St. Rose of Lima and the Order of Truth

St. Rose of Lima was born on April 20, 1586, in Lima, Peru and baptized on Pentecost with the name Isabel. Her parents were Gaspar and Maria de Flores, and she had 10 brothers and sisters. Born into a respectable family that had unfortunately fallen on hard times. When Isabel was three months old, her mother and some friends were sitting around the sleeping girl when a rose was seen hovering in the air above the child’s head and descended to kiss her cheek. From then on, her mother promised to call her ‘Rose’. She was canonized in 1671 by Pope Clement IX and was the first saint from the Americas. When Rose was twenty years old, she became a third-order Dominican and was vested in “the white habit of the Order of Truth." (1)

The Dominicans are known as the Order of Truth, who, by the contemplation of the Divine Mysteries, have as their goal union with Christ. Our Lord tells us in Scripture, “For this I was born, and for this I have come into the world, to bear witness to the truth. Everyone who is of the truth hears my voice.” Pilate responds, “What is truth? " (2) Is not Pilate’s question our own question? We long for an answer to that question, we are restless to know the truth. Yet, in our time of rampant relativism by which society claims there is no truth, how much more difficult it becomes to sift through ‘truths.’ Our Lord affirms Himself as that human longing for truth. He assures us that even with all the noise, His voice will be heard. What can we do to better hear His voice? The Church and St. Rose recommend mental prayer, that prayer by which we seek union with Christ in the silence and solitude of prayer. Therefore, even more today, the work of preaching is necessary to bring that Truth, Christ, into the hearts of people. Today, on her feast, we pray that the Order of Truth may remain faithful to its mission for the salvation of souls by preaching the truth, Jesus Christ.