Prayers: Saint Rose of Lima

SAINT ROSE OF LIMA

Dear Rose,

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

We are told that following the example
of Saint Catherine of Sienna,
you fasted three days each week.

When you were admired for your beauty,
you cut off your hair to discourage suitors.

You made fine needlework and grew beautiful flowers to sell for the poor.

Your life and your prayers were surely like chaplets of blossoms, ascending through
the clouds, rare delicate roses of chastity, obedience, devotion and pure love.

Please, now, Saint Rose, carry my prayers
to the God of our desires.

Intercede for me at His heavenly court.

May you, the first saint of the Americas,
pray God to shower roses of grace down generously upon our two continents.

Please ask Him, too, to send
soft heavenly rains of inspiration
and courage to nourish our parched
and pleading souls, that we may blossom
as His rarest roses.

Inspire me to lift my eyes often
to that heavenly sphere in which I will find contentment in the sacred sunshine
of God's mystical gardens.

May the sweet perfume of the roses
I know here on earth remind me
of you, God's heavenly Rose of Lima.

Watch over me, Rose, as you watched over your earthly garden. When I see arbors
of roses, let me be reminded of you
and your great love for Our Lord Jesus.

But roses are not without thorns, and I know that there will be challenges and hardships in my life as there were in yours. Give me, please the strength to endure.

Reach down your hand to me,
as you reached out to the poor of Lima,
and lift me up through the clouds
of this earth and into the crystal heavens of our Dear Redeemer, Jesus Christ,
there to live in gardens
of eternal bliss.

All this I pray through you,
dear Rose of Lima, to God,
our Heavenly Father.

Amen

Image Ownership Credits
Next Prayer
Prayer Index
Website Home