, was she their trumpet and herald. She had long been accustomed either to elude by contradiction, or to blow away by scorn, the graces and daily prodigies which multiplied at the Virgin's monument. But a nocturnal vision in sleep corrected the stubborn woman: she thought that by a dread-sounding earthquake all Lima was being overturned from its lowest foundations, and amid these dreads she, even unwilling, commended herself to Rose's protection, and indeed with so great a straining of voice that by the mere effort of crying out she was awakened. Then indeed with open eyes she saw Rose (whom she knew from images seen here and there) fallen upon her knees, praying for the safety of her city. Thereafter Anna, being of a kinder mind toward the Virgin, and having begged pardon for her former error, committed herself more religiously to her protection. Nor was a forelock-bearing occasion long lacking. On her left temple a vehement and painful defluxion vexed Anna, which gradually so dulled her head that, being without sleep for three days, she perceived that she would fall from her state of mind unless Rose hastened to help. Therefore, having seized her image, she drew it twice and thrice over her left temple; presently, falling back upon her pillow, she fell asleep, and, waking at midnight, found that all pain had fled.

[159] Finally very many fever-sufferers Of fevers it has been ascertained that at the touch — nay, at the sight — of the sacred image they departed more swiftly than wax flows from before the face of fire. The doctor of medicine N. de Rocca had a little daughter of twelve years, Maria by name; to her fevers and pustules were announcing a premature sentence of death; but a likeness of Rose, being brought, annulled the same as soon as it had come under the sick girl's sight. At Palama Father Brother John de Figueroa of the Order of Preachers, being seized by a deadly fever from undigested putrefactions of the stomach, all the physicians of the city despairing, had piously received the last sacraments of the departing; and already the religious poured about the little bed of the dying man were watchfully awaiting the sign of the last agony, so that according to the rite of the Order they might commend the departing soul to God and to the heavenly ones. At the suggestion of one of these, an image of Rose is brought from the Prior's chamber, which, when the sick man beheld it, when he devoutly saluted it with a pressed kiss and reverently laid it upon his crown, he felt at once that his sinews were being strengthened and his strength returning. Presently, when he also drank the wonderful dust of the sepulchre with broth, he coughed up at the same time the corrupt mass of all his undigested decay; then the fever, being deprived of its fuel, of its own accord was extinguished, when it was believed about to extinguish the sick man.

[160] Alphonsus de Yta, administrator of the monastery of S. Catherine of Siena at Lima, are recalled to their former health, had a wife, Maria de Aspitia, whom, as she boiled with a double tertian, the physicians had almost deprived of life by drawing blood five times and by other most powerful evacuations. Already the sick woman, incapable of food and sleep, was hastening to the last margin of life; but a likeness of Rose brought from the monastery stopped her headlong course, which, as soon as it was placed in the little bed beside Aspitia to be looked upon, by that same nod laid low the fevers and raised up the sick woman. The same a paper image of Rose performed for Philip Aegidius, most troublesomely burdened with a double tertian, being laid upon his head as he trembled in the very paroxysm of the chill. In the port of Callao the licentiate John de Quisado was for forty continuous days scorched by burning fevers, nor did any hope of recovering health shine from human remedies. A painted likeness of Rose is brought into the chamber of him as he lay there, which John, as soon as, with devout kisses going before, he laid it upon his head and pressed it strongly to his breast, thrust out the fever, and forced it at once to yield place to returning health.

[161] Let her who bore Rose close the history, Maria de Oliva. and the Saint's own mother is freed from erysipelas, She, a very few days after she had entered the monastery of S. Catherine of Siena to be veiled, blazed up in almost her whole face with a deforming erysipelas; from her nose as far as her right ear an inflamed swelling boiled up, and thence over her head and jaws a swift burning of a restless ulcer wandered, to which a fever, a dyspepsia of the stomach, and other kindred symptoms readily attached themselves. Thus afflicted, she lay abed for eight days, trembling not lightly at the daily increases of so many diseases. The prefect of the monastery, as she loved Rose's mother most tenderly, so, being sad at the peril of the feverish woman, while on a certain night, attended by nuns, she visits the sick woman, after sweet greetings she gradually threw in the question of bringing the Virgin's beneficent image. Nor did the sick woman consent unwillingly, but received it, when brought, into her bed. The nuns, having withdrawn, returned after half an hour, and saw Maria bound in a sweet slumber, but at the same time wet with a most copious sweat. The next day, leaping from her bed, while she hastens to the choir to be present at the sacrifice of the Mass, she met the prefect, who wondered and asked why and whither she was going, but especially how she fared. Here Maria confessed that, having several times kissed the sacred image of her Daughter, sleep had crept upon her, but that at cockcrow of the night she had lain awake bathed in sweats; hence, having tried her pulse, she had found the absence of fevers; finally, having drawn her hand over her face, she had felt no trace of the burning swelling, and that she now both was most entirely well and was keenly hungry.

[162] Another thing. To the same Maria de Oliva, now veiled, a narrow cell had fallen among the other novices, who saw that through the icon of her Daughter and this moreover was occupied inconveniently enough by a huge wooden bedstead-frame in the manner of a cupboard, which she wished to be raised higher from the pavement and set upon four supports, so that beneath it might hold three rather large chests, which otherwise made the cell much narrower. But both the weight of the structure prevented its being lifted onto the supports by womanly strength, and the broad edge of the base beneath prevented its even being moved from the place in which it had once been set. Isabella de Catanno, mistress of novices, had promised that on some next day she would see to it that, four strong slaves being let in, the mass should be raised upon bricks arranged for it, and the importunate narrowness both of Maria's quarters and of the cell relieved. But the pious diligence of a ten-year-old little maidservant anticipated her; for, seeing the novice Maria continually afflicted, when she had gone off to the choir with the rest, the girl boldly set her hand to the work, and, with Rose's likeness helping, accomplished it. Maria returned from the choir, and, seeing the structure fitly raised and the chests most conveniently arranged beneath it, was astounded, unable to grasp who in the whole monastery could have had strength and courage sufficient for accomplishing such things in so very short a time.

[163] other wonderful things also were done, Agnes (that was the little maidservant's name) freely professed that she alone had done the whole. The nuns run up to the curious sight; the girl is bidden to declare by what strength at last she had accomplished so great a thing. She answered that there, first, she had fallen upon her knees before a hanging image of Rose and had asked for help and strength; that at last she had reverently laid the image upon the bed which had to be moved together with the frame; that presently, the structure being drawn aside with an easy effort, she had arranged bricks in those four places, and finally, in Rose's name, having confidently put her back beneath it, had set the wooden mass upon them; and that while she was lifting it, she had thought she was carrying not a heavy structure but a light straw. The nuns wondered, astounded, that under the powerful protection of the sacred image a single ten-year-old girl could do what scarcely four strong porters were believed able to perform without sweat; but their wonder grew when the mistress of novices (who had remained nearby in her chamber, while the rest went to the choir) affirmed that she, being awake, had during the nearby undertaking of so great a work perceived not even the least noise in so deep a silence of the dormitory. Those standing by asked Agnes to try her strength again in their presence, whether it would suffice for lifting the structure. She tried, but, as though she had taken a mountain upon her back, with a vain and ridiculous effort she presently grew weary and desisted.

[164] to which the author appends an epilogue. Let it be permitted me also to desist here, while yet in the honey-flowing words of the honey-making bee (Bernard) I address Rose, the daughter of Oliva, the mother of honeycombs: "O fruitful stock of the Olive, anointing and shining in the house of God, cherishing with benefits, flashing with miracles, make us partakers of that light and sweetness which you enjoy. O fragrant Rose, springing and flowering forever before the Lord, scattering everywhere the life-giving odor of sweetness, whose memory among us is in benediction, whose presence among those above is in honor, grant that we who sing of you be not defrauded of a share in so great a fullness. Finally, let us be glad and exult,

because that heavenly court has from among us one who may have care of us, who may protect with her merits those whom she has formed by her examples and confirmed by her miracles."

ANNOTATIONS.

CHAPTER THREE.

Posthumous glory from the Pontifical diploma of canonization, which briefly contains the Saint's Life and most of her miracles.

§ I. The proem of the Pontifical constitution; the Saint's deeds up to the twentieth year of her age, and her entrance into the third Order of S. Dominic of Penance.

Clement X, to the other nations to whom the Gospel was announced, Clement, Bishop, servant of the servants of God. For a perpetual memory of the matter. The heavenly Householder, whose nature is goodness, whose will is power, and whose work is mercy, when he beheld the Jews invited to the great supper of the divinity excusing themselves as unworthy, sent his faithful servant to the streets and squares of the city to summon hither and thither other and yet other guests. But content neither with the multitude of the poor, nor with the abundance of the feeble, the blind, and the lame, nor with those who were near, nor with those who were far off, he bade the appointed messenger go forth to more distant nations, to the royal banquet in which not a few but all things were prepared, and to fill the heavenly house. From every quarter, from Asia, Africa, and Europe, columns of holy men and women of every age, condition, and rank were gathered. America alone languished hungering, neither aware of the hidden mystery of the Lord who wills the salvation of all, nor able to hear the voices of the minister calling, until the fullness of time came, and through faithful ministers the voice of the Father thundered in the ears of those sitting in darkness and in the shadow of death,\* and the Gospel was carried beyond the Indus and the Ganges ^a and the equator, ^b and through all the corners of the crossways the hungry heathen were sought, that at the prepared banquet of fat things and of marrow they might recline with the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob in his palace.

[166] At length, beyond the farthest bounds of the whole ancient world, far and wide, as far as the last limits of the Atlantic ocean, at last adds the inhabitants of America, and as far as the outermost shores of the western Indies, which hedge in the immense coasts of the sea which is called Pacific, again and again the faithful servant (by whom, as our greatest doctor of this Holy Roman Church and predecessor Gregory ^c testifies, the Order of Preachers is signified) had to run forth, until he should come to Peru, into which, together with those who by a happy entrance and success subjected that region to God and to the holy Roman Church, that Order ^d first penetrated which by a singular privilege of this holy apostolic See has long been distinguished with the title of Preachers, and before others announced to the heathenism of Peru the holy Gospel of Jesus Christ, and first there, by sealing the word of its saving preaching with its own blood, efficaciously invited that whole nation to the supper of the provident Lamb; by whose voice, labor, and gore that gold-bearing land, being cultivated, brought forth, for the gladdening of the supper of the whole Church, both militant and triumphant, among the other flowers of Christian piety of that region, a Rose sweet-smelling to God, to the angels, and to men — a pattern of all evangelical perfection, and the first ornament from the new world to be placed in the roll of the Saints: for since she had been born and given for this, the Bestower of all good things filled her with the Spirit of wisdom and understanding, and so inflamed her with the fire of his charity that she not only refreshed with her odor, but also shone with her brightness in that part of God's house which lay hidden in darkness, so that she shone like the morning star in the midst of a cloud, like the full moon in our days, and like the sun shining bright unto perpetual eternities.

[167] among whom S. Rose flourished, We judge it therefore just, and exceedingly consonant with reason, that her whom our Lord Jesus Christ, whose place we hold on earth, deigned singularly to show forth as taken up by him for a most beloved bride and adorned with his necklaces and crowns, we too, for the debt of our office in the universal Church over which, though undeservedly, we preside, should by apostolic authority decree to be venerable, as fore-chosen by God, and to be worshiped as a Saint, so that from the rising of the sun to its setting every tongue and all peoples may confess that the Lord is great in all his works and exceedingly praiseworthy in his wonders; since even in our days his mercies toward us have not been lacking: and although paternally, as our faults require, he chastises, yet he does not forget forever, but in our straits does not cease to guard us by the manifold protection of his elect and friends, who may fortify and defend us by the patronage of their merits and suffrages. And that the faithful of Christ the Lord may understand how exceptional this example of piety is, which in the new world amid present calamities and dangers has shone upon the whole Church, we have thought that her more illustrious graces, virtues, and deeds should be set forth in these our letters out of the many great things which the Lord conferred upon her, so that her sanctity, proved by the testimony of this apostolic Chair, may shine ever more perpetually in the whole world.

