Wounds of Love : The Mystical Marriage of Saint Rose of Lima

The Peruvian mystic St. Rose of Lima (Isabel Flores y Oliva, 1586-1617) was canonized in 1671 as the first saint of the New World and remains the object of widespread devotion today. In this engrossing new study, Frank Graziano uses the example of St. Rose to explore the meaning of female mysticism and the way in which saints are products of their cultures. Virginity, austerity, eucharistic devotion, incessant mortification, and mystical marriage to Christ characterized the devotional regimen that structured St. Rose's entire life. Many of her mystical practices echo the symptoms of such modern psychological disorders as masochism, depression, hysteria, and anorexia nervosa. Graziano offers a sophisticated argument not only for the origins and meaning of these behaviors in Rose's case, but also for the reason her culture venerated them as signs of sanctity. In the process he explores a wide range of themes, from the idea of suffering as an expression of love to the assimilation of childhood trauma through religious repetition. Graziano also offers a penetrating analysis of the politics of Rose's canonization. He finds that her mystical union with God--bypassing the institutional channels of sacrament and priestly mediation--was inherently subversive to the bureaucratized Church. Canonization was a cooptation by which Rose's competing claim to Christ was integrated into the Catholic canon. The book concludes with a fascinating exploration of mystical eroticism, with its intense experiences of vision and ecstasy. The eroticized suffering of many mystics is shown to be very human in origin: the mystic's wounded love is projected onto a God conceived to accommodate it. Wounds of Love is based on a decade of research in archives, rare books, and an extraordinary range of secondary sources. Introducing an innovative method that integrates history, cultural studies, psychoanalysis, and clinical psychology, this compelling work offers a bold new interpretation of female mysticism. St. Rose of Lima (Isabel Flores y Oliva, 1586-1617) was canonized in 1671 as the first saint of the New World and Patron of the Americas. In this engrossing new biography, Frank Graziano offers the most comprehensive examination of the life of Rose to appear in any language. An obscure, self-mortifying mystic, Rose seems a strange choice for the distinction of first American saint. Graziano argues that the cult that grew up around St. Rose during her life and greatly expanded after her death was seen by both Church and State as a challenge and even a threat to authority. For that reason, he contends, the Church acted quickly to render her harmless by "bringing her into the fold." Graziano goes on to consider Rose's ascetic Christianity in its cultural context. He seeks to discover why the severe austerities and mortifications of female piety that today are regarded as psychopathological were lauded as exemplary means of worship in the seventeenth century. In fact, he shows, St.; Rose's behavior and experiences were initially regarded as pathological by many significant observers within her own culture, but such assessments were gradually dismissed as her saintly image was constructed. Drawing on key archival sources and the insights offered by psychoanalytic theory, Graziano constructs a compelling portrait of one of the Catholic Church's most beloved saints ## Abstract An in-depth study of St. Rose of Lima (1586–1617), canonized in 1671 as the first saint of the New World, serves to explore the meanings of female mysticism and the ways in which saints are products of their cultures. The opening chapter analyzes trends in scholarship on mysticism and the interrelations of sanctity and insanity. Rose and flower poetics are then pursued into the odor of sanctity, “deflowering,” edenic imagery, and the miracle by which Rose of Lima received her name. Two historical chapters analyze the politics of Rose of Lima’s canonization, exploring how mystical union bypasses sacramental and sacerdotal channels, poses an implicit threat to the bureaucratized church, and may be co-opted to integrate a competing claim into the Catholic canon. Virginity, austerity, mortification, eucharistic devotion, visions, expression of love through suffering, ecstasy, and mystical marriage are then studied both in themselves and in their relations to eroticism and to modern psychological disorders.