Yesterday we entered the garden hermitage of Rose of Lima.
Today Rose opens the door.
And something important happens.
She discovers Jesus outside too.
Rose cared for poor and sick people, sometimes bringing the needy into her family's home and caring for them personally. This side of Rose can disappear beneath the spectacular stories about her fasting, visions and penances.
But without it, we misunderstand her.
The woman who contemplated the wounds of Christ eventually encountered wounds on other human beings.
And Christianity says those two encounters cannot be separated.
KNOW — Rose's home became a place of mercy
Rose's family was not living in limitless wealth.
Remember that Rose herself worked through embroidery, needlework and cultivating flowers.
Yet she cared for people who were sick, poor and vulnerable, reportedly using space in the family home to nurse people who needed care.
That detail tells us something important.
Rose didn't merely feel sorry for suffering people.
She allowed their suffering to become inconvenient.
That is a much higher standard.
It's easy to feel compassion when compassion costs nothing.
Rose allowed charity to cost:
time, energy, comfort and resources.
That brings us directly into the Gospel.
UNDERSTAND — Jesus said something astonishing about the poor
Read Matthew 25:31–46 today.
It contains Christ's judgment of the nations.
People are separated according to something surprisingly concrete.
I was hungry and you gave me food.
I was thirsty and you gave me drink.
I was a stranger and you welcomed me.
I was naked and you clothed me.
I was sick and you visited me.
I was in prison and you came to me.
And the righteous are confused.
Essentially:
Jesus, when did we ever do these things to You?
Then comes the astonishing answer:
"As you did it to one of the least of these my brethren, you did it to me."
Don't allow familiarity to weaken that sentence.
Jesus creates a mysterious identification between Himself and the vulnerable person.
Not merely:
"Be nice to poor people because I like that."
But:
"You did it to Me."
Rose took that seriously.
Yesterday Rose looked at Jesus
Remember our prayer?
I look at Him and He looks at me.
Today something changes.
Rose encounters a sick person.
And Christ seems to say:
"Look again."
Yesterday:
Christ in prayer.
Today:
Christ hidden in another person.
Yesterday:
the Crucifix.
Today:
the suffering body of a neighbor.
Yesterday:
adoration.
Today:
service.
And Catholic Christianity insists that these belong together.
Two ways Christ comes disguised
There is an extraordinary parallel at the heart of Catholic spirituality.
At Mass we encounter Christ under appearances that do not look like Him:
bread and wine.
In ordinary life we encounter Christ mysteriously associated with people who may not look like Him either:
the hungry,
the sick,
the lonely,
the annoying,
the elderly,
the forgotten,
the socially awkward,
the person who cannot repay us.
In both cases faith must learn to say:
"Jesus, You are here."
Of course, the modes of presence are not identical: Catholic doctrine uniquely confesses Christ's substantial Real Presence in the Eucharist. Matthew 25 speaks of Christ's identification with the needy in another sense.
But both realities train Christian vision.
Learn to see Christ where ordinary sight does not.
Rose learned that vision.
Here is the test of mystical spirituality
Imagine someone says:
"I have a profound relationship with Jesus."
Excellent.
Then someone interrupts them.
They become furious.
Someone needs help.
They are too busy.
Someone inferior in social standing speaks to them.
They barely notice.
Someone makes a mistake.
They humiliate them.
Someone becomes inconvenient.
They avoid them.
Then we have reason to question what their prayer is producing.
St. John is devastatingly clear:
"He who does not love his brother whom he has seen, cannot love God whom he has not seen."
— 1 John 4:20
This gives us a spiritual diagnostic:
If prayer is genuine, eventually somebody else should benefit from it.
That's worth remembering.
Rose's prayer wasn't escape
Now her little garden hermitage looks different.
She wasn't withdrawing from people because people didn't matter.
She was withdrawing so that God could teach her how much people matter.
This is the paradox of Christian contemplation.
The deeper you enter God, the harder it becomes to remain indifferent to human beings.
Why?
Because you begin seeing them through God's eyes.
The irritating colleague?
Created by God.
The difficult family member?
Loved by God.
The poor person?
Image of God.
The sinner?
Someone for whom Christ died.
The person who hurt you?
Also someone for whom Christ died.
This becomes uncomfortable very quickly.
Charity is more difficult than generosity
Suppose I give ₱1,000 to someone.
That can be genuinely generous.
But perhaps I don't want to spend ten minutes listening to them.
Why?
Money sometimes creates distance.
Love requires presence.
This is one reason the corporal works of mercy are so concrete.
Feed.
Clothe.
Visit.
Shelter.
Care.
Bury.
Christianity doesn't allow love to remain an abstraction.
And Rose's charity involved human contact.
She cared for bodies.
That is significant.
The mystic who wanted union with an invisible God was willing to deal with very visible human suffering.
But now we need to expand "the poor"
When we hear "serve the poor," we often imagine someone living on the street.
Certainly, material poverty demands Christian concern.
But there are other forms of poverty surrounding us.
Someone can be financially comfortable and desperately lonely.
Someone can be successful and terrified.
Someone can have a family and feel invisible.
Someone can work beside us every day and believe nobody cares about them.
Someone can be elderly and slowly discover that people no longer listen.
Someone can be young and feel that their worth depends entirely upon performance.
Someone can be difficult precisely because they are wounded.
There is:
material poverty
and
relational poverty
and
spiritual poverty
and
emotional poverty.
Rose asks us to notice.
The most difficult poor person
Now I want to make today's lesson uncomfortable.
Who is easier to love?
A stranger suffering somewhere far away?
Or the person in your daily life who irritates you?
Sometimes helping an anonymous poor person is easier than showing patience toward someone we already resent.
Because charity isn't primarily a category of people.
Charity is a way of seeing people.
