Why did Rose deliberately embrace penance—and what should we actually imitate?
Today we meet the Rose who makes many modern people uncomfortable.
Rose of Lima practiced severe fasting. She restricted her sleep. She used painful bodily mortifications. Early accounts describe a metal circlet fitted with points beneath her veil, recalling Christ's crown of thorns. She subjected herself to austerities that would be dangerous and imprudent to imitate without appropriate spiritual direction.
If we avoid these facts, we sanitize Rose.
If we imitate them indiscriminately, we misunderstand her.
So today I want us to do something more difficult:
love Rose enough to take her seriously without assuming that devotion requires copying everything she did.
KNOW — Yes, Rose really was extreme
Rose began practicing asceticism while young, and her austerities intensified.
Accounts of her life describe fasting, long periods of prayer, severe restrictions of sleep and various bodily mortifications.
Her desire was partly penitential.
Partly identification with Christ crucified.
Partly intercession for sinners.
Partly the ascetical desire to conquer disordered appetites.
And partly an expression of an extraordinarily intense mystical spirituality.
This wasn't unique to Rose.
Her great model, Catherine of Siena, practiced severe asceticism too.
Medieval and early-modern Christian spirituality contained forms of bodily penance that seem alien to many Christians today.
But here's our first important discovery:
Penance itself isn't strange.
Every serious Christian practices it.
UNDERSTAND — What is penance actually for?
Suppose you say:
"I want to follow Jesus."
Wonderful.
Then tomorrow morning the alarm sounds.
Suddenly:
I don't want to get up.
Someone insults you.
I want to retaliate.
You're bored.
I want stimulation.
You're lonely.
I want immediate consolation.
You're hungry.
I want food now.
You're angry.
I want to say what I'm thinking.
You see something you desire.
I want it.
We quickly discover something about ourselves:
Wanting holiness and wanting whatever feels good right now frequently conflict.
This is where asceticism enters.
The Greek root behind askesis carries the idea of training.
Think of an athlete.
An athlete doesn't hate the body.
The athlete trains the body precisely because the body matters.
Likewise Christian asceticism isn't supposed to mean:
"My body is evil."
It means:
"My desires are good servants but terrible masters."
So I train them.
You already understand this outside religion
Consider someone training for a marathon.
They deliberately choose discomfort.
They wake early.
They run when they'd rather sleep.
They control what they eat.
They repeat difficult exercises.
Why?
Not because:
pain = good.
But because:
freedom requires training.
Or consider learning a musical instrument.
Your fingers hurt.
You repeat scales.
You refuse easier entertainment.
Again:
discipline serves something you love.
Rose understood the spiritual life similarly.
She wanted an interior freedom so radical that when Christ called, she could say:
Yes.
Not:
"Yes, provided I'm comfortable."
Here is Rose's real enemy
It wasn't food.
It wasn't sleep.
It wasn't beauty.
It wasn't her body.
The enemy was slavery to self.
The Christian tradition calls this struggle by various names: concupiscence, disordered attachment, passions improperly governed, the "old self."
St. Paul uses athletic imagery:
"I discipline my body and keep it under control."
— 1 Corinthians 9:27
But Paul also teaches:
"Your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit."
— 1 Corinthians 6:19
Both matter.
The body must not become:
master.
But neither should it become:
enemy.
That balance is crucial.
And this is where we must distinguish Rose's principle from Rose's methods
Think of it this way:
Rose's principle
Nothing—not hunger, comfort, vanity, sleep, reputation, pleasure or fear—should rule me more than Christ.
That is timeless.
Some of Rose's methods
Severe fasting.
Extreme sleep restriction.
Painful instruments of mortification.
Other intense bodily austerities.
Those are not automatically transferable to us.
This is where mature hagiography differs from romantic hagiography.
Romantic hagiography says:
"Saint did X. X must therefore be holy. Copy X."
Catholic spiritual discernment asks:
"What virtue was the saint pursuing, and what is the prudent expression of that virtue in my circumstances?"
That's much more useful.
A saint isn't canonized one decision at a time
This point deserves to stay with you beyond Rose.
