Although the universal Church remembers her on the 23rd of this month, on August 30th many Catholics celebrate the feast of Saint Rose of Lima, the first saint of America, who died on August 24, 1617.
One of the places that receives thousands of people who seek the intercession of Isabel Flores de Oliva, her birth name, is the Sanctuary of Santa Rosa de Lima, located in the historic center of the capital of Peru.
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Long lines form very early waiting to be able to leave a letter with personal intentions in the so-called “wishing well” of Santa Rosa de Lima, which originally provided water to the Flores de Oliva family home.
According to tradition, Saint Rose threw the key to the padlock of the chain she was wearing into this 19-meter-deep well, one of the various penances she carried out with the intention of getting closer and closer to God, atoning for her sins and those of others. the others.
Tradition relates that one day, suffering great pain, she asked God to open the lock, a request to which the Lord responded to help her.
However, according to a report from EWTN Noticias, there is another version of the story that says that Santa Rosa de Lima never put the key in the well.
The Peruvian historian José Antonio del Busto points out that Santa Rosa did not throw her into the well, but rather entrusted her to Fray Antonio Altamirano, who would have been her confessor. This priest had to make a trip and gave the key to another friar, Diego Gorguerá. Not knowing this and finding herself needing to open the lock, Santa Rosa took a stone and broke it.
Without a doubt, the first story is the most widespread and is the one that would have caused thousands of people to strive to leave a letter to Santa Rosa de Lima every August 30 and in the days around this date.
Another wishing well?
Saint Rose of Lima also lived in the town of Quives, in the northeast of the Peruvian capital, at kilometer 63 of the highway that leads to the city of Canta, in the Diocese of Carabayllo.
In that place, the saint received the sacrament of Confirmation from Santo Toribio de Mogrovejo, Archbishop of Lima.
She received the sacrament under the name of Rosa de Santa María. She was 11 years old then.
There is also a well, which was originally used to obtain water, where the faithful leave their letters making a request to Santa Rosa de Lima.
Originally published August 25, 2023. It has been updated for republication.
Walter Sanchez Silva
I have been a husband since 2008. My wife and I have three children here and one who went to heaven in 2023, before he was born. Since I joined ACI Prensa in 2005, I have had the opportunity to cover various events of the Catholic Church. Among them, the World Youth Days in Cologne, Madrid and Rio de Janeiro and the apostolic trips of Pope Benedict XVI to Mexico and of Pope Francis to South Korea. I have been sent to the Vatican to cover the Family synods, in 2015; of the Amazon, in 2019 and that of Synodality, in 2023. I closely follow the situation of the Catholic Church in Nicaragua, which suffers persecution from the dictatorship of Daniel Ortega, as well as current ecclesiastical events in the region.