august 23. rose of lima, whose mortifications were legendary

experiment:

order that the pillows be removed from your deathbed so that you can expire on rough boards.

Patron saint of embroiderers, gardeners, florists, India, Latin America, people ridiculed for their piety, the resolution of family quarrels, indigenous peoples of the Americas, Peru, the Philippines, against vanity, Lima, the Peruvian Police Force

Lived 1586 to 1617
Beatified 1667
Canonized 1671

God to Rose of Lima: "Affliction is always accompanied by Grace; Grace is proportionate to Suffering. The measure of My gifts is (sic) increased with the measure of trials."

Rose of Lima to God: "Lord increase my sufferings and with them increase thy love in my heart."

Known as "the first canonized saint of the New World," Saint Rose was of Spanish and Incan descent. Born Isabel Flores y de Oliva, she came to be known as Rose due to an incident in her babyhood: a servant or servants claimed that her tiny face turned into a rose (or, more poetically, "a rose purpled her countenance"). When the servant(s) touched her face, the rose disappeared. Even as a baby, Rose would contemplate Jesus by gazing adoringly at the Crucifix. Baby Rose was sickly but withstood pain in silence, noting that the crown of thorns must've hurt much more.

As a young girl, Rose fasted, abstained from meat, and participated in secret mortifications.  A recluse, she left her "tiny hermitage" only to minister to the sick and hungry. Though she devoted herself to Christ completely, she suffered great feelings of longing and loneliness because God seemed far away.

LEGENDARY MORTIFICATIONS

• In an effort to show off Rose's great beauty, her mother wreathed her head in flowers. Appalled, Rose stabbed the wreath (and her head, by extension) with a lengthy pin, making it difficult to remove the aforementioned wreath.
• She beat off suitors by chopping her hair and reddened/blistered/disfigured her beautiful face by smearing it with pepper. She covered her hands in lime to remove all her skin. She described "the curled ringlets of girls" as "hellish cords, which enchain men and miserably drag them into everlasting flames."
• In an effort to emulate Christ Crucified, Rose donned a heavy silver crown inlaid with spikes.
• "Ninety nine times she plucked thorns from within." By one account, she used the aforementioned spikes to fashion the aforementioned crown.
• "She asked her handmaid to weigh her down around the neck and trample her, and give her beatings and spittle."
• She gave herself three floggings a night as an offering for criminals and the burnt souls of Purgatory.
• To keep herself from sleeping at night, she hung herself by a knot of her own hair from a nail in the wall.
• She "deadened her sense of taste" by drinking a draught of gall and bitter herbs, as well as the pure blood of the sick. During Lent, she subsisted on five citron seeds a day.
• Rose "rubbed her breasts with briers and thorns" and "tore into" both her armpits. She wore a shirt made of horse hair and the sharp tips of needles.
• She bound her arms in tight ropes.
• When she could no longer evade rest, she slept in a bed lined with glass, stone, pot shards, and thorns. By another account, her bed was a rough board or some knotted logs and her pillow was a bag of rushes and stones.
• She ordered that the pillow be removed from her deathbed so she could expire on rough boards.

LEGENDARY ECSTASIES AND MIRACLES

• As a little girl, the Christ Child served as her tutor, teaching her how to read and write.
• Rose would cure the sick by touching them with a statuette of the Christ Child, which she christened "the Little Doctor."
• While rapt in prayers, she "hurled forth flames like a funeral pyre" from every corner of her mouth.
• Rose fastened three chains around her waist with a padlock and threw away the key. Eventually, the chains worked their way into her flesh causing her blood loss and suffering. When Rose called out in prayer, an unseen hand opened the padlock and freed her.
• Once Rose saw herself within a beam of light that also enclosed a brilliant rainbow and a cross drenched in "the precious Blood of Our Lord." A resplendent Christ was also there; he was so beautiful it hurt to look at him. There were scales upon which Angels and souls put heavy weights, which symbolized human trials and tribulations. One of the scales was Rose's own scale, so she knew she would suffer greatly. The Angels balanced the "weights of suffering" with "weights of grace," which signaled to Rose that suffering and grace go hand in hand.
• While praying, she threw roses at the heavens, which then reconfigured to form a cross of flowers framed by an oval of flowers.
• A gnome-sized Christ walked across the pages of her bible one day.
• The infant Christ would give her kisses while she worked on embroidery, and she wed the Christ child (aka "the little bridegroom"). As she gazed at a portrait of the madonna and child one Palm Sunday, the baby sprang to life and foretold of their marriage.

EXPERIMENT

Dream up your most dreaded punishment. Inflict yourself. Consider the vilest substance known to humankind. Ingest it.