Today is the feast of St. Rose of Lima (1586-1617), my patron saint. :) She was the first canonized saint in "the Americas". I've never been able to visit her Peruvian hometown in South America, but I found this picture online. Someone with computer skills beyond my imagination took this reality (her cranium) and created a computer-generated image of what she must have looked like. And here it is:



On an October day in 1895, Mother Frances Xavier Cabrini's boat docked in Callao. She rose at 4 a.m. with the hope of going ashore and taking a train to Lima to receive Communion at the tomb of St. Rose. She had to wait hours and hours, and finally was able to get to Lima at around 10 a.m. She had fasted from midnight to receive Holy Communion. When her dream was fulfilled, she wrote:

"On the altar where I received Holy Communion there was a statue of the Infant Jesus with His arms extended, bearing a celestial smile on His face of extraordinary beauty. He seemed to gaze on me and to say, 'It is here I have waited to favor thee, through the merits of my beloved Rosa, whom you have come to honor.' The look of this Infant, so real, penetrated the very depths of my soul, and such was the comfort I felt, that I forgot all about my fast, as well as all other human wants, so much so, that I found I hadn't even taken as much as a sip of coffee, and it was one p.m. If it is thus Jesus rewards a little sacrifice, what will He not do for souls who are really faithful to Him?"

They continued to Buenos Aires, where she bought a house and opened a school. "We named the College after Saint Rose," she wrote to the other nuns back home in Italy, "according to the promise I made when I had the pleasure of visiting the relics of the Saint in Lima. The Saint kept her word. She blessed our voyage, our arrival in Buenos Aires, and the foundation, and she still continues to bless the School, for which reason I leave it without any anxiety. Everyone is pleased at the name of Saint Rose being given to the School, as she is Patron of the Republics of South America." She goes on to say that she'd love to build a church to this great saint, if she could only find a benefactor to give her the money.

So Mother Cabrini was the first U.S. citizen to be canonized a saint, but St. Rose was the first canonized saint in "The Americas". Isn't it interesting that one was devoted to the other during her life?