[168] At Lima, which is the metropolis of Southern America in the kingdom of Peru, who, born at Lima in the year of Christ 1586, in the year from salvation restored 1586, on the twelfth day before the Kalends of May, of honorable parents, Gaspar de Flores and Maria de Oliva, this mystical Rose arose in the street of St. Dominic beside the church of the Holy Spirit; and on the very solemn day of Pentecost, which we call the Pasch of Roses, ^e she was purified at the sacred font of Baptism, so that almost all things seem to have been indications of this infant's future sanctity. Her first name was from her grandmother Elizabeth, which afterward was divinely changed into the name of Rose, not only by her mother on account of the heavenly prodigy of a rose appearing at once upon her face, but also by Turibius, ^f the most worthy archbishop of Lima (not without a heavenly inspiration, as is believed), in the unction of the sacred Chrism, and was increased by the Virgin Mother of God with the surname "of St. Mary"; so that by this testimony too it might be more abundantly proved that the exceptional merits of the saints obtain their names from God.

[169] As an infant she was often seen lying upon the ground gazing pleasantly at heaven with fixed little eyes, her tender age as though, already a pilgrim upon earth, she demanded by the eloquent silence with which she was even then endowed to be enrolled a citizen of the heavenly Jerusalem; and already as a little girl understanding that the patient man is better than the strong, she always appeared sweet, charming, and serene, nor was she ever heard to disturb the silence of the house with wailings or with a querulous voice, shrinking only from being carried out in public. Such was her constancy in her tender years that she endured the dire torments of the surgeon in her thumb, ear, and nostrils without complaint, and the painful corroding of her head arising from powders applied for a medicine, without complaint, with unconquered spirit, so that her nature was even then believed to have been born for patience. She was scarcely five years old when, being inwardly taught by the unction of the Holy Spirit, she made a vow of virginity; and, being made aware of the vanity of the age by her brother's warning, she herself cut off her hair down to the living skin, her mother not knowing, lest there should remain any of those cords by which, against her devoted purity, she might either draw or be drawn to marriage — emulating that distinguished heroine Catherine of Siena, whom in the very dawn of reason she had chosen for herself as a pattern and mastery of sanctity, whom thereafter she did not cease to call her mistress. To her first vow she added, for a safeguard, a second, of perpetual abstinence from flesh, whereby she might more cautiously guard her virginity pledged to God, understanding excellently that sobriety teaches wisdom and virtue, than which nothing is more useful to men in life.

[170] Wherefore even as a little girl she so kept fasting that she forbade herself all eating of fruits, which, when given to her, she presently bestowed upon others. She protracted her fasting over the spaces of weeks; and she who in her childhood years had practiced a notable abstinence, afterward as a nun enjoined upon herself that law of fasting which was plainly above nature: for she passed whole Lents without bread, and refreshed herself daily with only five seeds of an orange, in memory of the five wounds of Christ; and the fast of seven months, by the prescript of her Order, from the feast of the exalted holy Cross until Easter, she so observed that only toward evening she allayed hunger and thirst with a small morsel of the cheaper bread and a draught of cold water. Often, and especially on the sixth days of the week, she tortured her palate and bowels with mutton gall, which she kept drinkable for this use, that she might taste the sponge of her Christ thirsting on the cross. Sometimes, that she might seem to her mother to be dining more richly, she used for pottage the most bitter leaves of the Granadilla, or other herbs of the utmost bitterness from the wood, with a few grains of dried grapes thrown in for appearance. When by the force of obedience she was compelled to eat flesh, she was seen to be tortured with harsh symptoms; nor did she recover her former rest until she was permitted to return gladly to her accustomed abstinence. So at length was she accustomed to fastings that for her most frequent infirmities no other medicine profited than bread and water: for so does divine grace cure and heal.

[171] her prompt obedience, That she might speak of victories, wonderful in Rose was her obedience, both in following the drawings of her divine Spouse, by which he drew her through the hidden paths of sanctity as she ran in the odor of his ointments, and in fulfilling the precepts of her hard and unrefined mother, by which on the contrary she impelled her to the trifles of the age and to vain adornments of the body: for amid so great a diversity of opposed commands she excelled by an art more than human, straying neither to the right nor to the left. Hence, a true daughter of Jerusalem, when bidden to place a garland of flowers upon her head, she knew how to hide within it a pin piercing her temples, not only beholding but imitating the true king Solomon in the diadem with which his mother crowned him. Obeying, she admitted the covering of sweet-smelling gloves upon her hands, from which, having experienced a true burning, while she casts them away she saw flames dart forth and the whole chamber shine. Being exceedingly tortured by skins bound about her by her own mother for the restoring of her health, she endured silent and patient, ready to lose life rather than obedience; for in all things and through all things depending upon the nods of her confessors, her parents, and her elders, a conqueror of the world and of herself even in the least things, she

obtained the palms of all who obey; and, what is more to be wondered at, even when her life was ended, in the convent of holy Catherine she rendered obedience to Lucia, its prefect.

[172] her singular reverence toward her parents, Knowing also that to God, to parents, and to teachers an equal return is never made, she attended her parents with exceptional reverence, piety, and charity. By the labor of her hands she made their poverty light, prudent and provident in removing whatever could be unwelcome or disquieting to them, and wonderfully discreet in appeasing quarrels and calming minds. She was always seen assisting and ministering promptly and providently to their failing health. To this end she protracted her vigils every night in working, after the manner of that strong woman who rose in the night and gave prey to her household; for, weak, languishing, and often sick, and detained by prayers and other exercises, she far surpassed the works of other craftswomen both in swiftness and in perfection. Nor must it be passed over that in this piety toward her parents she happily closed the course of her life: for, foreseeing that her mother would be afflicted with the utmost grief at the coming of her death, she earnestly besought her Spouse and obtained for her so great a sensible abundance of divine consolations that afterward she deposed upon oath that at the premature death of so beloved a Daughter she had found her heart exceedingly narrow and incapable of receiving those heavenly joys.

[173] her sincere contempt of herself, The humble Virgin seemed to herself to do or to suffer nothing in her Spouse's service. She accused herself of supine sloth, cried out that she was unworthy of the common air, wondered that she was not yet swallowed alive by a gaping of the earth. At her confessors' feet she sobbed, full of tears, so magnifying every least defect as though she were guilty in heaps of the most atrocious crimes. Public calamities of the city or of the region she imputed to her own demerits; her most frequent and most acute sicknesses she accepted and loved as avengers and just punishments of her perpetual ingratitude toward God. She called upon all the elements of the world against herself for vengeance for the injuries which she complained she had brought upon their Creator. She firmly believed, and busied herself that it should so be believed by all, that she was the most abject and most pestilent of all creatures, an execrable blemish of an unhappy age, a stain of the world, the last cancer of the human race. Hence, if she found herself commended ever so little for her virtues, the poor girl was tortured, grew pale, melted into tears, and at once gaped open, plunging herself into the abyss of humility. It happened that from a neighboring chamber of the house she casually heard grave persons conversing honorably and privately about Rose's wonderful life as though of one absent. The bloodless Virgin was terrified and trembled, wasted away with anguish, weeping, and grief, and, upbraiding herself most harshly, three and four times dashed her fist against the spiked crown of her head. Streams of blood flowed beneath her veil, so that the sharpness of the pain might dull the most unwelcome hearing of another's praise. To her familiars humble Rose frankly professed that for the punishing of her crimes the common pyre of Gehenna did not suffice; that another singular hell was owed her, deeper than the old one and by far worse.

[174] Amid these exercises of virtues she was led by her Spouse both to an outward solitude of the body and by her other virtues she shone, and to an inward solitude of the spirit, that there he might speak to her heart, while on the opposite side there stood in the way the importunate efforts of her mother, by which she busied herself to prepare her for earthly marriage — to which she was impelled not only with harsh words but even with blows. But Rose's unconquered spirit prevailed: for first at Canta, where she stayed with her people, in four years she went out of the house only once by her mother's order; afterward, following her mistress's example, she took care to diminish the comeliness of her face by a more rigid fasting, to conceal the agility of her body with a humble and despised garment, and, as far as she could, to shun the sight of men. By these holy arts she eluded all hopes of marriage, yet did not escape every battle. For in choosing a state of life she had long and much to struggle.

[175] At length she obtained, in the twentieth year of her age, that with her mother consenting she should openly be made a daughter of S. Dominic, and then she embraced the third Order of S. Dominic, taking the habit of S. Catherine of Siena, with which the Sisters of the third Order, commonly called of Penance, shine white. For the first virgins of the monastery of S. Clare at Lima, of a severer institute, strove with all their strength to have her as a partner in their foundation. Afterward the nuns of S. Augustine, doctor of the church, were awaiting her, who had already gone out of the house for this, to be clothed with this sacred garment; and not in vain, had not a divine force detained her motionless before the altar of the most blessed Virgin of the most holy Rosary so long that she retracted the purpose of the journey she had begun; whence, being admonished from heaven that the Order of Preachers is in the holy Church a paradise of divine delight, in which she, like a heavenly rose, was to be joined and grafted among the other flourishing plants of lilies and roses there — which afterward, desiring from her inmost heart, she sought; and, being made mistress of her wish, before the aforesaid altar of the most holy Rosary, most welcome to her, with Alphonsus Velasquez of that same Order then hearing the confessions of that virgin, in the year of the Lord one thousand six hundred and six, on the bright festival of St. Lawrence, she received the habit.

[176] certain hindrances, both outward But not even yet was there entire peace; for afterward the treasurer Gonzalo, a most excellent man, who had very great weight with the virgin Rose entrusted to him by authority and household command, urged that she should rather undergo in an enclosed convent the reformed rule of the discalced virgins of sacred Carmel than serve outside the walls of a monastery among the lowest tertiaries of St. Dominic, and promised that he would be a help to her not only by his protection but also by his labor and his wealth. In the examinations of the theologians the opinion in this cause stood doubtful, until she, being strengthened from heaven, most constantly showed that the choice of a religious state is a work not of human but of divine inspiration; that she must live until her last breath under the mastery of holy Catherine of Siena; and that a time would at length come in which there should rise there at Lima a monastery of this name and institute — which the outcome itself afterward proved to have been uttered by a prophetic spirit.

[177] and inward, being first overcome, she embraced. All these things being overcome, there emerged a difficulty the graver as it was the more inward: for there importunately thrust itself upon her in her most humble knowledge of herself the troublesome thought that she, being filthy with sins, was too unworthy of that snowy and sacred garment; nor did the battle cease until, before the very altar of the most holy Rosary, being caught up in a most placid ecstasy, and appearing now pale, now ruddy, and flashing with splendors, and afterward restored to her senses, she broke out into a jubilation of a grateful mind for the victory obtained. So great a matter was it peacefully to possess the habit and institute of her seraphic mistress, whom afterward she so exactly expressed that not only was she called by strangers a second Catherine of Siena, not without great anguish of mind to the most humble Virgin, but also to her confessor she appeared so changed into her in lineaments, gesture, and countenance, by a wonderful metamorphosis of divine love, that she seemed now not like her, but altogether the same.

ANNOTATIONS.

\ another reading: insonuit* (resounded)

§ II. This Virgin's wonderful espousal with Christ, her severer afflictions of the body, and her tender charity toward God.

The Saint, after an admirable vision, That divine oracle, I will espouse you to me in faith, ^a is recognized to have been fulfilled by an exceptional privilege in this beloved and chosen one of God also, to which he deigned to raise her by wonderful favors. Singular was that in which he who is beautiful in form beyond the sons of men, in the guise of a most skilled craftsman of marbles to be hewn, appeared festive and loving in sleep, as though about to seek there a virgin for his bride. When Rose consented to the covenant of so great a wedlock, he imposed upon her the arduous labors of hewing marbles, and appointed a short term for finishing the work, until he should return from abroad. The virgin blushed at her spouse's return that the work, altogether beyond her strength, was found still unfinished; and to her as she grieved he opened an ample workshop of stone, in which innumerable chosen virgins were manfully sweating at the hewing and polishing of marbles; she perceived from their nuptial garment and brightness that they were brides, softening the stones for the cutting with the drippings of their tears; and, being clothed about with a like garment together with them, she knew that she was being prepared through arduous things for the degree of so great an espousal.