Canonization does not mean:
Every opinion this person held was correct.
Every decision was perfect.
Every spiritual practice should be reproduced.
Saints remain human beings.
What the Church proposes to us is their heroic fidelity to grace and their communion with God.
Therefore you can genuinely say:
"Rose, I want your freedom from attachment without necessarily adopting your exact austerities."
I think Rose would understand that.
The real penance most of us avoid
Here's where Rose becomes uncomfortable again.
Modern people can easily look at her and say:
"Those mortifications were excessive."
Perhaps.
But then Rose might look back at us.
And ask:
"What mortification do you practice?"
Silence.
Because the danger is that we use criticism of extreme asceticism to justify no asceticism at all.
We may not wear a penitential crown.
But can we put down the phone?
We may not fast severely.
But can we refuse a second helping?
We may not sleep on something uncomfortable.
But can we get out of bed when the alarm rings?
We would never deliberately wound ourselves.
Good.
But can we allow someone else to have the last word?
Can we resist gossip?
Can we endure boredom?
Can we forgive?
Can we stop scrolling?
Can we remain faithful to prayer when prayer is dry?
Can we say no to a desire simply because we have decided it will not rule us?
Suddenly Rose isn't so easy to dismiss.
There are harder mortifications than physical pain
Suppose someone gives you a choice:
Option A
Take a cold shower.
Option B
Don't defend yourself the next time someone makes a harmless criticism of you.
Many people will choose the cold shower.
Why?
Because bodily discomfort may be easier than ego discomfort.
Or:
Skip dessert.
versus:
Apologize first.
Again, which is harder?
Or:
Wake at 5:00 a.m.
versus:
Forgive someone who humiliated you.
Rose's bodily austerity was dramatic.
But Christianity ultimately seeks something deeper:
the mortification of the ego.
The death of the false self.
The surrender of:
I must win.
I must be admired.
I must be comfortable.
I must be right.
I must control everything.
That is a much more difficult crucifixion.
This changes the meaning of mortification
The word comes from the idea of "putting to death."
But what exactly are we putting to death?
Not the human person.
Not healthy desire.
Not personality.
Not joy.
St. Paul says:
"Put to death therefore what is earthly in you."
— Colossians 3:5
Christian mortification means allowing whatever prevents us from loving God and neighbor freely to die.
So:
lust dies,
greed dies,
resentment dies,
vanity dies,
selfishness dies,
the need to dominate dies,
compulsive pleasure-seeking dies.
And something else becomes increasingly alive:
Christ in us.
There is another dimension of Rose's penance
Rose didn't understand sacrifice as purely self-improvement.
She also understood it as intercession.
Remember yesterday's lesson.
Christian suffering can be united with Christ and offered in love for others.
Rose prayed and offered penances for sinners, for the Church, for those in need.
This prevents asceticism from becoming narcissistic.
Because there is a form of spiritual discipline that secretly says:
"Look how disciplined I am."
That is merely pride wearing religious clothing.
Rose's better instinct was:
"Let this become love for someone else."
That changes everything.
The test of authentic penance
Here is a rule worth remembering.
Ask whether your spiritual discipline is making you:
more loving,
more patient,
more humble,
more available to others,
more obedient to God,
less controlled by impulses,
more joyful,
more merciful.
If instead it makes you:
more proud,
more judgmental,
more irritable,
obsessed with your performance,
secretive in unhealthy ways,
or contemptuous of your body,
something has gone wrong.
Asceticism is a means.
Charity is the goal.
St. Paul makes the standard devastatingly simple:
If I "deliver up my body" but have not love, I gain nothing.
— cf. 1 Corinthians 13:3
Rose's penances must ultimately be interpreted through that sentence.
A very important boundary for our journey
I do not want your devotion to Rose to lead you toward severe fasting, sleep deprivation, deliberate injury, or painful bodily practices.
If you ever feel drawn toward unusual or severe penances, that belongs under competent spiritual direction, and practices affecting health can also require medical prudence.
For our apprenticeship with Rose, we will pursue something safer and arguably harder:
ordinary mortification.
