Feast of Saint Rosa of Lima – August 23

Rosa was born in 1586 in Lima, the capital of Peru in South America. As a young woman, she insisted on following the spiritual path of Saint Catherine of Sienna. She fasted many days, cut off her hair to hide her beauty, and refused to get married despite the objections of her parents. She spent her days doing acts of loving kindness to the poor, she gathered them up in the streets, sought to feed them and clothe them and to help them in their suffering. She spent long hours in prayer and adoration before the Blessed Sacrament. In 1602, the Dominican Sisters allowed her to wear their habit, however she died at the young age of 31 in 1617.

A relatively short time after her death, she was recognized as a saint by Pope Clement X in 1671. She is the first to be recognized a saint from outside Europe since the time of the early Church (when many of the saints were from the Holy Land, the Middle East and North Africa).