Page:A Dictionary of Saintly Women Volume 2.djvu/207

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195
195

ST. ROSE 195 • withdrew from the Conrt and from the world, and led the life of a hermit on Monte Fellegrino, ahont three miles from Palermo. The place of her retreat was not discovered for centuries, bnt in the year of the Jubilee, 1625, he^ body was found in perfect preservation, with a crown of roses placed on her head by angels. An inscription out by herself in the rock, was as follows — " Ego Bosalia Sinibaldi QuisqninaB et Rosarum Domini filia. amore Domini mei Jesu Christi ini hoc antro habitare decrevi." She was translated into the principal church of Palermo. A grievous pesti- lence was raging in that city, and St. Christina, its patron, had been appealed to in vain to stop it, but as prayers were now addressed to Rosalie, it ceased. In the following year, Rosalie was canonized by Urban VIII., and superseded Christina as chief patron of Palermo. Her festival, which is kept in the middle of summer, lasts for four days and is very picturesque; thousands of people ascend Mount Pellegrino to visit the grotto; a great car, carrying her statue, is drawn through the town by sometimes as many as fifty oxen and is so tall that it has been known to carry away balconies from the upper windows of the streets through which it passes; the wheels sometimes stick, as the weight is immense. Fireworks, illuminations, and all sorts of amusements make these few days a very gay time. The shrine of the Saint is often enriched with costly gifts from her votaries. B.M. Her Life by Felix de Lucio Espinossa y Male. Mrs. Jameson. Hare, Southern Italy. St. or B. Rosamond (l) or Rosk- MUNDA, April 3. Wife of John de Vernon. They lived at Vernon on the Seine, in the diocese of Rouen ; both were emi- nently pious and good. They had a son St. Adjutor, who was a soldier and went to the crusades in 1095. He was taken prisoner by the Saracens, but was mira- culously released and brought home by St. Bernard, whom he had known in the body, but who was then a saint in heaven : St. Mary Magdalene assisted in the rescue. Adjutor became a hermit. After her husband's death and her son's return from the crusade, Rosamond became a nun at Tyro in Pertois. She was buried in the family chapel of St. Mary Magda- lene at Vernon, beside her son who died in 1131, and she is worshipped with him. Saussaye says she has no day and is remembered on her son's festival, April 30; German folk-lore, however, makes April 3 her day. She is mentioned in the Life of St. Adjutor, but does not seem to have any authorized worship. A^.iSiS., April 30. Gynecwum. Saussaye. Swainson, Weather Folk-lore, Rosamond (2), 12th century. The mistress of Henry II. of England, com- monly called *'Fair Rosamond," was canonized by the ecclesiastics of the district where she lived, on account of a gift to a monastery ; but as her morality was not equal to her generosity, her body was cast out of the church by St. Hugh, bishop of Lincoln, and to honour her as a saint was forbidden. Baillet. St. Rosana, Humility. St Rosceline, Rosselinb, St. Rose (1) of Sardinia, Sept. 1, in the time of Trajan or Hadrian. Patron of Sassari in Sardinia. She was mother of St. Antiochus, and perhaps of St. Platanus, with whom she is honoured. AA.SS. Stadler. St. Rose (2), Feb. 21, Vabda. B. Rose (3), one of the nine sisters of St. Rainfbbde. St. Rose (4), Dec. 13, 13th century. Nun at Chelles and first abbess of Ville Chasson in Oatinois. Stadler. St. Rose (5) of Viterbo, Sept. 4, 7, 11, March G, 8, V. O.S.P., + 1252. She shares with St. Louis of Toulouse and St. Elisabeth (11) the patronage of the third O.S.F. Represented in the Franciscan habit, holding a rose. Viterbo, in 1234, when she was born there, was a flourishing town on the road from Siena to Rome, and was often the residence of the Pope. Her parents, John and Catherine, were certainly not rich. From her earliest years, she strove to follow thd example of the Lord Jesus in His humility, poverty, self- denial. His kindness and charity, His obedience to His parents, and as far as