Saint Rose of Lima

Thinking about the feast days for this month, I came across St. Rose of Lima. Before writing this I didn't know that much about her, other than that she was a Dominican.  She's also the patron saint of gardeners and florists which is really cool, but what immediately caught my eye in the google search was an article with a special prayer for her intersession for exhausted mothers. As a mom who's attempting to balance work, family and a small art business, I often find myself overwhelmed and yes, exhausted. St. Rosenof Lima, pray for us! 

St. Rose, devout Virgin, fragrant rose in the garden of God, sweetly blooming amid the thorns of distressing tribulation and severe mortification, white as snow in the immaculate innocence of your heart, glowing in the love of God that consumed you.

Your devotedness to your parents was so great that you labored night and day to relieve their poverty, and most tenderly cared for them in their sickness.

Most grateful, most humble daughter, have pity on me and my children. Teach me, by conduct truly Christian, to deserve the warmhearted gratitude of my children. Teach my children to appreciate my love and the numerous sacrifices that I cheerfully make for their sake; teach them to repay the same by filial love and obedience, and chiefly by fervent prayers for me.

Bless me and my entire family. May our hearts be intimately united even in adversity. Let us not place our happiness in temporal prosperity, but rather in the hope of a future eternal blessedness.

Pray, likewise, O sainted patroness of America, for all Christian mothers in particular, that Christian life and sentiments may everywhere be awakened among them. May these sentiments spread far and wide, uniting all families into the one great family of God, in which Jesus Christ may live and rule with God the Father and the Holy Spirit. Amen.       From Aleteia.org