SAINT ROSE OF LIMA

Your heart was so inflamed with God
That you disdained the thought of marriage
and disavowed your own beauty.

Your prayers were like chaplets of flowers,
rare blossoms of chastity, devotion and love.

Please, Rose, now carry our prayers
to the God of your desires.
Intercede for us at His heavenly court.

May you, the first saint of the Americas,
be a special patroness of our continent.

Send soft heavenly rains of inspiration and courage
to nourish our parched and pleading souls,
that we may blossom like God's rarest roses.

Inspire us to lift our eyes to that heavenly sphere
in which our souls will find contentment
in the sacred sunshine of God's mystical gardens.

May the sweet perfume of the roses we know here below remind us of you, God's heavenly Rose of Lima.

Amen

(c) 2011 Donn B. Murphy