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.

— Megan Castellan

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.

— Laurie Brock