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WHO IS ST. ROSE?

St. Rose was born in Viterbo (present day Italy) around 1233 C.E. Little is known about her life. She was born to a poor but devout family. Since a child, she held a deep love and passion for prayer and serving poor. 
 

At the age of 10, the Blessed Virgin Mary was said to have told Rose to join the Third Order of St. Francis (a Franciscan lay order). So she donned the habit of the T.O.S.F. and as instructed by the Blessed Virgin, preached and emphasized penance and loyalty to the Catholic Church.
 

At the age of 15, Rose tried to enter the monastery of the Poor Clares but was turned away. Thus she went back to live in solitude with her father, occasionally leaving it to preach penance.

 

Rose was also known to be a visionary. On December 5, 1250, she foretold the death of the emperor which was fulfilled 8 days later on December 13. According to 

surviving evidence, Rose went to the city of Vitorchiano which was possessed by a sorceress. She not only converted the whole town, but the sorceress herself when she stood unharmed on a burning pyre for three hours. 

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The last prophecy she made was after she was once again turned away from entering the Poor Clares because she didn't have the dowry to enter. She said that she would

enter there not in this life after her death. On March 6,1251, Rose passed into the next life after suffering from a heart condition.

 

And as she foretold, in 1257, Pope Alexander IV ordered for Rose's body to be exhumed and reburied within the monastery she so desired to enter. The Pope even had the monastery renamed after her. 

 

200 years later, Pope Innocent IV canonized Rose as a saint. Her feast day is on September 4, the day in which her relics (her body) were transferred to the Monastery of St. Damian. The little saint still rests there today. Her body is in-corrupt meaning that it has not taken on the normal processes of bodily decomposition.  

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