[179] By these things therefore, and shining with that virginal whiteness — so that all who heard her confessions being betrothed to Christ

proved as sworn witnesses that she had never been sprinkled even with the stain of a venial impurity — the matter came more openly to the mystery. It was Palm Sunday, when in the very chapel of the Rosary he addressed her as she was plunged in the abyss of her own nothingness: Rose of my heart, be you my bride. The virgin trembled at the sweet utterances of so divine a Spouse, and at the same time heard the Mother of God congratulating her and saying: Behold, Rose, with what honor this my Son honors you. Inestimable treasures of divine love, and the greatest nuptial gifts of so great a Spouse, rained upon Rose so lavishly that she recognized, and in fact fulfilled in deed, that in order to conceal them thereafter she must continually be at leisure for still humbler exercises, and think of herself most abjectly, and procure for herself in all things contempt of self.

[180] she cruelly her own body Being increased with these gifts and heaped with graces, that Heroine more fervently girt her loins still more tightly with fortitude and strengthened her arm; for, tyrants and torturers being lacking for the martyrdom of her faith, being stronger than herself, she fulfilled the office of both upon herself. For the stones and crosses with which as a little girl, ignorant of the use of scourges, she was loaded by the maidservant Mariana, almost the only one privy to her mortifications, as she went to prayer or to the garden, she exchanged for iron chains, which she fitted for scourges, with which, after the example of holy Dominic, every night, even to a copious pouring out of streams of blood, whether for the distresses of the holy Church, or for the necessities of the endangered kingdom or of the city of Lima, or for compensating the injuries of sinners, or for expiating the souls of the departed, or for obtaining divine aid for those set in their last agony, she offered herself as a bloody victim to God for turning aside his just anger — the household sometimes shuddering at such dire blows of the chains; and, the use of these being forbidden, she long secretly girt her loins with one of them thus in a threefold winding, so that it could never appear save by the force of the greatest torments of sciatica, and was afterward loosed only by the intervening of a miracle — whose links after the virgin's death were found to breathe a wonderful and strange sweet fragrance.

[181] and tormented each of its members, But lest any part of her innocent little body should be free from punishment, she twisted her arms and upper arms with penal bonds, and pressed her breast, armpits, and sides with handfuls of nettles and tiny briars, so that this Rose might be wholly conformed to her lily set among thorns. Afterward she increased the roughness of a hairshirt reaching from her neck below her knees by needles mixed in, which she used for several years, until on account of frequent vomiting of blood she was ordered to put it off, and made up for the loss of that punishment with another garment, with less damage to her health but with no lighter trouble: for beneath it every movement was a punishment to her. Only the soles of her feet were free from these pains, which nevertheless she did not allow to be immune from torments, whether by the striking of stones or by the scorching of the furnace: and — what is almost singular amid the abundance of divine consolations, with which sanctity is wont to abound even on earth, and the flesh of the pious rejoices and exults in the living God — she forced her body to be a stranger and fasting from these. Remembering further that it is not fitting for a delicate member to be found beneath a thorny Head, being pierced with compunction by the sight of a pious image saying with mute proclamation Behold the man, she fastened upon her head a first crown of tin with very sharp little nails, and for some years girt herself with it, not without wounds; upon which, in her riper years, a second succeeded, armed with ninety and nine points, which day by day in various ways she made ever more painful, hidden by art from her familiars, and which she laid aside only with her life.

[182] and of prayer For she did not seem to herself fully to have put on the habit of her seraphic mistress unless she had also taken up her crown of thorns. By a threefold striking of this diadem, in reverence of the most holy Triad, she was accustomed at once to put to flight the suggestions of demons, being sufficiently taught that such thorns do not violate but fence about these roses. She wished her bedding to have such hardness as should drive sleep away rather than procure it, so that for her who was to sleep the little bed and the rack were the same, and the pillow either an unpolished log or stones hidden for this use; which couch she afterward so filled with very sharp fragments of tiles and with the three-cornered pieces of broken potsherds that the pointed part of each was turned toward her body: nor did she compose herself for sleep before she had embittered her throat with a draught of gall. Such was this Bride's flowery little bed, and so pleasing to her divine Spouse that once, when she was almost lifeless on account of these things, he consoled her by appearing visibly, setting before her his own harder and narrower little bed of Calvary. By these arts she confined her sleep within the narrow bounds of two hours, and sometimes granted even less space to that importunate exactor: for she so distributed the time of day and night that out of both she set aside twelve whole hours for prayer; another ten she spent upon the labor of her hands, by which she supported her parents; the remaining two she assigned to a brief rest and sleep — against whose snares she had fixed a nail in the wall, to which she most tightly plaited the hair which she had kept for covering her crown, and by that torment putting drowsiness to flight, she was accustomed to increase her vigils for reciting prayers.

[183] Emulating the retreats of the holy anchorites who in the solitude of the desert received Christ the Lord, and a lover of solitude, while yet an infant she sought solitary corners at home, fleeing the trifles of girls, that she might hide alone with her God. When a little bigger, she built from the shady branches of trees a little oratory with a small altar, and thither, rising from the table and from her little bed, she hastened as to a refuge for praying. There was a proverb: Go to the garden if you seek little Rose. At home in her chamber she passed the night alone in prayer. She avoided going out of the house even by punishments inflicted upon herself, either with a stone upon her foot or with most biting Indian pepper in her eyes, judging it more tolerable to be blinded than to look upon the vanities of the age. For a stricter retreat, not without a great struggle and a preceding wonderful portent of the Mother of God and the boy Jesus in the chapel of the most holy Rosary, she at length obtained from her mother, in the farthest corner of the garden, a cell five feet in length and four in breadth, where she might be at leisure not only for the labor of her hands but chiefly for recollection of spirit and the pursuit of contemplating, rejoicing that there was only so much room there as would suffice for herself and her heavenly Spouse. In this happy hermitage she disposed ascents in her heart, and, being lifted above herself, seemed to dwell rather out of the body than in the body.

[184] Under the appearance of a star she appeared in a vision to a matron of approved perfection. and indulging pious affections, For to the city of the kings, ^c as Lima is called, its own star was owed, which should be a guide to Christ the Lord, king of kings. It was divinely provided that, dwelling there, she should hear and see several distant Masses no otherwise than if she had been present in body. Innumerable gnats entered this anchoretic cell, and yet there was not even one which bit or touched her, though they invaded religious persons who came in as enemies. Little creatures of this kind she so incited and wonderfully governed to sound forth the praises of God after their measure that Rose was believed almost to have attained the command reserved for the state of innocence, and to dwell in that solitude as in paradise. In the retreat of this little hut, when she was alone or thought that she was observed by none, more tenderly and at the same time more freely she broke out in prose, verse, conversations, and song into all the solemnities and praises of seraphic love, with such fervor and impetus that she moved unknowingly the hearts of those who heard to charity and compunction. From the very fiery quiver of divine love she had gathered ejaculatory prayers into a set form, which pleased those who read them and profited many in use. With these she addressed the true God, the Spouse of her soul, the gladness of her heart, and the most benign Jesus, declaring that she pursued him with that most perfect love with which all the citizens of the empyrean together love him, and that she was consumed with her whole heart.

[185] she offered spiritual gifts to Christ at his birth. When the birthday of this her beloved at Bethlehem drew near, since she contemplated him a little one and naked with his needy mother, she several times prepared garments worthy of the infant Love by a singular and precious stitching-together of pious works: for in place of the little shirt, the swaddling-cloths, the time in which he lay hidden, the coverlet, the swathing-band, the fringes and borders, and the rattles, she had substituted rosaries, stations before the most holy Eucharist, fastings, crowns of the Lord, Lord's Prayers, Angelic Salutations, recitations of the apostolic creed and of very many other prayers, scourgings, tears, attendances at Masses, and receptions of the most holy Communion — all of which she most frequently repeated. And by these exercises of holy love she had so consecrated her soul and heart to him that she was wholly his, as a most beloved bride, and reserved nothing to herself which her Spouse did not altogether possess. On the marriage ring, which as a memorial of so great a Spouse she had commissioned to be wrought with the likeness of the infant Jesus himself, to her brother, while he applies himself to drawing it — although utterly ignorant of so great a mystery — there occurred by divine prompting, for a motto, those same espousal words of the King of kings: Rose of my heart, be you my bride. That ring obtained from Christ the Lord himself such heavenly power that a man of approved virtue, handling it, experienced exceptional infusions of divine love, lofty lights, and unwonted ardors of the Holy Spirit even to a swooning of the soul, with his body utterly motionless; nor could he rise free until the ring was laid down, being held sensibly in the captivity of so holy a nuptial gladness. But if those divine nuptials availed so much in another's soul, how much in the Bride's own!

[186] When in contemplation This most loving woman therefore dwelt confidently with the Lord, and remained with him all day as in a bridal chamber: for, being inwardly taught by him in her very infancy to pray fervently, she was found even while sleeping to utter with her mouth the prayers of the day, and her heart to watch in prayer. In the twelfth year of her age she was raised to that sublime degree of contemplating which mystical theology calls the unitive. Amid the labors of her hands she fixed the keenness of her intellect immovably upon God, so that neither waking nor sleeping did the presence of her heavenly Spouse slip from the eye of her mind, which so sweetly occupied the inner powers of her soul that, while speaking with God himself within, she at the same time readily transacted all other necessary matters without.

[187] she remained fixed for several hours, For hours motionless before the altars, she neither saw those passing by nor turned her mind aside at sudden noises. From the morning of the fifth day of the week until the Sabbath, and sometimes even until Sunday, she remained thus on bended knees unchanged, so that, being bidden, she sincerely disclosed that she had not been able to rise from the pavement. The divine attributes, distributed into the number of a hundred and fifty, by reciting them in decades after the pattern of the most holy Rosary, she knew to have been a terror to demons. Her familiar conversations for the most part contained the force of prayer. Being roused by a tuneful little bird to the contemplation of God three hours before dinner, and being caught up into ecstasy, she did not extricate herself from it until evening. She strove to draw her neighbors to the exercise of prayer, and especially of mental prayer. She besought confessors to induce their penitents to it by every art, and most frequently exhorted the very heralds of the divine word

that they should inflame their hearers to the pursuit of it, as to a great apothecary's shop against all sins, and should bring in among the people the practice of pious meditations. The recitation of the Virgin's rosary, with the consideration of the mysteries woven in by decades, as holy Dominic had instituted it, ^d she singularly loved, because in it there grow together the affections of mental and vocal prayer at once, petitions, praises, thanksgivings: and it was found in fact that these incitements of Rose profited very many.

[188] Near her death, throughout Lent, with a wonderfully tuneful little bird and while she wrought certain prodigious things, which at the setting of the sun flew before her chamber, Rose alternated songs and praises of God daily for a whole hour, with such order that, while the little bird sang, the Virgin was silent, and, while the Virgin sang, the most attentive little bird did not even chirp; nay, she invited by an example altogether singular even the insensible plants themselves to the praises and to the prayer of God, uttering that verse, Bless the Lord, all you things that grow upon the earth, and visibly so bent them down that the tops of the trees touched the earth and, as with a solemn rite of veneration, adored their Creator. So far is it true that he who cleaves to the Lord is one spirit, and that all things obey him also.

[189] That it might be tested whether her spirit was from God, her spirit or manner of life she was several times subjected to the subtle examination of men excelling both in learning and in piety and discernment of spirits; from which it became clear that her lights and gifts were divine; and that from the very dawn of reason nothing had occurred sweeter to her than to think of God and to pant after his heavenly good pleasure; that from her twelfth year her soul, most readily drawn inward by the Lord with its spiritual powers, had cleaved to the divine beauty, so that by no created thing could she ever be separated from the charity of Christ; that from infancy, by God's great gift, she had felt easy propensities toward virtues without the tumult of the passions; that from her first knowledge of God she had been filled with the fear of God and with horror of sin; that she could be refreshed by no created thing; that her whole relief had been to feel God present in her soul; that it seemed to her more bitter than any loss and than Gehenna itself if she should lose him from her sight even for a moment.

