Saint Rose of Viterbo: how prayer changes the world

Synthèse :

"You will have to be courageous; you will travel through cities to exhort the lost and lead them back to the path of salvation": these were the words spoken by the Virgin Mary to a still unknown Italian girl who, in her short life, was to stand up to the Church's most bitter and powerful opponents.

Rose was born into a poor family in Viterbo (Italy, Lazio), sixty-five kilometres from Rome, a city in the Papal States at the time. With no money, no connections and no education, nothing about Rose, a little girl subjected to a harsh existence with no worldly prospect, suggested that she would become an incredible force of resistance to the sworn enemy of the Pope of the time, the twice-excommunicated Emperor Frederick II.

In the middle of the 13th century, the troops of the Holy Roman Empire stormed part of the Italian peninsula and attacked the Pope manu militari. The Pope was forced to flee Rome, where he was no longer safe, and settled in Viterbo for a time.

It was in this troubled context that Rose began to lead a life of prayer, renunciation and self-sacrifice, to help the successor of Saint Peter and all the faithful. Her parents had an exceptionally strong faith and brought up their child in the love and respect of God. According to popular tradition, Rose's first two words were "Jesus" and "Mary".

Her first miracle occurred when she was just three years old: an aunt who had died a short time earlier was carried to the cemetery. The future saint accompanied her family in the funeral procession. When the relative's body was ready for burial, a pleading voice sounded from inside the coffin; it was that of the aunt who, as Rose would explain much later, had been touched by her little niece's prayer to God at that moment and had been resurrected just as she was about to be buried.

At the age of five or six, she accompanied her mother to all the religious ceremonies and experienced an immeasurable joy in following the words and gestures of the priest. At the same time, she began discreetly distributing scraps of bread to the poor in her neighbourhood. Her worried father refused to let her go out alone among the passers-by. One day, he followed his daughter and watched from a distance as she handed out food to the needy. He appeared in front of her and asked her to open her apron to see what she was hiding inside. Instead of bread, there were "red roses"!

Rose's family and friends were both perplexed and captivated by the child, who spent long moments smiling as she contemplated pious images, or praying with her hands folded and her eyes closed... When she was not yet ten, she made an unexpected request to her parents: from now on, she wanted to live in seclusion in a room of the house, in solitude, to pray to God and Mary, without being disturbed by everyday life. Her parents agreed, and Rose shut herself away, not to separate herself from them and other people, but to be, as she put it, "at the heart of everyone". Her prayer became continuous and her life ascetic, sleeping on the floor. When asked why she did all this, she humbly replied that it was to obtain the conversion of those who did not love Jesus enough.

She then fell seriously ill and was expected not to recover. One night, in a moment of great anguish, Christ showed her the torments suffered by unrepentant sinners. Shortly afterwards, the Virgin Mary appeared to her, comforted her and informed her that her Son had chosen her to convert the most obstinate sinners and help the Church, which was in difficulty at the time. On another occasion, she had a vision of Christ crucified, his body wounded and bloodied.

From that moment on, Rose no longer lived for herself, but for the Lord and for others, in whom she saw the image of God. She began to walk through the public squares of Viterbo, poorly dressed, barefoot, with a crucifix in her hand. Despite her very young age, she exhorted the inhabitants in a firm yet gentle voice to convert and obey the Pope. The "dazzling miracles" soon confirmed "the authority of her word".

Informed of these actions, the governor of Viterbo, who at the time was exercising local authority on behalf of Emperor Frederick II, fearing that the people would turn against him, ordered Rose to appear before his court. He threatened her with imprisonment if she continued to "harangue" the people in public. The young girl, who was fourteen at the time, retorted: "I am speaking on the orders of a master more powerful than you, and I would rather die than disobey him."  The case was heard. The saint was expelled from Viterbo with her parents. It was the middle of winter in 1249.

A little less than a year later, Rose, surrounded by her family and friends, all living in great poverty, prophesied the death of Emperor Frederick II. Eight days later, on 13 December 1250, he was suddenly taken by dysentery.

On hearing this news, the people of Viterbo rushed to Rose's side and begged her parents to return to the city, which they did. The young girl was carried in triumph, and from then on she was seen as the liberator of their city. Pope Innocent IV, who returned to Rome after the death of Frederick, regained possession of the city of Viterbo.

"Now," mused Rose, "I'll finally be able to fulfil my dearest wish: to become a nun." She went to the convent of the Poor Clares of Saint-Mary-of-Roses, but they refused her entry as she was too poor to provide a dowry - and probably because of the mystical phenomena she experienced were too many and attracting too much attention!

In perfect obedience, Rose returned to her family home, where she resumed her contemplative life in the small room her father had set up for her. This time, she was joined by several teenage girls who admired her faith and commitment. The family home was then transformed into a veritable convent.

Rose died at the age of seventeen years and six months, convinced of the immortality of her soul: "I die with joy, because I am going to be united with my God. You mustn't be afraid of death; it's not frightening, but sweet and precious." A few weeks later, in a rare move, Pope Innocent IV, aware of all the work God had done in Rose's person, opened a canonisation process. The saint appeared several times in a dream to his successor, Alexander IV, who asked that her body to be transferred to the monastery of Saint-Mary-of-Roses, who refused to have her while she was alive. Six months after her death, the report of the first exhumation mentions an intact body, with no rigor mortis and fresh, flexible skin. It is still in a remarkable state of preservation today.

At least three popes took up Rose's cause: just a few weeks after her death, Innocent IV opened the canonisation process; his successor, Alexander IV, saw the saint in a dream on several occasions; and in 1457, Calixtus III relaunched the canonisation process. Rose of Viterbo was finally entered in the Roman Martyrology and recognised as a saint by the Catholic Church.

Au-delà des raisons d'y croire :

The words and deeds of Rose of Viterbo bear witness to an exceptional faith. Present at the heart of the events of her time, the sheer power of her prayer brought down the enemies of the Pope and the faithful.

Aller plus loin :

Piacentini Ernesto (o.f.m.conv.), Il libro dei miracoli di santa Rosa da Viterbo, Rome, Union printing S.p.A., 1991.

En savoir plus :

• St. Rose of Viterbo by Bob and Penny Lord, Journeys of Faith (January 1, 2009) - minibook

• Stefano Pellegrini, Santa Rosa e il suo monastero, Padua, Editrice Grafiche Messaggero di San't Antonio, 1967.
• The biographical note available on the Vatican News website: "Saint Rose of Viterbo, Franciscan virgin".