Welcome back to another full week of saintly thrills and spills as Quiteria faces Rose of Lima in a battle of two faithful women. Second century martyr vs. 16th century nun.
On Friday, Philip the Deacon rolled past Onesimus 67% to 33% to advance to the Saintly Sixteen. By the way, did you know that the Bracket is updated daily? It's true! Click on the Bracket Tab to view an updated bracket and scroll down just underneath the bracket for a link to all the previous battles. This is all courtesy of our long-standing (suffering?) Bracket Czar, the Rev. Adam Thomas, who also supplies us with a plethora of puns each day when announcing the winner.
Stay tuned later today for an exciting newfangled edition of Monday Madness coming your way. You definitely don't want to miss it!
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Quiteria
St. Quiteria is a saint shrouded in mystery, about whom not much is certain but much is whispered. The facts are these: she was born in what is now Braga, Portugal, and was put to death in Aire-sur-l’Adour, France, in the second century. Her name and these facts are recorded in the Roman Martyrology. Here the stories diverge, but the devotion for her does not.
In the Western church, the tradition holds that she was born in Braga to the local Roman governor. Her father wanted her to marry and renounce Christianity. She refused, and instead fled into the forest with her sister, Liberata. Her father’s soldiers found them and beheaded them on the spot.
In Portugal, the story is more complex. The tradition says that Quiteria was the firstborn of nonuplet sisters (nine infants at once). Their mother, a noblewoman, panicked by having given birth to so many babies at once, and considering it a sign of common birth and animal-like nature, gave the babies to a servant to dispose of. Their father did not notice any of this happening.
Meanwhile, the servant went rogue and raised the girls herself with other local women in the village. The girls were reared as Christians, and learned to oppose the worship of Roman gods, and when they attained adulthood, they came before their father, who recognized them as his daughters. He then decided to exert some authority over them, and marry them off to nice Roman boys, but the nonuplets were not having this. When they refused, their irritated father locked them in the local prison tower.
They escaped and proceeded to travel the countryside while liberating prisoners, smashing pagan idols, and waging guerrilla warfare in the mountains of southern France against the Roman Empire. Quiteria was eventually caught and beheaded near Aire-sur-l’Adour, France, where her relics are now interred. Her sister Eumelia threw herself off a nearby cliff rather than be captured, and today the cliff is known as Penedo de Santa or Cliff of the Saint.
Quiteria’s feast is celebrated (hopefully with some nice empire-resisting) on May 22.
Collect for Quiteria
God of the unlikely journey, we thank you for the example of Quiteria, who, with her sisters, stood firm for what they knew to be right in the face of abandonment and opposition. Empower and guide us, who try to follow in the footsteps of Jesus, to fear nothing except the loss of you, and to keep our eyes set on your reign in the world. Through Christ our Lord. Amen.
Rose of Lima
Isabel Flores de Oliva was born in 1586 in Lima, Peru, to a noble family. She was one of eleven children and would have been reared with education and refinement so that she could marry well. Isabel had other ideas.
A beautiful child, Rose’s name comes from an account of a servant who saw the infant Isabel’s face transform into a rose. When Isabel was confirmed, she took the name of Rose and began to follow in the model of Catherine of Siena with strict fasting, acts of penance, and devotion to Christ.
Rose fasted three times a week. She limited her sleep to two to three hours a night, spending the majority of her waking hours kneeling in prayer. When she did sleep, she scattered rocks and broken glass on her bed to remember Christ’s suffering and death, even in her sleep. She eventually refused to eat meat at all. She wore a crown of thorns with silver spikes that embedded themselves into her flesh and skull.
When her parents invited suitors to court her, Rose, a well-regarded beauty in her community, cut her hair off, rubbed hot peppers into her face to inflame her skin, and refused to wash herself to discourage all suitors.
She wanted desperately to become a nun; her father forbade her. She instead took a perpetual vow of virginity. She wore the habit of the Third Order of St. Dominic and used a room in the family home to care for children and elderly Peruvians who were sick. She lived this austere, penitential, and slightly unsettling spiritual life until her death at age thirty-one.
Rose’s spirituality is referred to as one of extreme mortification, that is, of acts undertaken to repent for sins and to share in the fullness of Christ’s Passion. Eve in her lifetime, various leaders of the Church investigated her spiritual practices. Yet, they only found a woman deeply dedicated to sharing in the sufferings of Christ, to constant prayer, and to caring for those who were most in need in her community. Dignitaries and religious leaders in Peru attended her funeral at the cathedral. Legend states that the city smelled of roses on the day of her funeral. In 1671, she became the first Roman Catholic in the Americas to be declared a saint. Her skull is in a golden chest at the Dominican Church of Santo Domingo.
Collect for Rose of Lima
Merciful God, you sent your Gospel to the people of Peru through Martin de Porres, who brought its comfort even to slaves; through Rosa de Lima, who worked among the poorest of the poor; and through Toribio de Mogrovejo, who founded the first seminary in the Americas and baptized many: Help us to follow their example in bringing fearlessly the comfort of your grace to all downtrodden and outcast people, that your Church may be renewed with songs of salvation and praise; through Jesus Christ, who with you and the Holy Spirit lives and reigns, one God, now and for ever. Amen.
123 comments on “Quiteria vs. Rose of Lima”
Several of my co-workers are from Peru. I promised I would vote for Rose of Lima.