[190] Then out of obedience she disclosed that God perhaps gave her a contest that she might conquer, and might know that wisdom is more powerful than all things: is examined by skilled men, for she related the dreadful visions, dreads, and abandonments of spirit which for fifteen years she bore with the utmost constancy, which seemed like the penal delays of souls mourning in purgatory, and indeed a very type of hell itself, since no hope of escaping shone upon her. Then it appeared that amid these abandonments she suddenly found herself restored, in the very noonday of her former union, as in her Spouse's arms; that she felt a certain inexplicable gift, solid and fundamental, by which she seemed to herself to be rendered incapable of sinning, like him who said: "Who shall separate us from the charity of Christ?" That generally also after those darknesses the humanity of Christ the Lord appeared to her, and likewise the most holy Virgin Mother of God; and she explained the intellectual visions also, by which she experienced God's presence in herself, by terms of removal, of eminence, and of causality, and by other circumstances; and it became wonderfully manifest that she had gained this not from books, but with the Holy Spirit teaching her inwardly. Her exercises of mortification and penance also, and that in these she had fixed the measure not by her own judgment but by that of her confessors, and her distrust of her own strength, the ardor of her faith, the security of her hope, the burnings of divine love, she so clearly explained that the examiners, by separate conversations, scrutinies, and judgments, with unanimous spirit, vote, and opinion concluded that the way in which this chosen Virgin of God walked was sincere and safe.

[191] That Rose acted and was acted upon by the Spirit of God, as a daughter of God, and is approved by all. was the constant opinion of all who were then celebrated at Lima for a report of perfection and holiness; and they judged that she abounded in the gift of wisdom and was governed by a knowledge infused from heaven: for, when the professors of sacred Letters proposed the most difficult questions about the hidden mystery of the most holy Trinity, the hypostatic union of the divine Word, the most holy sacrament of the Altar, the deep abyss of predestination, the nature of grace, and the other theological questions, she explained them with conceptions so sublime, with sentences so profound, and with words so proper, that all praised with our Savior the almighty Father, Lord of heaven and earth, that he revealed such great things, hidden from the wise and prudent, to the most humble little ones and unlearned.

ANNOTATIONS.

\ perhaps tactu* (by touch)

\ perhaps accersere*

\ another reading: attentissime*

§ III. Her familiarity with Christ, the Mother of God, the angels, S. Catherine of Siena; her contests against demons, her constancy in adversities, and her ardent love of God.

This Virgin's conversation was more in heaven than on earth; Often familiarly to this Virgin and wherever the most holy name of Jesus occurred to her in reading, she lingered upon it for a while: for thence she felt fires of love in her heart; and Jesus himself often appeared to loving Rose upon the surface of the page, and caressed her with a sweet gaze, as the Word most worthy of the attentive reading of such a soul, in whom are all the treasures of the wisdom and knowledge of God: so also, when she was busied at the sewing of a web, he often sat most quietly upon her cushion, and spoke with silent nods to the heart of this his Beloved, and with every gesture declared his divine love. Frequent, and almost daily, were these delights of this holy soul; and sometimes, when her Spouse delayed, she lamented with plaintive voices until he should come. Playing with him whose throat is most sweet, she obtained by winning to be cured of pains of the throat; but by losing she was again given pains together with patience — which, when out of obedience she related to her mother, she was seen to shine with an angelic countenance.

[193] To her, now languishing and failing in strength and destitute of all human help, there came that very One Christ, who is a helper in opportunities and in tribulation; and by the precious perfume-box of his wounded side, kindly applied to her to draw the water of salvation from the fountains of the Savior, he at once healed the sick girl. ^a By innocent maidens she was seen to stand, and sometimes even to walk, with Jesus himself, and to exchange most secret conversations with such majesty that, wherever he set his foot, the pavement shone with a gleaming light; and, that such a rose might cleave to no other plant than to him who is the flower of the field and the lily of the valleys, ^b she found the basil, or ozimum, which she cultivated rather studiously, reserved as a royal plant for the King of the ages himself, dry and rooted up; to her as she grieved at this Christ himself, appearing, said that he had with his own hands rooted it up and cast it away, that he alone might be her true basil. By these things he showed most true what he had said to a certain person in an ecstasy: namely, that he bore Rose in the inmost sanctuary of his divine heart, since he knew that in turn he alone dwelt most tranquilly in her virginal little heart.

[194] The Queen of heaven also often stood at her right hand, the Mother of God, so that from the eleventh year of her age until the last this precious companionship of familiarity was not lacking to her: for in the Rosary chapel, from her sedulous service, she had a mutual conversation with her; and she honored this her Handmaid with such honor that she rendered her the offices of a chamberwoman by waking her with these words: "Rise to prayer, Daughter; rise, for the hour is at hand"; and to her, when she awoke, she showed herself to be seen face to face, comely in majesty, and a paradise of heavenly glory, while she exclaimed with a second Elizabeth: "Whence is this to me, that the mother of my Lord should come to me?"

[195] an angel The Lord also sent his angel to go before Rose and visibly to guard her and to bring her into the place which he had prepared for her: for so homely was this Virgin's confidence with him that she had him not only as a most friendly companion but also as a go-between or a courier, as often as at the accustomed hour her Spouse did not appear. Failing in strength on a certain night, she sent him to Maria de Usategui to announce to her that she needed a remedy, which she at once sent by a servant, her mother seeing and learning this from her Daughter through obedience. By the same, from her garden cell, he himself opening the bolts of the doors, she was led unharmed to her mother's chamber. God also gave his other angels charge concerning her: at her prayers they attended a certain religious on a dangerous journey, until he was changed for the worse; to whom, when he complained to the virgin herself of this abandonment, she revealed the mystery and singular secrets known to him alone and to God, and which from so great a distance could have become known to the Virgin only by the Lord himself or by an angel revealing them.

[196] and S. Catherine of Siena appeared. Often also, from the time when holy Catherine of Siena was given her by Christ the Lord as mistress, she visibly met her upon earth, especially when she studied her rule; and so frequent and friendly was the conversation between these virgins that from the face of blessed Catherine lights passed into Rose's face, so that both living and dead she wholly represented her in the lineaments of her countenance ^c — besides innumerable delights, favors, services, and virtues with which she was adorned and increased by her.

[197] Although God permitted her The heavenly Father tested this his Chosen one amid these delights of the spiritual life, as gold in the furnace, with the fire of temptations, afflictions, persecutions, and of many and grave infirmities: for she wrestled most frequently with demons, and was vexed by many annoyances from them; of which one, under the foul appearance of a mastiff, tried to terrify her as she prayed with dread-sounding barking, and, dragging her along the ground with a rabid bite, tried to tear her in pieces, until she cried out to her Spouse: "Do not deliver up to the beasts the souls that confess to you." At another time he struck her a blow; sometimes he hurled a rough stone at her, which laid Rose flat upon the ground, neither hurt nor terrified; he tore her spiritual books; at another time, under a giant's bulk, with the cell trembling, he seized this unconquerable woman and so twisted her that her bones seemed crushed and her sinews torn apart.

[198] to be vexed by demons, But the Virgin's unconquered spirit repressed and derided the madness of this raging enemy, contending in vain for several hours, until, despairing of victory, he departed. Going out into the garden to pray, she met this antagonist, winning in appearance and transformed into an angel of light; and she begged her victory from a noble flight, since the contest concerned chastity; and, seizing an iron chain, she made her bared shoulders bloody with most bitter blows; and to her as she complained amid streams of blood and tears of her Spouse's absence, he, appearing conspicuously, showed that unless he himself had been with her she would never have carried off the victory. From the beginnings of childhood she had obtained the discernment of spirits, and she recognized, being taught by her holy mistress what she had once drawn from Christ the Lord, that illuminations are from God when there follow in the soul humility, an affection of reverence, a knowledge of one's own uselessness, order and unity of heart, and joy in God; and that on the contrary impressions opposed to these — fear, confusion of a divided heart, self-complacency, and unquiet — savor of pitch.

[199] From infancy she was in distresses: for in the ninth month of her age she was deprived of milk, and various adversities whose lack could be made up only by food quite unsuitable. She had scarcely begun to speak when, on account of the controversy about her name, she was beaten with rods by her grandmother if she answered when called Rose, by her mother if when called Elizabeth. This Virgin's virtues and mortifications seemed mere offenses to her mother, who intended otherwise; for the chastising of which she employed not only the harshest words but very often savage blows, especially when she was discovered to have cut off her ruddy hair. Nor were the household milder toward her when her virtues and heavenly gifts became known, being seized by a vain fear lest, to the great disgrace of the family, she should be haled to the tribunal of the sacred Inquisition as suspected of impostures. There was added, to the heap of her tribulation, the incredulous drowsiness, or rudeness, or ignorance of certain confessors, while they tried to persuade her that that way of virtue was not straight or safe; that she suffered from dizziness or some other harmful distemper; that they were illusions which she believed to be divine illuminations. To a woman urging her to obtain by prayers from her seraphic mistress to be snatched from these distresses, she constantly refused: for the Bride of the Crucified was ashamed to be found even for a moment outside crosses, from which she was never free; for when she was on holiday from the outward one, a graver inward one occupied her, and when persecution ceased outside, troops of sicknesses succeeded.

[200] At Canta from a dire contraction of the sinews she lay abed for three years with intense torment, and to be afflicted with diseases, with no groan. Often a most acute quinsy, asthma, a most troublesome sciatica, pleurisy, pains of the stomach, pericardium, and intestines beyond number, and convulsions frequent and without law invaded her, the physicians for the most part being astounded how in so dry a little body there was strength for enduring what would have been enough to prostrate any most robust person — Rose perceiving excellently that these festal contests came to her not so much from a distemper as from the benevolent hand of her Spouse. Ephemeral fevers, and also the other more stubborn kinds, mere habit had already turned almost into a jest. The diseases of chiragra, podagra, and arthritis frequently occupied her, which she bore with unconquered constancy. All these things she reckoned among the more illustrious favors conferred upon her by God. For in a sublime and singular elevation of mind she had seen Christ the Lord dividing graces and gifts by a balance made of a cross, in the measure of the punishments; and she heard him saying that without the weight of afflictions one does not come to the heaps of grace; that the one true ladder of paradise is the cross, and that there remains no other besides it by which one may ascend into heaven.

[201] Languishing and glowing with the fires of divine love, praying by night, she was seen by another virgin flashing with great lights, yet she stirred up in herself as with little fires darted out through mouth and eyes, declaring how great a conflagration glowed within — which it became known had happened at other times, unknown to her, before various persons. Her other virtues she studiously concealed; the great flame of charity she could not cover: for her conversations, greetings, and answers were continually seasoned with the memory of divine love. She addressed by degrees the several ranks of creatures to the love of the sweetest Creator, both with fiery words and with the plucking of a cithara which she had not learned, that by every rite, gesture, and act of hers she might show herself a lover to her Beloved. Driven by the same force of charity, as a true bride she was zealous for the Lord's honor: for she detested irreverence in churches, and humbly and sweetly rebuked those who spoke idly there. The household took care not to bring forth absurdities before her; for they stood in awe of the censorious brow of Rose while she was still a little girl. She was suffused with immense joy as often as she saw God's honor advanced by some notable success, as happened in the conversion of a notable sinful woman. By the same zeal she transferred to herself by prayers her confessor's fever, that he might discharge the office of preacher at a most celebrated solemnity; and when he recovered, a fever not her own tormented Rose, nor yet did she wish to be absent from the sermon: for a glowing desire for the divine glory easily overcame the febrile heat.

[202] and in others, the fire of divine love, Christ the Lord himself sealed this solicitude for God's love in his Beloved with this notable miracle. In the year of salvation 1617, on the seventeenth day before the Kalends of May, Rose, being more vehemently roused by the goads of divine love, was aloud and most fervently addressing the venerable likeness of the Savior in the treasurer's oratory, when at once little drops of sweat covered the whole face of the image. Witnesses celebrated for skill and learning were called together, who, all things being seriously weighed, judged that what was taking place in the icon was supernatural. The pious portent lasted four hours, all who stood by being astounded with admiration and holy dread; the traces of which sweat remained conspicuous for some lustra. That this was only an indication how earnestly our Savior desires to be loved in return by all, the virgin Rose herself, aware of the divine secret, attested, while the household feared lest it should be a presage of impending divine vengeance. That sweat, applied by her confessor's command to the arm of Rose herself — which before, being dashed against the ground, had been so gravely injured that in the surgeons' judgment the Virgin would remain maimed on that side — rendered it sound and flexible, to the astonishment of the surgeon, who the day before had judged all treatment vain, since the arm appeared altogether intractable.

