When on July 5 the Vatican approved the devotion to Our Lady as Rosa Mystica (“Mystical Rose”), connected to the time she appeared in 1947 and 1966 to Italian woman Pierina Gilli, many people did not know of the devotion and the appearances of Mary that led to it.

This July 13 is a good day to remember about this approved devotion because the date carried an important request and message. On July 13, 1947, Our Lady said, “I wish that the 13th of July be celebrated each year in honor of the Rosa Mystica, the Mystical Rose.” She also asked that “the 13th of each month be commemorated as a Marian day.” That sounds very closely linked with Fatima’s dates — and in some similar ways, so were her words.

Rosa Mystica is not a new title for Mary. It is one of the titles invoked in the Litany of Loreto, approved by the Church centuries ago in 1587 as one of only five litanies for use in the liturgy. St. John Henry Newman, explaining Mary’s titles in the litany, wrote that Mary became the Rosa Mystica “by being born, nurtured and sheltered in the mystical garden or Paradise of God.”

“Mary is the most beautiful flower that ever was seen in the spiritual world,” he said. “She is the Queen of spiritual flowers; and therefore she is called the Rose, for the rose is fitly called of all flowers the most beautiful.”

 

Strong Model of Devotion

Right now, the seedbed for spreading this devotion is as close as the Rosa Mystica household in Steubenville, Ohio, at Franciscan University. Of the 48 households for students, one women’s household is named “Rosa Mystica.”

Member Theresa Renna, who will graduate at the end of summer with a major in theology and minor in music ministry, shared how the young women have come to practice and love the Rosa Mystica devotion.

With the choice of many households to join at the university, Renna first explained how she was drawn to this particular household. “Roses had always been a huge theme in my life. I’m named after St. Thérèse the Little Flower. And then St. Rose of Lima is my confirmation saint. I heard the title Rosa Mystica, the ‘Mystical Rose,’ as a title of Our Lady, but I didn’t realize there was an apparition connected to that title until I visited this household after I met a girl who I became friends with who was a part of the household,” she told the Register.

“They do a Rosary once a week, and I was very struck by this Rosary. They used the 54-day Rosary novena prayers, which talk about binding roses together, offering Our Lady different colors of roses for each decade. I thought it was really beautiful. So that connects to the Rosa Mystica. But also, they pray for priests and religious by name on every Hail Mary. … I realized later, after I talked to them more and learned about the apparition, that Our Lady asked for this.”

Renna continued, “She spoke about how there’s so many abuses with priests and religious and how they need prayers, and this devotion is supposed to help with that for priests and religious. We’re really intentionally doing that.”

 

Mary’s Message

Our Lady first appeared pierced with three swords and said, “Prayer, sacrifice and penance.” The first sword represented unworthy celebration of Mass and Holy Communion received in an unworthy manner. The second referenced unfaithfulness of priests and religious, with the third marking betrayal of faith. In the next vision, roses replaced the swords and represented prayer, sacrifice and penance, and conversion. Our Lady said, “I am the Mother of Jesus and the Mother of all of you. Our Lord sends me to bring a new Marian devotion to all religious orders and institutes, male and female, and to the priests of this world. I promise to protect those religious orders and institutes who will venerate me in this special way, increase their vocations, and achieve a greater striving for saintliness among the servants of God.”

Practicing this devotion, Our Lady said, would bring “vocational holiness and abundant graces on those religious orders and spiritual institutes who have honored me specially” — and those religious offending God would stop and “again lead a life according to the original spirit of their saintly founders.”

Renna explained that the household gets “new names every week for every Rosary. They always get new names for every Hail Mary, for every new priest and religious every single time.” They ask people for names and also research in diocesan lists. “I loved that,” Renna said enthusiastically. “We also have other commitments that are on our gear — our t-shirts — that we have and on our sweatshirts. We have the three roses that are from the apparition. Each rose stands for one of them. The white one is prayer, red is sacrifice, and yellow is penance.” 

Growing out of the devotion, “We have also pillars of our household … which are these virtues and ways of life in union with Christ through Mary, and we seek to live them out,” Renna continued. “These pillars are correlated to the roses, in a way. They are redemptive suffering, steadfast hope, jubilant thanksgiving, liberating self-knowledge, contemplative prayer and authentic femininity. These are our six pillars that we strive to live out, which we believe Our Lady lived out perfectly in her life. We’re trying to be like Our Lady in these virtues, but also we call ourselves a rose as a reminder of that.” 

This encapsulates their common life in the household: “We do night prayer together; we go to Mass together. We fast together once a week, and we meditate on the Gospel reading for the Sunday every week. It is just beautiful. That’s how we strive to be like Our Lady together.”

Because Rosa Mystica called for sacrifice, the household members answer that call together, as Renna explained, “which involves much sacrifice and offering our sufferings in union with Christ. And Our Lady’s sufferings are something that we dive into as well.”

Referring to the apparitions, Renna added, “What I really love is when Our Lady said Vivi d’amore in one of the apparitions, and that means ‘live by love.’ We have that on one of our other t-shirts as well. I really love that because that’s where this all stems from and is getting back to that root of loving, and that involves the sacrificeand involves living in union with Christ and Our Lady.”

Renna and her household members look forward to spreading the good word about the Mystical Rose through their own witness, telling people that “we’re based on this apparition.” 

She also mentioned that, as Rosa Mystica, “Our Lady also mentions in the Rosa Mystica apparitions about Dec. 8 as [having] the ‘Hour of Grace’ [to be celebrated at noon].” She finds that particular devotion on Dec. 8 “very powerful. Our Lady [as Rosa Mystica] said she would shower many graces on someone who carries out this devotion.”

Renna believes the Vatican announcement is “huge,” adding: “I’m just grateful that more people can hopefully know about it and be devoted to it. I really hope so, because we really need it nowadays. We’re praying for the Church and doing what Our Lady wishes in that way.”