Asia, Europe, and Africa had been watered with the blood of many martyrs, and adorned, during many ages, with the shining examples of innumerable saints, whilst, by the inscrutable judgments of God, the vast regions of America lay barren, and, as it were, abandoned, till the faith of Christ began to enlighten them, and this saint appeared on that hemisphere like a rose amidst thorns, the first-fruits of its canonized saints. She was of Spanish extraction, born at Lima, the capital of Peru, in 1586. She was christened Isabel ; but the figure and color of her face in the cradle seeming, in some measure, to resemble a beautiful rose, the name of Rose was given her. From her infancy her patience in suffering, and her love of mortification were extraordinary; and whilst yet a child, she ate no fruit, and fasted three days a week, allowing herself on them only bread and water, and on other days, taking only unsavory herbs and pulse. When she was grown up, her garden was planted only with bitter herbs, and interspersed with figures of crosses. In her exercises she took St. Catharine of Sienna for her model. Every incentive of pride and sensuality was to her an object of abhorrence; and, for fear of taking any secret satisfaction in vanity, she studied to make those things in which it might insinuate its poison, painful to her. One day her mother having put on her head a garland of flowers, she secretly stuck in it a pin, which pricked her so deep, that the maid at night could not take off the garland without some difficulty. Hearing others frequently commend her beauty, and fearing lest it should be an occasion of temptation to any one, whenever she was to go abroad to any public place, she used, the night before, to rub her face and hands with the bark and powder of Indian pepper, which is a violent corrosive, in order to disfigure her skin with little blotches and swellings. A young man happening one day to admire the fineness of the skin of her hand, she immediately ran and thrust both her hands into hot lime, saying : “Never let my hands be to any one an occasion of temptation.” What a confusion is this example to those who make it their study to set themselves off by their dress, to become snares to others ! We admire a St. Bennet on briers, a St. Bernard freezing in the ice, and a St. Francis in the snow; these saints were cruel to themselves, not to be overcome by the devil; but Rose punishes herself to preserve others Thus did she arm herself against her external enemies, and against the revolt of her senses. But she was aware that this victory would avail her little, unless she died to herself by crucifying in her heart inordinate self-love, which is the source of pride, and all the other passions. This is the most important and most difficult part of our spiritual welfare; for so long as self-love reigns in the affections of the heart, it blasts with its poisonous influence even virtues themselves; it has so many little artful windings, that it easily insinuates and disguises itself every where, wears every mask, and seeks itself even in fasting and prayer. Rose triumphed over this subtle enemy by the most profound humility, and the most perfect obedience and denial of her own will. She never departed willfully from the order of her parents in the least tittle, and gave proofs of her scrupulous obedience and invincible patience under all pains, labor, and contradictions, which surprised all that knew her.

Her parents, by the vicissitude of worldly affairs, fell from a state of opulence into great distress, and Rose was taken into the family of the treasurer Gonsalvo, by that gentleman’s pious lady; and by working there all day in the garden, and late at night with her needle, she relieved them in her necessities. These employments were agreeable to her penitential spirit and humility, and afforded her an opportunity of never interrupting the interior commerce of her soul with God. She probably would never have entertained any thoughts of another state, if she had not found herself importuned by her friends to marry. To rid herself of such troublesome solicitations, and more easily to comply with the obligation she had taken upon herself by a vow of serving God in a state of holy virginity, she enrolled herself in the third Order of St. Dominic. Her love of solitude made her choose for her dwelling a little lonely cell in a garden. Extraordinary fasts, hair-cloths, studded iron chains which she wore about her waist, bitter herbs mingled in the sustenance which she took, and other austerities, were the inventions of her spirit of mortification and penance. She wore upon her head a thin circle of silver (a metal very common in Peru) studded on the inside with little sharp pricks or nails, which wounded her head, in imitation of a crown of thorns. This she did to put her in mind of the adorable passion of Christ, which incomprehensible mystery of divine love and mercy she desired to have always in her thoughts. She never spoke of herself but as of the basest of sinful monsters, the sink of the universe, us worthy to breathe the air, to behold the light, or to walk on the ground ; and she never ceased to adore the infinite goodness and mercy of God towards her. So ardent was her love of God, that, as often as she spoke of it, the accent of her voice and the fire which sparkled in her countenance discovered the flame which consumed her holy soul. This appeared most sensibly when she was in presence of the blessed sacrament, and, when in receiving it, she united her heart to her beloved in that wonderful fountin of his love. Her whole life was a continual vehement thirst after that divine banquet, in which she found her greatest comfort and support during the course of her earthly pilgrimage. God favored the fervor of her charity with many extraordinary graces; and Christ once, in a vision, called her soul his spouse. But, for her humiliation and the exercise of her virtue, she suffered, during fifteen years, grievous persecutions from her friends and others, and, what were much more severe trials, interior desolation, and dreadful agonies of spiritual anguish in her soul. The devil also assaulted her with violent temptations, filling her imagination with filthy phantoms. But God afterward recompensed her fidelity and constancy in this life with extraordinary caresses. Under long and most painful sicknesses it was her prayer: “Lord, increase my sufferings, and with them increase thy love in my heart.” She happily passed to eternal bliss on the 24th of August, 1617, being thirty-one years old. The chapter, senate, and all the most honorable companies of the city, by turns, carried her body to the grave; the archbishop assisted at her funeral. Several miracles wrought by her means were juridically proved by one hundred and eighty witnesses before the apostolical commissaries. She was canonized by Clement X, in 1671, and the 30th day of August has been appointed for her festival.
(from Butler's Lives of the Saints)