[203] with which she especially burned, She had not yet passed her childhood years when her confessors, recognizing her as already grown in spirit, gave her the faculty of frequently eating that Bread of angels which affords delights to kings. There was in her spirit a limpid cleanness, a bright purity of innocence, and a robust warmth of devotion; and nevertheless, with so great a candor of a spotless conscience, as often as she had to approach the divine Banquet, so often, most full of groaning and bathed in tears, she premised a sacramental confession. The priests about to give her Communion beheld her wholly aflame, and her face radiant with a heavenly and vehement splendor: nay, to the priest about to hold out the sacred Communion a flaming oven seemed to be opened when she removed her mantle to receive the divine Host; and the frightened priest so felt the force of the sudden bursting heat that he often drew back his hand from a sudden fear of being burned. The same the minister of the celebrant experienced in himself, while according to custom he held out to her the cup of ablution; so that by this testimony too it might be proved that this is that Sacrament by which God himself comes to send fire upon the earth.

[204] when she received the sacred Eucharist, Being bidden, she disclosed that from the virginal flesh of God there was diffused into her soul the wonderful gentleness of the heavenly Lamb; that her spirit was invigorated with unwonted strength; that her powers were restored and refreshed by a certain as it were new transformation of her spirit into this divine nourishment; that meanwhile there shone in her heart the placid serenity of a loftier sphere, peace, temper, an immensity of joy from close union with her divine Spouse, a height of fruition, and a spiritual savor of true sweetness, which were explicable by no comparison at all. Refreshed by the sacred Communion, she abstained fasting from all other food until evening, sometimes until the following day, and sometimes, content with it alone, for a whole octave. Her veneration toward the venerable mystery was so exceptional that once she girt herself, in the sight of others, to undergo the martyrdom which rumor had spread abroad as imminent: and then the martyrdom was lacking to the victim, not the victim to the martyrdom.

[205] With the highest worship also she attended the sign of the holy Cross or poured forth prayers, wherever she found it, so that from the plants of the garden she formed an impression of it, one of which, given as a gift to the vicereine, a little afterward withered, and, being restored to Rose, revived after four days — which the Virgin wholly attributed to the power of that same holy Cross. Toward the images of the most blessed Virgin she glowed with a wonderful affection of devotion, and especially toward that which expresses the most august Queen of the rosary, in whose chapel, when she received the habit of her Order, she was seen by her weeping mother to be raised to heaven by a gracious favor of the Mother of God. It was reported at Lima that Rose obtained whatever she asked at that holy image. The tranquility of a certain community in which discord had prevailed she obtained by praying for two days, not without tears and to the admiration of others; and she was honored there with very many other favors, conversations, and visions, which in her examination, obeying, she disclosed.

[206] Being chosen as fitter and worthier for adorning the likeness of holy Catherine of Siena, whose efficacy God whom she venerated from her inmost heart as a mother, she did not cease in that service from tears, kisses, and conversations; and in a wonderful manner she received a note enclosing as much money as she herself had a little before wished for her garment. She foretold that a marked twig, then swollen with no sign of fruitfulness, would in honor of the most holy Trinity produce three flowers of gilliflowers, with which she should adorn the sacred image, at that time in which that region lacked such a kind of flowers — which had long been sought in vain; and the outcome corresponded to the oracle, her companions wondering and begging pardon for their distrust.

[207] Euphemia de Pareja had helped her in this task, showed by various miracles. whose servant Francisca, the nurse of her infant, was gravely ill. When Rose prayed to holy Catherine, she, the danger being driven off, so recovered that on the next day she was permitted by the physician to give the infant her nursing breasts, which she had been forbidden. For Francisca de Montoya also she obtained from the same Saint that a sulphurous cracker of hurled fires, which made for her face and struck upon her brow, should not harm her — although, springing back, it injured and set fire to the garments of another woman with a strong blow. The same Rose in the year of the Lord 1616, in the month of August, to whom after the procession the image had been brought to be unclothed,

was suffering from a dreadful arthritis in her right hand, which with monstrous torment had invaded all the joints, so that she was rendered utterly useless for the aforesaid work. She fell down before the image of holy Catherine on the day of B. Lawrence, and, a brief prayer having been made, she girt herself for the work — the bystanders wondering, the treasurer himself seeing the hand, a little before most bitterly injured, then strong and agile, the physician himself testifying to the evidence of the miracle; to which benefit there was added that thereafter arthritis never afterward invaded that hand — which was no wonder to Rose herself, who drew from her, as from a mother, almost daily solaces out of their mutual fellowship.

ANNOTATIONS.

\ perhaps vilitatis* (of vileness)

§ IV. Her care for her neighbor's salvation, her mercy toward the poor, her hope in divine help proved by miracles, and her spirit of prophecy.

This Virgin, about the conversion of the heathen Indians, She was zealous also for the house of God, for the salvation of souls: for with that same charity with which she loved the true body of Christ the Lord she loved his mystical body also. As often as she turned her eyes toward the inner mountains of southern America, she was tortured to the marrow, weeping over the perdition of so many barbarians who peopled those inaccessible valleys behind the snowy ridges. So also whatever other nations of unbelievers there were, were matter of continual lamentation to her. Religious men, and especially the Brothers of her own Order, as many as she knew to be fit, she exhorted to the conversion of the heathen, and besought by the bowels of Jesus Christ that they would gird themselves for this work. She strove to inflame the mind of one of her confessors, appointed for a mission, to hasten the work, and agreed with him that half of all the fruits which she meanwhile hoped to heap up from the whole exercise of her good works should be assigned to him; and that in turn he should make over to the Virgin herself the fruits of the conversion of the souls which he was to draw by his preaching into the way of salvation. With this mind she devised to take a needy little boy as it were for a son, whom she should imbue with the rudiments of Christian life, and whom by pious alms she hoped to raise to the virtues and to a full instruction in sacred letters, on this condition, that he, being made fit and marked with the priesthood, should hasten to apostolic missions for the conversion of the nations, so that what she could not perform herself she might supply through another — which, had she not been forestalled by an untimely death, she would have accomplished. For imperiled Christians who through mortal fault had unhappily fallen from the state of divine friendship she spared no expenditure of tears, and daily inflicted bloody wounds upon herself, that to these truly wretched ones a serious amendment of life might be granted by God. The preachers themselves she vehemently exhorted to call forth with all their effort, from the lowest Charybdis ^a of vices, wicked souls, lest they perish, to the safe shore of penance.

[209] and about the repentance of bad Christians Being divinely taught about the depraved desire with which a young man named Vincent, sprung of noble family, had come to her under a pretense, she rebuked him with such charity that he confessed that he recognized Christ the Lord speaking in her; and, wholly changed from what he had been a little before, relying upon and helped by the prayers of that same Virgin, bidding farewell to youthful desires and faults, he established a holy manner of living. It was a prodigy if any person subject to any vice whatever approached Rose and did not depart from her a better one. Maria de Mesta, who by the combative disease of impatience and headlong anger had by long habit become intolerable even to herself, she so instructed with aphorisms of patience and gentleness that from that day she was seen more amended and milder; and she so advanced in a short time in the wrestling-school of patience that she now of her own accord asked more adversity from God. A religious struggling fearfully and dangerously with the anguishes of death, vexed by burning scruples, she so helped by the promise of her prayers, by exhortation, and by the pledge of a share in her satisfactions, that his dread at once yielded place to a glad hope; who afterward, being fortified with the saving sacraments, with a vast confidence of salvation rendered a placid and serene spirit to his Creator — of whose soul Rose afterward announced that it went happily and kindly with it, and that it, being now enrolled in the region of light, enjoyed the perennial refreshment of the happiness of the Saints.

[210] The Lord also ordered charity in her in the corporal works of mercy, and she was so solicitous for the distresses of the poor, with which she strove to help her neighbors: for this needy Virgin, withdrawing necessaries from herself, dispersed and gave to the poor: for, in order to relieve a certain hidden need, being content with bread and water alone, she withdrew from herself eight days' nourishment for the support of a needy person. Cloth granted her by her parents for the necessities of her sicknesses she at once divided between two maidens noble in virtue and in birth, yet extremely needy. She gave as a gift to the most poor maiden Montoya one of the mantles which her mother possessed, foretelling to her that other new ones would be provided in place of the old — which happened in fact wonderfully, as the Virgin had foretold. Being divinely admonished that Joanna de Bobadilla was a noble but forsaken maiden, whom a devouring cancer beneath the breast tortured, and, the remedy being delayed, threatened destruction, she received her into the house, provided for her the monthly cost of lodging and the price of medicines, and after some months restored her entirely sound, grieving at this one thing only, that she could not, her pledged word standing in the way, openly return the Virgin's benefit in the service of a grateful mind while she lived. Nothing more pleasant could befall her than if she were permitted by her mother to bring into her father's house needy women of every condition, or such as were afflicted with diseases, that there she might constantly minister with her own hands to the languishing; for whom she strove exactly to provide whatever was necessary for food and medicine. Among these beggar women there was none so intolerable in appearance or so horrible in stench that Rose could disdain her or turn from her in nausea. To all she brought remedy, service, and care.

[211] To her mother, who was indignant on account of the stench of moldy rottenness that she strove to succor all. which Rose had contracted upon her garments from the care of a sick woman, she answered: "We are the good odor of Christ while we minister to the sick. Charity is not delicate, nor does it disdain a neighbor." With unconquered spirit, following the scarcely imitable example of her holy mistress, ^b she overcame in the house of Isabella de Mexia the nausea of her stomach by a heroic act. John de Tineo Almanza knew that the treasurer Gonzalo had several times been freed from most grievous infirmities by Rose's prayers and merits: he, being dangerously ill from torments of the stomach, obtained that that Virgin, after hearing Mass and seemlily accompanied, should visit him; in whose countenance, beholding an angelic majesty, he conceived an undoubting hope of soundness, and at once all pain vanished: sleep, which had wholly fled, gently seized the sick man. She departed most swiftly, that she might escape applause; but he woke sound. Rose's gentle sweetness and tender compassion showed itself, and helped, even to brute animals.

[212] Moreover she had conceived so great a confidence All this holy Virgin's hope was in God, who had prevented her with blessings of sweetness: hence she most frequently chanted that verse of David, familiar to the holy Fathers and hermits: "O God, come to my assistance; O Lord, make haste to help me." She often sought the emphasis of these words: but no one ever brought her a deeper explanation than that which she herself, God teaching her inwardly, had conceived in her mind. Being asked why she loved this alone above the other verses, she answered that the whole solace of her seraphic mother was contained in it, and that each of its syllables swelled with a certain hidden juice of familiar confidence in God, and that nothing else could occur to her palate more savory than these proper words. There was given her from heaven a certitude of confidence in obtaining three greatest gifts: namely eternal blessedness, a perpetual and never-to-be-interrupted friendship of God, and an infallible succor from on high in any necessities whatever and in sudden dangers.

[213] in divine providence, This innocent soul was once distressed, thinking with fearful dread upon the secret of her predestination, to be feared by every soul; whom the Lord, swift to help, addressed thus: "Daughter, I condemn no one save him who wills to be condemned: from now on be of tranquil mind." At another time, in an excess of mind, the little Jesus was present to her, resting upon the arms of his most pure Mother, and, gently addressing her, bade her gather the roses scattered along the ground into the fold of her flowing garment; then the divine Infant, one having been asked for and gratefully received, added: "This Rose are you; of her I take upon myself the provident care; do you dispose of the rest as you shall more wish." By these things she recognized that she was held in the Savior's right hand like a chosen rose, whom no one should snatch out of his hand. Weaving a sudden garland of the remaining roses, she placed it upon the awful head of Jesus, who, smiling upon the virgin and blessing her, disappeared. By the other roses she knew that the pious maidens of Lima were indicated, who after her death were to be gathered into the new monastery of S. Catherine of Siena.

