Books

Enoch Soames

St. Rose of Lima

Note:

* “An age,” writes Dubonnet, “when girls are for the most part well confirmed in all the hateful practices of coquetry, and attend with gusto, rather than with distaste, the hideous desires and terrible satisfactions of men.”
     All who would respire the perfumes of Saint Rose’s sanctity, and enjoy the story of the adorable intimacy that subsisted between her and Our Lady, should read Mother Ursula’s Ineffable and Miraculous Life of the Flower of Lima, published shortly after the canonisation of Rose by Pope Clement X, in 1671.

“Truly,” exclaims the famous nun, “to chronicle the girlhood of this holy virgin makes as delicate a task as to trace the forms of some slim, sensitive plant, whose lightness, sweetness and simplicity defy and trouble the most cunning pencil.”

Mother Ursula certainly acquits herself of the task with wonderful delicacy and taste. A cheap reprint of the biography has lately been brought out by Chaillot and Son.