What choices did young women have in the 2nd and 16th Centuries if they refused union with men they did not want to marry (especially so if they were physically attracted to women)? Become an extremist in a stigmatized religious group? Attempt to enter a convent? Publicly engage in bizarre behavior? With faithful practice over time, ANY of these could lead to a closeness to God unparalleled in the average Christian community of today (with various associated social consequences of course). Although both stories are shrouded in mystery, Quiteria's 9 sibling birth leading to radical Christian guerrilla warfare was a little "too much mystery" for me. I voted for the Rose.
Quitera because we need resistance fighters today.
@Spyridon the Thaumaturge
I nominate you for the S/T round simply for being able to conjugate Latin plurals. Very impressive. Ave.
When is your Web Master going to find the time to Update The 2025 Bracket?!?
Gosh. I"m not comfortable voting for either o these women. Kind of creepy.
I pass. One is of dubious authenticity. The other is a representative of extreme self-mortification.
Not particularly taken with today's choice but went fro Rose of Lima because I had heard of her. There is a school called after her in Glasgow, Scotland
I was invited to vote twice so I did. Better subtract one from Rose of Lima
Just seems wrong not to be voting for St Patrick today. Don't love the match up at all.
This is the second version I have received today. I voted earlier. Was there something wrong with the first. I noticed when I voted there were only 40 votes cast
Give me Quiteria any day.
The abusive behaviors of Rose turn my stomach, not my heart toward a stronger faith.
My vote was for Quiteria - resist!
I’m concerned about the choices being presented here, this year. It seems that we have run out of the interesting ones and are now being information about not very much that’s believable. Today, we have the choice between a person of uncertain history whose qualification for sainthood seems to have a aversion to men, and on the other side someone who seems to have been genuinely mentally ill. This is sad beyond words.
Choosing Rose of Lima. My goodness, such judgmental voices in the comments. You may not understand her path of self-mortification, which is fine. But many of you take it a step further and denigrate her practice. Understand this: self-mortification as a spiritual practice has been common throughout Christian history and many saints have practiced it at some level, even Golden Halo winners. Self-mortification is also present in other religions. There are Hindus and Buddhists who engage in it, as well as many who practice forms of indigenous and pagan spirituality throughout history. Fasting is a form of self-mortification! So.. it’s fine not to understand Rose of Lima’s path… but please let’s not pass harsh judgement on what she decided to do. She’s hardly alone in her practice.
As I am married to a man of Portuguese extraction with the last name of Braga and who has visited this ancient city, I have voted accordingly.
Not great choices today. While I appreciate the small aspect of service to others in Rosa's story, glorifying that Christian cult of self-injury to emulate Christ instead of going out and doing the things Jesus asked us to do seems wrong. As for Quiteria, I am much more interested in saintly lives that we can verify occurred. My only comfort is that Irenaeus or Athanasius should be an easy ultimate "final four" winner in this bracket.
I can’t find anything holy about self-mortification. Although most certainly mythological, Q has my vote. Resist. Resist. Resist.
Honoring self-mortification and mutilation is never ok - esp. for females no matter what else the person may do.
I don't know...Quiteria's is an unusual story (nontuplets can't happen), but mortification seems extreme. I'm enough of a Buddhist and Episcopalian to appreciate the "middle" way.
What happened to Monday Madness?
Still here and trying to vote [earlier worked last year] unseccessfully:
VOTE
Quiteria
Rose of Lima
6218 votes
Vote Results
So my reCAPTCHA holds for exactly 1 minute, then won't work. I read & decide, then reload the page and the reCAP works again, but cannot discover any other probelm/anomaly yet.
Can someone reply to me & let me know anyone is reading this?
And-or tell me who else can be the 'Help' Dept.. ✝️-☮️-
Thank you, Committee, for showing us how varied the lives of devout Christians have been. It may be uncomfortable to our modern senses but reading about the choices (even extreme ones) enlarges our own imaginations - what might we do for Christ?
Jacque Fertick: I didn't receive the email either, but went to lent madness website - last Monday's [3/10] and changed a few things to get this:
https://www.lentmadness.org/2025/04/monday-madness-march-17-2025/ that isn't new, but took me to the original VOTE page. They began last Monday speaking of technical difficuties, so..
Cut them some slack & stay Blessed this Lent!
I figured Rose would advance ( and one of my daughters took her name at confirmation) but I’m not big on the self harming. We are told in the Bible that God doesn’t desire self sacrifice like that. Quiteria’s story ( either version) is pretty suspect but in the Portugal version I like her pluck! So I’m backing the underdog.
Although I have to admire her faith, I just found Rose's expression of it too extreme and disturbing to enable me to vote for her
Not a huge fan of either choice, tbh.
Oh, I really wanted Quiteria to win. I loved the idea of nine sisters running through the forests freeing prisoners, waging guerrilla warfare and standing up to tyranny.
Self-destructive religious hysteria?
No, today my vote goes to Quiteria
Slow starvation and cuts
Are not saintly, but nuts —
To encourage them’s quite a bit scaria.
I apologize for the lateness of this post; LM had some connectivity issues this morning, and then I had meetings most of the day.
I was annoyed this evening to find that someone had posted a second-rate limerick at 1:50 PM today, using my name rather than their own. They should be ashamed. None of us participating in Lent Madness could wish to have others post using our name; I have asked the SEC to correct this security hole before it becomes an ongoing problem.
As to the match-up: I have good reason to loathe the continued conflation of self-destructive behaviors with saintliness. It is a lingering stain on our faith. God wishes us to live, and love, and not to harm each other — or ourselves.
— John
Yes, for empire-resisting. And I hope, and pray, that the kind of self-mortification that Rose undertook is not what God expects of us. If it is, I guess I won't be at the heavenly banquet.