[214] that she often, in manifest dangers of life, By the same force of confidence in God, from her earliest age Rose stood undaunted against any difficulties and inconveniences whatever of mortal life: whose faith, constancy, and nods monstrous bulls, goaded from elsewhere into the utmost rage, were seen to revere: for, to the astonishment of all who looked on, at the sight of the unconquered Virgin from afar they suddenly learned to spare the innocent. For when she was twelve years old, in a certain village she met a most ferocious bull rushing thither; and when those who were with her were planning flight, with her eyes fixed on heaven she dissuaded them from flight. She had not yet finished her words when the fierce animal with terrifying bellowing made an onset upon other persons far off, Rose with her company remaining unharmed; and she admonished her companions, still fearful after the danger, that hope must be placed more firmly in the help of the Most High, and then most of all when the nearness of the danger has shut off every escape. So also at another time another bull aimed its course straight at the carriage in which Rose was riding with her mother and others: while the rest attempted flight, Rose alone, with her eyes cast to heaven, foretold that the bull would not run up as far as the carriage. She had spoken, and the outcome answered, all being astounded not so much at the bull's return as at the Virgin's spirit superior to all fear, who in the greatest dangers sang to her heavenly Spouse: "I shall not fear evils, for you are with me."

[215] No less was her confidence in hoping from divine providence for the necessary supports of life. and in other necessities, experienced it, Bread had once failed for a numerous family in her father's house, nor was there anything with which to buy it. She by a brief movement of her lips commended the matter to God; presently, opening the bread chest with great faith, she found it full of unleavened and savory loaves, their strange shape testifying that they had not come from a household bakery. Honey, a most necessary seasoning in those regions, had wholly failed at home: she herself went down in the name of the Lord, being bidden by a most secret prompting to hope the best of God's protection, and the cask

she found full of fresh honey up to the top, the whole house being astounded, and the more so because by a new prodigy the honey given from heaven sufficed the whole family for daily use for eight whole months. Gaspar Flores, the Virgin's father, was ill, grieving also on account of a debt of fifty pounds, for the paying of which he had nothing through poverty: her perplexed mother was saddened, the creditor's importunity increasing their straits. The Daughter goes to the church, pours forth prayers; and to her as she returned home a man plainly unknown came up, and at the same time held out silver wrapped in a little cloth, and, bidding the present need of her parents be relieved with it, at once departed. As Rose unfolded the wrapping, the very fifty pounds of which her father was debtor appeared; which, when related to Gaspar, seemed a dream, until his Daughter counted out the coins just as she had received them. These are the supports which her divine Spouse, under the guise of a heavenly Stonecutter, had once promised to this new Bride, among her dowry-gifts and marriage presents, that he would furnish to her parents.

[216] By the testimony of our Lord Jesus Christ also, which is the spirit of prophecy, she was illustrious; and foretold many future things, for almost a whole decade before the foundation, sometimes by symbols and figures, at other times manifestly and in its own type, there was not only divinely shown to her the monastery which at Lima under the patronage of S. Catherine of Siena was to be dedicated to a numerous college of sacred virgins, but she also recognized by her face the future first prefect of the nuns there and foundress of the convent, Lucia Guerra de la Daga, imbued her with her own spirit, and in a manner initiated her with a kiss of peace, saying to her: "Well done, mother, God has reserved you for a vast work of his." From the Virgin's spirit the happy matron drew divine feelings and a heavenly desire of the religious state; but her surviving husband and her numerous family stood in the way, all of whom God a little afterward called away from this light; and he likewise removed innumerable other and most powerful hindrances to the foundation after the virgin's death, and bent hard minds once averse to favor of the pious work. These being removed, Lucia founded and endowed the convent with her most ample means, and finally gave herself, taking with the sacred veil the name of sister Lucia of the Most Holy Trinity; and she was the first to hold the office of prefect of her new religious house, wonderfully propagated the spirit of religion, and at length, celebrated for a repute of holiness, fell asleep in the Lord.

[217] Maria de Oliva herself, Rose's mother, who before had bitterly contradicted her Daughter when she prophesied this, in the year of the Lord 1629, after her husband's death, at sixty years of age was devoutly joined in the new monastery to the daughters of the holy Father Dominic, whose truth the outcome proved. and, having taken with the habit the name of Maria of S. Mary, and having afterward made her profession, rested in an excellent end. In which also her Spouse's promised providence shone forth: for, since she lacked the necessary dowry, one of the places reserved by the foundress herself for the free reception of worthier but needy persons fell to her; and all the rest, even the least things, came about exactly as the holy virgin had foretold. John Villalobos of the Society of Jesus testified upon sworn faith that he had by his own experience detected the prophetic spirit in her, the Virgin disclosing to him a secret business which could not have become known otherwise than from heaven. Antonio a Vega, a most upright man of the same Society, related that something most similar had befallen him with her. A secret thought which the treasurer's daughter had never disclosed to anyone, nor was about to disclose, Rose exactly recited to her, and prescribed most healthful instructions. To Maria de Mesta, wife of the painter Medorus Angelinus, she mentioned the plan about setting out for the Spains which they had entered upon most secretly: she said that the sum of money which they had fixed at their discretion was enough for both, the woman wondering and attesting that more could not have been said by the Virgin if she had stood as a third at their conversation. To John Miguel of the Order of St. Dominic, returning to Lima, she narrated in order and exactly the things which had befallen him in a foreign region, and which could not by human means have come into Rose's knowledge; nay, he evidently recognized that the most hidden recesses of his own conscience had lain open to the Virgin. Very many other prophecies of this Bride of Christ of this kind, and even more wonderful, are commemorated, to all of which the outcome corresponded, proving that in her soul there dwelt a fullness of grace, not only sanctifying but also gratuitously given, and the Holy Spirit.

ANNOTATIONS.

§ V. The Saint's last illness, pious death, and honorable obsequies.

Foreknowing her impending death Foreknowing the day on which she was to hasten from this vale of tears to her Spouse's bridal chamber (which she could not conceal from her mother), she every year venerated with a singular zeal of devotion the feast of Lord Bartholomew the apostle, which was the term appointed for her mortal pilgrimage; ^a and on its vigil, not content with her own fasting, she brought some innocent boys to fast with her, who persevered in it even after her death, because they had been so instructed by Rose. Three years before her departure she lay sick with a grave disease, so that, being now ripe for her last funeral and failing, when her confessor and the household wept with her, she undauntedly bade him drive away untimely grief and be certain that she would not then die; by which saying it became known that she had ascertained the term of her passing by divine revelation. Nay, four months before her death she related to the wife of the treasurer Gonzalo the most atrocious pains of her last infirmity that were to be, and foretold that a most monstrous and most burning thirst was at hand for her. The place also she had foretold a whole year before to the same matron, in that same chamber in which she paid the debt of mortality, asking that she should not commit her little body to any other woman besides herself and her own mother to be clothed and placed upon the bier.

[219] Three days before her last lying-down she went to her garden cell, she fell into an unknown disease and, beginning after the manner of a swan, she commended in song to God and to holy Dominic her mother, whom she was leaving desolate. Her mother, hearing, believed that they were metrical sports, but on the Kalends of August she recognized that these things had been foretold prophetically: for about the middle of the night she was heard wailing piteously, and was found with her little body stretched upon the ground and her limbs rigid. Being asked whether she wished a physician, she answered: "the heavenly one." A cold sweat stood upon her, and in all her members and joints she was straitened with pains and punishments which her Spouse had once shown her in a vision as to come, much heavier than all the rest which she had borne in life. Being bidden once by her confessor, at another time by her mother, to relate her pains — although she had known by experience the force and names of almost all sicknesses — this one nevertheless she could explain only by likenesses of white-hot iron driven through her temples, and of a fiery dagger piercing from the left side the middle of her body, in which there was an expression of the Crucified, and of a white-hot helmet enclosing her head; and at the same time she said that each of her sinews, joints, bones, and marrow was being crushed, dissolved, and dried up, and finally that she had no name for them, nor knew a torment to which she might compare them.

[220] She disclosed moreover to her confessor that the physicians labored in vain in exploring the species of this infirmity, and most bitter in its pains, which neither the pulse nor any other outward sign indicated; and that accordingly there was need to her of no other than the incurable patience of Job, so that in some manner she might experience limb by limb each of the pains of her crucified Spouse. She asked and obtained for some days a solitary quiet and silence, that she might more inwardly steep her pains in the last torments of her crucified Love, to whom she felt herself fastened limb by limb upon the cross. Punishments of this kind increased day by day, so that it was a wonder that she did not sooner sink and succumb to so powerful, varied, and heaped-up a host of pains; but she was gradually dissolved, because for her the most glorious kind of martyrdom was to die slowly and joint by joint. For she was certain that these punishments would work in her an eternal weight of glory; she knew that this was the cup which her Spouse had drunk and had mixed for her as his bride, and had shown her beforehand so long before: whence constantly and gladly she drank it all up as held out from the hand of Christ the Lord. Winning and most devout conversations she exchanged with her Beloved, and only asked the Lord with the household that her pains might not hinder the free use of her mind. A most monstrous thirst beyond the rest, as she had foretold, tortured her inwardly, nor was a drink of water given to her as she thirsted, the physicians' prescript standing in the way; whence to the Virgin, painfully parching, this too remained to be borne, to cry out with her dying Spouse: I thirst.

[221] As the acceptable time drew nearer in which this Rose was to be transferred from earth into her Spouse's paradise, the spoils of mortality being laid aside, in whose interval she most piously having several times called her confessors, she purged her most tender conscience, and once generally over her whole life, by confession, always with sobs of repentance and tears, so that those who heard, being pricked with compunction, wondered that she who did not weep amid the most savage torments should so deeply bewail the lightest imperfections. Three days before her happy death she asked as a suppliant with tearful voice for the divine Viaticum and Extreme Unction: when the Eucharistic banquet was brought, she gracefully reddened like a flashing dawn, and, unequal to her joy, was caught up into a most lofty ecstasy. Yet to the priest holding out the most holy Host and asking according to custom she answered aptly and readily. So also with a brisk service of all her senses the dying woman received the Oil of the sick, by which she felt herself encouraged rather to a triumph than to an agony.

[222] prepared herself for death, Often also before the bystanders she made with clear voice a profession of the orthodox faith, declaring that, as she had lived, so she was dying a daughter of the holy Roman and universal Church. The sacred scapular of her Order, as the proper banner of her religious warfare, with which the Virgin Mother of God had distinguished the newborn Order of Preachers, she wished to see spread out upon the coverlets. When the Prior of the Dominican convent at Lima visited her, to whom for five years she had at other times opened the hidden places of her conscience, she obtained from him with humble prayers that there be read out an exact formula by which, now dying, she might beg pardon from God for all who had in any way injured her in the course of her life; whose words the Virgin followed with her voice, clasping the Crucifix; nor could she be satisfied with those most tender words: "Father, forgive them." A soul truly worthy of so great a Spouse, who, that she might be fully cross-shaped, imitated the divine Lamb upon the cross praying at the last for his adversaries!

[223] and after certain admonitions given to the bystanders From the household of the treasurer Gonzalo she begged with humble and tearful voice to be forgiven if in anything she had ever harmed any of them, all weeping who had proved her innocence and purity by so many experiences. When a written document was offered her, in which she asked for a sepulchre among her own religious, she signed it with all submission of mind, being solicitous about nothing less than the care of her body. She asked her Spouse not to cease to cook her thoroughly with exquisite burnings until she should ripen for him into a fruit which might deserve to be brought to his table. Toward this end of her life the most sweet intervals of raptures were more frequent, in which it became known that she had tasted beforehand lofty and pleasant foretastes of the sweetness of God and glad ones of the region of eternity. She most greatly desired the last blessing of both her parents,

and received it with veneration: so also she wished to be blessed by the treasurer Gonzalo and his wife, whom she had honored as parents. To her two brothers by blood, amid saving admonitions, she seriously commended the care and reverence of their parents, as though she said to each of them, in imitation of the Crucified: Behold your mother. Both daughters of the treasurer also, most greatly loved by her on account of their innocence, she exhorted to virtues, and especially to the love and veneration of their parents; and she admonished the rest of the household of duty and Christian piety, so that she seemed now not a woman but an apostle preaching.

