Stone & Incense Search
Start hereCurious, or no faithEvangelical, Pentecostal or ProtestantFrom another faithSomeone I love is CatholicBecoming CatholicI was Catholic once Today in the ChurchLibraryHard questionsVoices of the revivalTake the next stepAboutSources & methodSupport the site
The saints

St. Rose of Lima

A girl in a garden in Lima, and the first saint of the Americas.

Feast: 23 August · 1586 to 1617 · Reformation and missions · Lima, Peru

Read the story 1 min read
The Church of Santa Rosa in Lima, Peru: a red and white façade between two bell towers, with palm trees.

Diego Delso, 2015. Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 4.0.

Home / The saints / St. Rose of Lima

A garden in Lima, Peru, early 1600s

In a small garden in Lima, a young woman has built herself a tiny grotto with her brother’s help.1

When her work allows, she spends her nights there in solitude and prayer.1

She never left Lima. She became the first saint of the New World.

Patron of the Americas1

01St. Rose of Lima

Patroness of America

Rose was born at Lima on 20 April 1586 and died there on 30 August 1617.1

She was canonized in 1671 by Clement X, the first American to be so honored.1

The Catholic Encyclopedia calls her patroness of America.1

The Church of Santa Rosa in Lima, Peru: a red and white façade between two bell towers, with palm trees.
The Church of Santa Rosa in Lima, near the house where she lived. Diego Delso, 2015. Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 4.0.

Live it this week

Lighten the load at home

Rose never left Lima. Her days were full of charity and hard work, and her lace and embroidery helped support her family. This week, take one real job off someone at home who is worn out (cook, clean, pay the bill, fix the thing) and don’t make a big deal of it.

Notes

How we know · 1 source for this page
  1. Catholic Encyclopedia (1913), “St. Rose of Lima”. New Advent edition. newadvent.org

The Catholic Encyclopedia (1913) is in the public domain; we quote the New Advent edition. Texts of the Holy See are quoted briefly from vatican.va. Scripture: World English Bible, Catholic edition (public domain); Verse numbers are modern, with Douay-Rheims numbers in brackets where they differ. Photographs: Wikimedia Commons, credited under each image; full list on the photo credits page.

Lines in the narrator’s voice, without a note, are our reflection, not a historical claim. Stone & Incense restates Church teaching in plain words; our wording is not an official Church text. Report an errorCorrections.