1617 A.D.: Rosa of Lima Peru dies at 31 years old!
Peru, a beautiful nation and people with about 3/4 of the population Christian. Lima is near the coast near the center.
A very pious young girl named Isabel Flores de Oliva was born to a Peruvian Catholic family in 1586 A.D.. Her father Gaspar, a minor nobleman, had 11 children and he was a type of early military calvaryman who carried a primitive carbine gun. They were called harquebusiers. Isabel became an extreme beauty as she grew up. It was said that men constantly stopped what they were doing to look at her unusually lovely face. In fact, a servant of her family reported that on one occasion, when the girl was little, the servant had a spiritual vision of sorts wherein the girl's face actually transformed into a rose, then returned back into a human face. This girl Isabel, who was actually called Rose, or 'Rosa', by her family, had no thoughts of capitalizing on her beauty. From the beginning she only concentrated on Jesus. She wanted to be a nun. This was apparently her life long dream. She even rubbed peppers on her face at times when she was becoming a woman so that it would blister and no one would wish to look at her countenance.
She pressured her father to allow her to become a nun, but for some reason he would not allow it. He wished her to marry. She had no intention of marrying, as she felt that she had already given herself fully in her mind to Jesus. It became a battle of wills. Finally the father decided that there was no hope of changing her thoughts, so he compromised. He allowed a room in their house to be her own special room for prayer and devotions, and thus it was that she would live out her devotion to Jesus mostly from that room. But she would live with her family, not join a convent. Eventually, however, she was able to join a Dominican Order of female lay preachers which provided her an official connection to the church.
So, that is how Rosa of Lima lived as she fasted several days a week, enforced hard penance upon her physical body, and spent only around 2 hours a day sleeping so that there would be more time for prayer and service. She did needle point and things like that to make a little bit of money, she liked to take food out to the poor of the city, and she sometimes brought the poor and the sick back to her room for prayer and care that she thought they needed until they were better. Her not-so-enthusiastic father apparently accepted that there was no changing her course, and so he lived with it.
Her holy way of living became noticed. She is reported to have cured a leper through prayer, which is a very rare event. Other less unusual miracles were also reported to have happened through her prayers. She had someone fashion a crown made mostly of silver, but with spikes pointing inward, and she wore this sometimes to remind herself of Jesus' crown of thorns. It is said to have been very difficult to take off at times due to the spikes working themselves in deeply.
She died at 31 years old in 1617 A.D., and was well known locally for her piety and good works throughout Lima. But upon her death, two strange things occurred: it has been historically recorded that the City of Lima smelled like roses, and that roses kept unexplainedly falling from the sky. This is the report they gave, and the account which has come down to us from her time.
She was eventually made an official Saint of the Catholic Church, a large church today of over 1.1 billion members in modern times, a church through which God has done many recorded miracles during numerous centuries since Jesus' time walking among us, as is true with other branches of the Christian church.
As the facts seem to stand, it is believed that Rosa of Lima may be the first of all official Catholic Saints to have actually been born in all of the Americas, North, South, and Central, and to have subsequently been granted Sainthood. The earliest American born Saint. Praise to Jesus, who uses who He chooses, but more often and more greatly works with those who long and strive for that very thing, it seems...those Catholics or Orthodox or Protestant or Russian Orthodox, etc., who dedicate their lives to serving Jesus.
It is up to each Christian believer to consider which denomination seems most in keeping with scripture and most pure and dedicated to serving and obeying Jesus and serving their neighbor's needs. But in the course of collecting account ts for the Deeds of God website I have learned that the holy powers of the Almighty Father, the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Israel, has worked with many people from many denominations to expand the body of Christ Jesus' believers on Earth. And so, I seek to go to churches that are New Testament Bible adherent, but service oriented to their members and their community. Though I try to discern and choose who I worship along side with wisdom, I know that once people claim Jesus as their Lord they have become Jesus' to guide and judge in the majority of respects, and I believe they have done a good thing...so long as they live like they mean it! If you stay in the Word and pray with others and alone and keep your eyes open for what you can do that might please the Lord, that gives Heaven a great many chances to guide your thoughts and your soul concerning how to be a Christian as you go through life. I hope for the day when Christians choose their denomination as they will, but think of all obedient fellow Christian believers as just that: fellow believers and fellow followers of Jesus. And beyond that I hope we reach the day when all believers worship the same way, some way that is pleasing to Jesus. But for now our denominations exist, and perhaps that is part of God's plan for all that I know.