[224] she placidly rendered her soul to her Creator. From John de Lorenzana, her last confessor, as he was preparing on the night of the vigil of S. Bartholomew to go to the office of matins, knowing that no more than four hours remained to her, she earnestly begged from her heart a last blessing, warning that on that very night, at the beginning of the festivity, ^b she would depart to the everlasting feasts. This she uttered with a countenance so serene and glad that she appeared truly a prudent and wise Virgin, waiting in the vestibule of paradise with her lamp for her beloved Spouse to come; whose calling voice feeling in the depth of her heart, asking with a nod for a blessed candle, she fortified her brow, mouth, and breast with the sign of the cross, and ordered the pillow to be drawn away, that with her head leaning against the bare wood she might feel that she was dying upon the cross. Finally, commending her spirit into the hands of the Father, with her eyes fixed on heaven, so that she might enter in with her Spouse, pronouncing Jesus, Jesus, may Jesus be with me, she most quietly expired. These words, as they had been to her in infancy the first formula of praying, so, dying upon these very words as a testimony of her childlike innocence, she flew from Lima to the threshold of the heavenly fatherland, in the thirty-second year of her age, the fifth month being scarcely begun.

[225] Rose's virginal corpse, when it had ceased to breathe, was still, from the lively color of her face and her reddening lips, So great a multitude of the people ran together believed to be breathing, until it became known that no breath was any longer in her from a mirror applied to her mouth — of which, as this was the last use, so it was also the first. By a sudden prodigy a hidden sense of gladness invaded all, so that her mother herself, arranging the corpse (as her Daughter while living had obtained), and the whole house seemed cheerfully to be taking part not in the obsequies of the dead but in a nuptial joy. So also to the strangers, as many as were present, a goad of gladness clung inwardly and secretly. Only by the wailings and public tears of the beggars of Lima was this funeral celebrated, while the throng of the needy complained that the true nurse and mother of the poor had been untimely snatched from them by a most bitter fate.

[226] A numerous band of angels was seen, both before her death about the pallet of her as she lay, to the uncorrupted body of the Saint, and afterward about the bier of the dead woman, dancing festively with alternating concert. The treasurer's wife beheld the hall in which they had exposed the Virgin's body gleaming wholly on every side with a luminous inflowing of heavenly glory. Thus was fulfilled what Christ the Lord had revealed would be — namely, that Rose's death and her burial would be glorious. Devout women exulted by turns with the sonorous singing of sacred hymns, declaring that there ought to be room there not for dirges but for feasts. By a wonderful consent and a hidden prompting a very great multitude of men, when the day was now growing bright, filled the treasurer's mansion. Her confessors before the bier broke out into words of jubilation and blessing, testifying to all that her baptismal grace had never been interrupted by any deadly fault, but that she had brought into heaven the spotless innocence of her whole life and the childlike purity of a virginal whiteness, to follow the Lamb wherever he goes.

[227] To her obsequies, the report being now spread abroad, an innumerable multitude of men of both conditions came together, and, the obsequies being celebrated, to her tomb, and pious confraternities of various titles came forth of their own accord, and the Orders of religious mendicants; presently also the metropolitan chapter and the royal senate with all the magistrates. The sacred body was carried with unwonted honor by the canons of the cathedral church, the superiors of the religious orders vying in succeeding them in this office. At the doors of the church the Virgin's face was seen to glow with a livelier and more beautiful color, so that of her too what Christ the Lord said seemed to be spoken: "The girl is not dead, but sleeps." It was also seen by very many that the likeness of the Mother of God of the most holy rosary flashed with light and splendors. When this was published abroad, several others coming saw the prodigy to be so, not only from afar but also close at hand. Every age and sex vied in striving as suppliants to touch the sacred body with crowns, rosaries, and any devout object whatever which was at hand.

[228] although the place of burial had afterward to be changed. The very ample church resounded on every side with continual voices acclaiming Rose BLESSED and A SAINT, until the precious deposit was committed to burial. After which, the devout frequency of the people increasing on account of the exceptional benefits of cures which multiplied day by day, more solemn obsequies were celebrated, at which the viceroy and a greater multitude were present, with festive applause and signs of public gladness, both inhabitants and strangers acclaiming the new Citizen of the heavens. A little afterward, the chief men of the city most urgently demanding that that sacred body be transferred to a more celebrated place, it was taken up by decree of the archbishop of Lima, and was found not to have been subject to corruption, and that that heavenly odor came forth from it just as when it was first laid away. At this celebration there was no one whom, under the presence of the virginal corpse, the fresh memory of her deeds did not prick to the marrow: from many tears of devotion flowed: the very name of Rose was received by all with an open sign of reverence. The body was most seemlily laid to the right of the high altar; but on account of the copious multitude of those offering vows there, another place had to be chosen for setting the sacred remains — namely, the chapel of holy Catherine of Siena. For to so like a Daughter the bosom of her seraphic mother was owed for rest.

ANNOTATIONS.

\ another reading: prælegi*

§ VI. Many spiritual and bodily benefits granted after the death of this holy Virgin through her intercession.

By the patronage of this Saint, now dead, Meanwhile there arrived at Lima letters of this holy apostolic See, that according to the formula prescribed by the congregation of Rites witnesses be examined concerning the life and deeds of this Handmaid of God; which, having been begun in the year of the Lord 1630, on account of the multitude of witnesses, who were one hundred and eighty-three in number, could not be completed until the month of May in the year 1632. There were deputed, for the visitation of Rose's relics according to custom, inspectors, who, having opened the wooden chest, found the virginal little body, after the fifteenth year from her death was completed, with its garments consumed, its bones entire and still covered here and there with dry flesh, which breathed the odor of roses.

[230] By the greatest signs almighty God wished to show what a sublime degree of glory Rose obtains in heaven; many lukewarm persons to fervor, of which the most celebrated and frequent were those which exceed the creation of heaven and earth — namely the conversions of sinners, which, obtained from God by this Virgin's prayers, were notable: for at the mere touch of the virginal little body upon the bier very many were so struck with sudden goads of compunction that they at once with raised voices detested their crimes, bursting forth into a tearful confession of their offenses, while a very great throng of bystanders heard, watched, and wondered. The Virgin's mother, Maria de Oliva, recounted before the judges that after her Daughter's obsequies several devout persons came to her, even religious before unknown to her, relieving her poverty with a generous support, and professing that they were paying tribute to the virgin Rose, to whose intercessions they knew that they owed the best change of their life.

[231] Bartholomew Martinez, once this Virgin's confessor, disclosed in court from certain knowledge and sinners to penance, that a certain man of ruined life, through a very long series of years sacrilegiously frequenting the sacraments, had been commended to the prayers of Rose, now buried; and that presently he had felt a motion of divine grace, by which his melting heart most bitterly made a general confession of his whole life, and the fear of the Lord so pervaded his conscience that afterward he hastened to wash away any defects whatever as though they were very great excesses. It is established also that two sinful women of shameful life, being pricked with compunction at the fragrant fame of this Rose, happily shook off the yoke of impurity and constantly set their foot on the path of virtue. The ministers of sacramental penance at Lima and elsewhere in the whole region of Peru, having compared their indications, were in general astounded at so great a change of manners in the people from the day on which Rose was received into her Spouse's paradise: for women vied in taking everywhere, the luxury of dress being cast off, the habit of a simpler modesty; the cloisters of the regulars resounded on every side with penance from the bloody blows of scourges. And so publicly known was this prodigy that it was asserted upon oath in the tribunal that from the time when Peru was discovered by our people, no preacher had ever been famous there who impelled those nations to virtue with so many and so great goads, and roused so universal a spirit of penance and a conflagration of devotion, as Rose by her looks, her touches, and her prayers.

[232] To Francis and Alexander de Coloma, brothers by blood, the maternal aunt was Maria de Xuata, an opulent woman, and others were roused to a wonderful change of mind. but with a mind implacably averse and hardened toward her kinsfolk, however most poor; of whom the first supported at his own expense six nieces and two nephews, all set in a tender age. A necessity was at hand for both of setting out and leaving the little ones in the utmost poverty. Francis was a priest: he implores Rose's patronage: the next day his aunt summons him, whom for a whole space of eighteen years she had refused to see; she orders the calamitous nephews and nieces to be brought; and, a notary having been called and the former unnatural testament annulled, and Francis being gratified, she institutes the little nephews and nieces as heirs in full, and due thanks are paid to Rose. Ludovica Barba had heard from her confessor that Rose had prophesied that she would obtain the religious habit of St. Dominic, at which she shuddered. Long she made light of the Virgin's saying — nay, she shrank from the outcome of this oracle. At length a heavenly inspiration of the religious life invaded her; she went to Rose's sepulchre, commended her cause to her as a suppliant; suddenly a fiery desire of the sacred Dominican habit is sent into her heart; she is enrolled in the number of the tertiary Sisters, is filled with divine solaces, grieving at this one thing only, that she had so long with an obstinate heart rejected so great a happiness. Ludovica de Mendoza could not, or would not, either believe the encomiums of this Virgin's sanctity or conceive them to be true. Being seized with a sudden anguish, and suffering greatly in hands and feet, she felt her spirit shaken with gloom and dread. She evidently recognized that these things came from her unbelief alone: as a suppliant she declares that she believes and confesses with her whole heart that Rose is truly holy; and suddenly the tempest grew quiet, and she felt those atrocious paroxysms withdraw.

[233] Moreover very many Besides the aforesaid spiritual benefits, many

other and notable miracles are related as wrought in the curing of bodies, by which the sanctity and merits of this Virgin have been abundantly proved: for from the processes drawn up by apostolic authority and formally discussed by the sacred congregation of Rites, upon the report of our beloved son Decius Cardinal Azzolini, ^a ponent of this cause, it is established not only concerning her repute of sanctity and her theological and cardinal virtues with their annexes in a heroic degree, but moreover the following miracles were, upon conclusive proofs, admitted as duly and rightly established.

Maria Sanchez, otherwise called "of Jesus," a girl of nine years, who, when she was six years old, having fallen by chance to the ground, was so injured in her sinews and bones that, her legs being contracted and their feeling lost, and all power of standing and walking utterly gone, she remained continually motionless, fixed to her little bed for three years, and, as her age increased, was more destitute of strength. All natural remedies applied having been frustrated, her parents with a humble heart vowed to place her upon the sepulchre of the aforesaid Virgin for a novena, to obtain health for her: and on the last day of the nine-day term, while they were discharging their vow, the little girl upon the sepulchre at once rose upon her feet, to the admiration of all, walking about as readily as though she had never suffered an injury of this kind.

[234] afflicted with various diseases, From Isabella Duran an apoplexy ending in a paralysis had withered her arm and, for about five months, had torturingly taken away all its use; which she carried from her shoulder as a useless weight and only as a source of continual pains, wrapped in thick bandages. She applied it to Rose's little body as it was about to be buried; presently she unwound the bandages, crying out openly that she was most entirely cured; and publicly, in proof of the miracle, she flung her arm about strongly with a most ready gesture and motion, as though it had never been feeble.

To a certain Ethiopian servant of Didacus de Ayala, from a contraction of the sinews and a tenacious cramping, his right arm and hand had for several years refused their office. And so, at the report of the dead Rose, he penetrated with the rest of the crowd into the church of the divine Dominic, commended himself to the holy Virgin, at once stretched out his healed arm, and, raising it on high, displayed it with loud cries to the multitude poured about. Those who knew the servant more familiarly came nearer, congratulating him, nor did they disdain to weary with kisses the hand now, by Rose's benefit, open and restored to life.

[235] her help being implored, Magdalena Chimisso, a noble Indian (as being of the stock of the petty kings of Chincha), languished miserably for several years from a contraction of the body from the waist downward and from a withering of her legs and feet, and could be carried hither and thither only in the hands of others. All medicines having been applied in vain, in that state of despaired-of health she raised her heart to things above, devoutly commended herself to the said Virgin, and, pieces of her garments having been brought, she touched the injured parts, and in an instant recovered perfect health; and, to the admiration of all, with her own feet she went immediately to the church of the Preachers, and there rendered public thanks to the said Virgin.