Therefore your Matthew 25 person today might be:
your child,
your parent,
your employee,
your colleague,
your neighbor,
a service worker,
someone who talks too much,
someone who repeatedly disappoints you,
someone whose personality exhausts you.
And Christ says:
"Whatever you did..."
That changes things.
Rose now challenges our prayer
Yesterday you practiced the Rose Ten.
Suppose you spent ten beautiful minutes with Jesus.
Then immediately afterward someone interrupted you.
What if that interruption was part of the prayer?
We often think:
prayer → interruption → prayer ruined
Rose's spirituality begins suggesting:
prayer → interruption → opportunity to practice what prayer was teaching me
That doesn't mean boundaries don't matter.
They do.
Jesus Himself withdrew from crowds.
But it does mean that we should be cautious about loving a God in prayer whom we repeatedly reject when He approaches us through inconvenient people.
A simple test
Think of the person who irritates you most frequently.
Now complete this sentence:
"Jesus loves this person as intensely as He loves me."
Notice your reaction.
Then:
"Jesus died for this person."
And:
"This person has wounds I probably cannot see."
And finally:
"This person is not the sum of the behavior that irritates me."
Something begins changing.
Not necessarily the person.
You.
That is charity.
This doesn't mean tolerating everything
Christian charity does not require:
accepting abuse,
ignoring injustice,
refusing boundaries,
avoiding correction,
pretending wrongdoing is acceptable.
Rose herself could be remarkably strong-willed.
Love sometimes says:
No.
Love sometimes confronts.
Love sometimes creates distance.
Love sometimes reports wrongdoing.
But charity changes why and how we do those things.
The question becomes:
"What genuinely seeks this person's good?"
rather than:
"How do I make this person pay?"
That's a profound difference.
PRAY — Matthew 25 with Rose
Today your Rose Ten changes slightly.
For the first five minutes, remain with Jesus as yesterday.
Then read Matthew 25:31–46 slowly.
When Jesus says:
"You did it to me,"
stop.
Now ask:
"Jesus, where are You waiting for me today?"
Don't expect supernatural information.
Simply allow actual people in your life to come to mind.
Then ask:
"Who have I stopped seeing?"
That question is important.
Not:
Who do I hate?
Something subtler:
Who have I stopped noticing?
Perhaps someone has become part of the scenery of your life.
A guard.
Cleaner.
Driver.
Waiter.
Employee.
Coworker.
Relative.
Child.
Elderly person.
Someone whose presence you take for granted.
Bring that person before Jesus.
Then pray:
"Lord, teach me to see."
LIVE — The Rose Encounter
Today, I want you to perform one deliberate act of personal charity.
Not merely donate money online.
Do something involving another human being.
It can be very small.
Listen to someone without checking your phone.
Thank someone whose work is usually unnoticed.
Sit with someone lonely.
Help someone before they ask.
Message someone you suspect is struggling.
Give food personally.
Speak kindly to someone usually ignored.
Perform an unpleasant task for someone.
Spend ten extra minutes with someone who needs attention.
But there is one condition:
Don't tell anyone you did it.
No post.
No story.
No mention later.
Remember Day 3:
hidden love.
And internally say:
"Jesus, I recognize You."
Now Rose's contemplation and Rose's charity become one movement.
Your Rose Journal — Entry 8
Tonight answer these honestly.
1. The people I naturally notice are ________.
Then:
2. The kind of person I tend to overlook is ________.
Now more difficult:
3. The person I currently find hardest to love is ________.
Don't immediately justify why.
Instead ask:
4. What might this person be carrying that I cannot see?
And finally:
5. Jesus, if I really believed You were waiting for me in other people, what would change about tomorrow?
Spend most of your time there.
There is an important connection forming
Remember the sequence we've been building.
Rose looks at the Crucifix and learns:
"This is how much God loves me."
Then Rose encounters suffering people.
And the Crucified Christ seems to ask:
"Will you love them with the love I have given you?"
This is the movement of grace:
God loves me.
↓
I receive love.
↓
Love begins freeing me from myself.
↓
I become capable of giving myself.
↓
Someone else encounters God's love through me.
This is Christianity becoming incarnate.
Perhaps this is the real miracle
Stories about Rose include extraordinary phenomena.
But suppose someone asks:
What is more supernatural?
A mystical vision?
Or a selfish human being gradually becoming capable of selfless love?
Christian theology says grace accomplishes something extraordinary:
it transforms us into people capable of loving with God's own supernatural charity.
That transformation may happen quietly.
Nobody canonizes the moment you patiently listen to someone.
Nobody paints it.
Nobody builds a shrine around it.
But heaven sees.
Rose would understand that.
Now our journey is about to become much deeper
We have spent several days discovering what attracted Rose toward God.
But something happened in Rose's spiritual life that every serious disciple eventually encounters.
God did not always feel close.
Rose experienced periods of profound spiritual desolation and interior suffering.
The woman who had given herself radically to God sometimes experienced something terrifying:
God seemed absent.
And this brings us to one of the deepest questions in the spiritual life.
What happens when:
you pray...
and nothing happens?
When Mass feels empty?
When Scripture feels dead?
When the God you once experienced seems silent?
When you continue doing everything you know to do...
and receive no consolation?
Does faith survive?
Day 9 — Rose in the Darkness
Our question will be:
Do I love God—or do I love the experience of God?
We will explore Rose's periods of spiritual desolation, the Catholic distinction between faith and feeling, what spiritual dryness can and cannot mean, why God's apparent absence is not necessarily abandonment, and how the saints continue praying when prayer gives them almost nothing emotionally.
And you will practice perhaps the purest prayer we've attempted so far:
"Jesus, even if I feel nothing, I choose to remain."
That may bring us closer to Rose than any dramatic penance ever could.
