In several old images of Santa Rosa it is common to see her with an anchor in her hand, while in the Cathedral of Lima (Peru), in the upper central part of the façade, it is the only image with the entire body tilted facing the sea of Callao. This is due to a brave act that the saint led against the pirates who were then threatening the city.
Count the Catholic Encyclopedia that in 1615 the ruthless Dutch privateer Joris van Spilbergen arrived in South America, attacking Rio de Janeiro in Brazil, Santa María in Argentina and various Chilean ports, so the viceroy of Peru sent about 7 ships south of Lima to combat the advance of the pirates. However, this expedition failed.
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The news quickly reached Lima, the City of Kings, and everything became chaos. The people of the port of Callao ran to take refuge in the town of Lima and the Archbishop asked that the Blessed Sacrament be exposed.
There the faithful came to pray, imploring mercy, since a rumor had spread that the pirates would destroy temples and desecrate the Eucharist.
The viceroy, for his part, ordered that military groups be created, and some 3,000 men were located on the port beach to prevent the invasion. Even the friars of various orders were organized into companies to protect the nuns’ monasteries.
Saint Rose of Lima immediately went to the church of Our Lady of the Rosary and led the women to pray together so that the pirates would not disembark and that desecration would not be carried out.
When night came, the saint had every intention of defending Christ the Eucharist, her beloved “Husband.” So much so that she told her mother, María de Oliva, that “she was going to ‘surrender them all’ with the rosary that she had in her hands,” she says. Catholic Encyclopedia.
His bravery was so great that he shortened his dresses and took off his “chapines”, a type of footwear that protected from the mud, waiting for the enemies.
According to Friar Leonardo Hansen, who wrote the first biography of the first saint of the American continent, Rosa de Santa María even expressed her desire for martyrdom with the following fierce words:
“Well, I must fight and die for the divine Sacrament. Thus more briefly I will climb on the altar and there I will expose my body as a shield, so that it may receive the blows and wounds that the heretics will throw at the body of my Lord Jesus Christ, without moving away one step. point, until the body, passed through many places with the pikes and halberds of the impious enemies of the faith, falls dead on the altar.
The saint also indicated that she preferred that they delay ending her life, if this would delay any attack on Jesus in the Blessed Sacrament: “I will beg the heretics not to take my life in one fell swoop… so that all the time in This will stop them from carrying out the insults, which I fear, woe is me, they will later do to my sweet Husband.”
It is said that inexplicably the pirates raised anchor without attacking Callao, the main port of the Viceroyalty of Peru, or Lima, one of the most important seats of the Spanish kingdom in South America.
Some say that this was due to the fact that the chief of the corsairs fell ill or died, but many attribute the fact that Lima was saved from a pirate attack to the prayers of Santa Rosa de Lima, which is why she is considered the protector of the city.
Santa Rosa de Lima is the patron saint of the National Police of Peru and its members honor her every August 30.
Abel Camasca
Journalist graduated from the Communication Sciences degree at the University of Lima. He has been part of the ACI Prensa journalistic team since 2014. Between 2016 and 2022 he was in charge of the production of the television program EWTN Noticias and Más que Noticias, a World Catholic Radio program. He often writes articles about the lives of saints.