Maria de Vera for eight days was at her last extremity from dysentery, a malignant fever, pain of the stomach, and a deadly vomiting. Having received the sacraments of the Church, she commended herself to the intercession of the aforesaid Rose, whose image she embraced, and at once was seen sound, with a total recovery of strength; and, leaping from her bed, she at once adorned an altar, and there set the image, and gave thanks for her recovered health.

[236] With Rose's sanctity therefore flashing through the world by these and very many other signs, wonderfully recovered health, as her merits required, Pope Clement the ninth of happy memory, ^b our predecessor, granted that this Servant of God should everywhere in the world be called by the name of Blessed; and, her beatification having been celebrated with solemn rite, he by apostolic authority decreed and declared her the chief patroness of the city of Lima and of the whole kingdom of Peru, and commanded that her feast be kept as of precept by all dwelling there, and that her name be set in the Roman Martyrology. ^c We also, seeing her most devoutly honored everywhere with the solemn applause of all peoples, have extended this patronage to all the provinces, kingdoms, islands, and regions of the mainland of all America, and of the Philippines and the Indies; and, processes having been drawn up by apostolic authority concerning those things which had supervened, and their validity approved, and the pious affections of the veneration and devotion of the peoples increasing, and new portents and miracles being added, out of which after mature discussion four were admitted; namely two from the process of Sessa ^d and two others from the process of Palermo. ^e

[237] The first. In the person of John Zelillus, wonderfully preserved from imminent death: so that, after a severe examination for a hectic fever of the third species had oppressed him for four months, having advanced into a pronounced marasmus ^f with an ulcer of the lung, a cough bringing up decayed gore, and a gnawing of the throat likewise ulcerated, to which a putrid and malignant fever had been added; whence the sick man, having received the sacraments of the Church, being brought to the last agony of his fleeing life, lay without motion; the pulse of his arteries ceased; and by the concordant voice of three physicians it was cried out that he was already sticking in the jaws of death: but, the powerful help of blessed Rose being implored, he drank from a spoon a little dust from the sepulchre of that same Blessed one dissolved in water, and at once most entirely recovered health with his former vigor. The second in Candida Rossetta, wife of the standard-bearer Aloysius il Secondo de Carvajal, a Spaniard, from whom, in the pitiable birth of a fetus already dead, an excessive effort applied for three days for the expulsion of the afterbirth had thrust out the womb together with it; which afterward hardened with cold like marble, black, dreadful to see, and very large, being heavy with the weight of three pounds. With most troublesome torment it remained thus outside for eight years, until, a paper image of this Blessed one (to whom Candida had earnestly commended herself) being applied to her belly, the sick woman felt at once that the womb had returned into her body: whence straightway sound and robust she leapt from her bed, and was seen to leap about through the house for joy.

[238] Two other miracles likewise from the process of Palermo; it is related from authentic instruments. namely one in the wonderful healing of Brother Seraphinus Puglisi of the Order of blessed Mary of Mount Carmel. This religious man, being deadly burned up with a malignant fever, and on the seventeenth day of his infirmity wholly abandoned by the physicians, who constantly asserted that at the fifth or sixth hour of the next following night he would expire; and, having now lost speech and sight, struggling with his last agony — as soon as he implored with his whole heart the help of blessed Rose, he had her manifestly visible, and suddenly, to the astonishment of all, came off strong, unharmed, and vigorous. The last, finally, in Angela Gabaja, who, being dreadfully tortured for twenty-seven days by a double tertian fever, continuous and malignant, with a huge pain of the head and stomach and an abundance of wind, at last, being openly given up by the physician, was hastening to death; and, laboring in her agony for the space of six hours, at her mother's urging she invoked the help of B. Rose; and, oil being taken from a lamp hanging before her altar, and her stomach region, neck, and breast being anointed with it, at once and immediately she was restored to her former health, with an entire repair of her broken strength. ^g

ANNOTATIONS.

\ perhaps implacato*

\ another reading: beati*

\* something is missing.

\ another reading: habere*

§ VII. The manner and reason of the canonization, and the subscriptions of the most eminent Cardinals of the Holy Roman Church.

Pope Clement X indicates Since therefore nothing was now lacking of those things which were necessary for the most sacred function of the canonization of this beloved bride of Christ the Lord, Rose, by the authority of the holy Fathers, the decrees of the sacred canons, the ancient custom of the holy Roman Church, and the prescript of the new decrees — at the asking of our most dear children in Christ, queen Mariana the regent, ^a and also Charles II, ^b likewise king of the Spains, of the whole Order of the Friars Preachers of Saint Dominic, of the kingdom of Peru and all the provinces of America, with the prayers also of our venerable brothers the archbishops and bishops of the kingdoms of Spain and of the Indies added — we judged it just and due that the aforesaid Blessed one, whom the Lord himself glorifies from day to day more from heaven, we too should praise and glorify on earth with the office of veneration.

[240] Therefore we granted that on this present day, publicly in the most sacred basilica of the prince of the Apostles, the sacred rite of Mass being performed, her canonization should be held; why he enrolled Rose of Lima among the Saints, and on the same day in the aforesaid most sacred Vatican basilica, in which with solemn rite, together with the Cardinals of that same holy Roman Church, the patriarchs, archbishops, and bishops, and our beloved sons the prelates of the Roman Curia, our officials and household, the secular and regular clergy, and a very great throng of people, we assembled in the morning — supplications for the decree of canonization having been thrice repeated to us through our beloved son Ludovicus, Cardinal of the title of holy Sabina, Portocarrero — after the sacred hymns, litanies, and other prayers, the grace of the Holy Spirit having been duly implored, to the honor of the holy and undivided Trinity and the exaltation of the catholic faith, by the authority of almighty God, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, of the blessed Apostles, and our own, by the counsel and unanimous consent of our venerable brothers the Cardinals of the holy Roman Church, the patriarchs, archbishops, and bishops present in the Roman Curia, we have defined blessed Rose of St. Mary, virgin of Lima, of whose sanctity of life, sincerity of faith, and excellence of miracles it is fully established, to be a saint, and have decreed her to be enrolled in the catalogue of holy Virgins — as by the tenor of these presents we decree, define, and enroll her — appointing that by the universal Church every year on the thirtieth day of the month of August ^c her memory ought to be recalled among the holy virgins. In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

[241] By the same authority, to all and each truly penitent and having confessed and the indulgences granted, who each year on the feast day of that same holy Rose shall come to visit the sepulchre in which her body rests, we have mercifully relaxed in the Lord seven years and as many quarantines of the penances enjoined upon them or otherwise in any way owed, in the accustomed form of the Church. These things being performed

having venerated with praises and confessions God the eternal Father, and Christ the Lord, the king of glory, the everlasting Son of the Father, and the holy Paraclete Spirit — one God and one Lord — and the sacred hymn Te Deum having been solemnly chanted, we prayed with a peculiar prayer in honor of holy Rose through her merits, and celebrated Mass at the altar of holy Peter the apostle with a commemoration of that same Saint, and granted to all the faithful of Christ then present a plenary indulgence and remission of all their sins.

[242] With all humility therefore, for so notable a benefit, we bless and glorify God the Father almighty, he gives thanks to God for that example of virtue, to whom be blessing and honor and glory and power for ever and ever: asking of him with constant prayers that, by the intercession of his Chosen one, turning away his face from our sins, he may have mercy upon us, and look upon us to whom he has shown his mercy in the midst of his temple, in that he has given us a new bulwark of all America against the ancient snares of the devil and the errors of unbelief, and has granted to all a protectress and advocate with his divine Majesty, for the tranquility of the holy Church, the increase of the catholic faith, and the light and conversion of the unbelievers.

[243] and orders his decree to be promulgated everywhere, For the rest, since it would be difficult for these our present letters to be carried to each place where there should be need, we will that to copies of them, even printed ones, subscribed by the hand of a public notary and fortified with the seal of some person constituted in ecclesiastical dignity, the same credit be everywhere given as would be given to these presents themselves if they were exhibited or shown. Let it therefore be lawful to no man at all to infringe this page of our decree, definition, enrollment, mandate, statute, concession, relaxation, bestowal, and will, or with rash daring to go against it. But if anyone shall presume to attempt this, let him know that he will incur the indignation of almighty God and of his blessed apostles Peter and Paul. Given at Rome at St. Peter's, in the year of the Lord's Incarnation 1671, on the day before the Ides of April, in the first year of our Pontificate.

[244] to which he himself and several Cardinals of the Holy Roman Church subscribe. ✠ I, Clement, Bishop of the catholic Church.

✠ I, Francis, bishop of Ostia, Cardinal Barberini, vice-chancellor of the Holy Roman Church.

✠ I, F. M., bishop of Porto, Cardinal Brancaccio.

✠ I, Uldericus, bishop of Tusculum, Cardinal Carpineo.

✠

✠ I, Virginius, bishop of Albano, Cardinal Orsini.

✠

✠

✠

✠

✠

✠

✠ I, Alderanus, priest of the title of S. Praxedes, Cardinal Cybo.

✠ I, Fredericus, priest of the title of S. Peter in Chains, Cardinal Sforza.

✠ I, Benedictus, priest of the title of S. Onuphrius, Cardinal Odescalchi.

✠

✠

✠ I, Aloysius, priest of the title of S. Alexius, Cardinal Homodei.

✠ I, P., priest of the title of Saint Mark, Cardinal Ottoboni.

✠ I, Laurentius, of the title of S. Chrysogonus, Cardinal Imperiali.

✠ I, Marcellus, priest of the title of S. Stephen on the Caelian Hill, Cardinal Santacroce.

✠ I, John Baptist, priest of the title of S. Marcellus, Cardinal Spada.

✠ I, Franc., priest of the title of the Four Holy Crowned Martyrs, Cardinal Albizzi.

✠ I, Octavius, priest of the title of S. Cecilia, Cardinal de Acquaviva and Aragon.

✠ I, Carolus, priest of the title of holy Prisca, Cardinal Pio.

✠ I, Carolus, priest of the title of S. Eusebius, Cardinal Gualterio.

✠ I, Flavius, priest of the title of S. Mary of the People, Cardinal Chigi.

✠

✠

✠ I, Jacobus, priest of the title of S. Pancratius, Cardinal Franzoni.

✠

✠ I, Petrus, priest of the title of holy Calixtus, Cardinal Vidoni.

✠

✠

✠

✠

✠

✠ I, Carolus, priest of the title of S. Anastasia, Cardinal Bonelli.

✠

✠ I, Carolus, priest of the title of S. Susanna, Cardinal Caraffa.

✠ I, P., priest of the title of the Twelve Holy Apostles, Cardinal de Alteriis.

✠ I, Caesar, priest of the title of S. John before the Latin Gate, Cardinal Rasponi.

✠

✠

✠

✠ I, Carolus, priest of the title of S. Mary of the Altar of Heaven, Cardinal Roberti.

✠

✠

✠

✠

✠ I, Jacobus, priest of the title of S. Sixtus, Cardinal Rospigliosi.

✠ I, Ludovicus, priest of the title of S. Sabina, Cardinal Portocarrero.

✠

✠

✠ I, Joannes, priest of the title of S. Bernard, Cardinal Bona.

✠ I, Camillus, priest of the title of S. Mary in Dominica, Cardinal Massimo.

✠ I, Gaspar, priest of the title of S. Pudentiana, Cardinal Carpineo.

✠

✠ I, Fridericus, deacon of the title of S. Agatha, Cardinal of Hesse.

✠ I, Carolus, deacon of holy Caesareus, Cardinal Carlo Barberini.

✠ I, Decius, deacon of holy Eustachius, Cardinal Azzolini.

✠

✠

✠ I, Paulus, deacon of the title of holy Nicholas, Cardinal Savelli.

✠

✠

✠ I, Sigismundus, deacon of S. George in Velabro, Cardinal Chigi.

✠

✠ I, Bonacursius, deacon of S. Mary of the Ladder, Cardinal Bonacursi.

ANNOTATIONS.

\ another reading: Federicus*