Peru Research Paper Essay

Madison Spence 17 February 2013 Spanish 2312 Professor Elsa Coronado-Salinas Santa Rosa de Lima The country of Peru is home to many holidays and festivals each year. From the New Year’s Day celebration to the Christmas day celebration, Peru has set aside an abundance of days to observe the country’s many historic events. A very popular holiday in the country is Santa Rosa de Lima which takes place each year on August 30. The holiday dates back to the 17th century and celebrates the death of the patroness of Lima, Santa Rosa.

Santa Rosa was born on April 20, 1586 by the name of Isabel, but was later nick-named Rosa because of her looks and her rosy cheeks.

She spent a majority of her childhood in the small town of Quive, in the hills of Lima. As Rosa grew up, she became extremely religious and started practicing very extreme forms of religion. She grew up to be a very very beautiful woman, but she came to resent her looks.

She did everything to ‘undo’ her beauty. She fasted herself, cut her hair, and wore a thorn crown to divert attention away from her beautiful looks and towards God. Rosa wanted to join a monastery but her family was too poor to afford it so she moved away from her family and into a cottage she built herself. Rosa’s days consisted of praying and feeding and caring for the sick and poor people in her town. She sold flowers and needlework to support herself and her family. At the age of 20, Rosa was let into the

“Third Order” without having to pay for it. Her religious practices took on a new extreme as she gave up all normal food and lived off of bread and water as well as herbs and juices from plants that she grew in her own garden. She constantly wore a metal crown around her head and an iron chain around her waist. After keeping up with this behavior for fourteen years, Rosa died at the young age of 31 on August 24, 1617. She was worshipped by so many people that all of the religious groups and public authorities attended her funeral. She was originally buried at the Dominican Convent but her remains were soon moved to the Church of Santo Domingo.

She was later named the first saint in the New World by Pope Clemente X. Her shrine is still located inside the St. Dominic Convent in Lima. The holiday is a very celebrated day across the country, but has more of an emphasis in the city of Santa Rosa de Quives which lies in the Lima Highlands. Worshippers group together in a shelter in the middle of the city and is known as a day of feast in Peru. It is also tradition to drop a letter of good will into the tree that Santa Rosa tossed her key. Even though she died on August 24, her death is celebrated by feasting on August 30 because a Saint was already celebrated on the day of her actual death

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