This is the asceticism available everywhere.
And it is extraordinarily powerful.
PRAY — Ask Rose what she was seeking
Today spend ten minutes with 1 Corinthians 9:24–27.
Notice Paul's athletic imagery.
Then pray:
Jesus, what controls me more than it should?
Wait.
Don't immediately choose something impressive.
Look for something ordinary and repetitive.
Maybe:
comfort,
food,
phone,
attention,
anger,
approval,
being right,
entertainment,
procrastination,
complaining,
control.
Then ask:
"What would freedom look like here?"
That is the important question.
Not:
How can I punish myself?
But:
How can grace make me free?
LIVE — The Rose Fast
Today I want you to fast.
But perhaps not from food.
Choose one appetite.
For one day:
No unnecessary complaining.
or
No checking the phone during a chosen 30-minute period.
or
No unnecessary self-defense.
or
No gossip.
or
No unnecessary snacking.
or
No need to have the last word.
Choose one.
When the impulse appears, don't merely suppress it.
Say:
"Jesus, You are more important than this impulse."
Then offer the small sacrifice for someone.
"St. Rose, pray for me that I may become free enough to love."
Now you are practicing Rose's spirituality without copying Rose's extreme methods.
But I want you to notice the moment of resistance
This is the most important part of today's exercise.
Suppose you choose not to check your phone.
Ten minutes later:
I wonder if anything happened.
Then:
I'll just check quickly.
Then:
This exercise isn't really necessary anyway.
Watch that conversation.
That little rebellion inside us is enormously revealing.
Rose noticed it too.
The specific object isn't the point.
The discovery is:
I am less free than I thought.
That discovery is not a reason for shame.
It is useful spiritual knowledge.
Because now grace has somewhere concrete to work.
Your Rose Journal — Entry 6
Tonight answer four questions.
1. The appetite that controls me more than I want to admit is ________.
2. When I deny myself this, I usually feel ________.
Now go deeper:
3. What am I actually seeking through it?
Comfort?
Escape?
Control?
Affirmation?
Pleasure?
Relief from boredom?
Security?
Then the most important question:
4. What might I discover in God if I stopped immediately satisfying that desire?
Stay with #4.
That's where asceticism becomes prayer.
Now look at Rose differently
At the beginning of today you may have pictured:
Rose hurting herself.
I want you to leave with a different image.
Picture an athlete training.
Rose is trying to become free.
Sometimes her methods were extreme and shouldn't simply be reproduced.
But underneath them burns a magnificent desire:
Nothing will own me except Christ.
Food will not own me.
Beauty will not own me.
Comfort will not own me.
Other people's opinions will not own me.
Fear will not own me.
Even suffering will not own me.
I belong to Jesus.
Now we're beginning to understand Rose from the inside.
Halfway through our journey
We've reached an important threshold.
Days 1–3: Rose's love
Day 1 — Desire:
Jesus is worth everything.
Day 2 — Detachment:
What competes with Him?
Day 3 — Love:
He loved me first.
Days 4–6: Rose's freedom
Day 4 — Identity:
The world does not determine my worth.
Day 5 — The Cross:
Suffering need not separate me from Christ.
Day 6 — Asceticism:
My desires do not have to control me.
And now I want to change direction.
We've spent several days looking at things Rose did.
Tomorrow we stop.
No fasting.
No crown.
No dramatic mortification.
No external activity.
We enter the little hermitage in her family's garden and close the door.
Because beneath all the spectacular stories about Rose was something quieter—and far more important:
prayer.
Without prayer, her sacrifices become incomprehensible.
With prayer, we begin to discover their source.
Day 7 — The Interior Rose
Tomorrow's question will be:
What actually happens when a human being learns to remain alone with God?
We'll explore Rose's solitude, contemplative prayer, silence, her reported mystical experiences, discernment, and an important distinction between seeking God and seeking spiritual experiences.
And instead of merely talking about contemplative prayer, I will begin teaching you a simple practice inspired by Rose that you can actually carry forward beyond these twelve days.
That may ultimately become one of the most important things Rose gives you.
