Santa Rosa | Festivals in Peru

Location: City of Lima and Quives (Lima), Ocopa (Junín) and Arequipa

Date: August 30

Saint Rose of Lima (Santa Rosa de Lima) was the name given to a seventeenth-century inhabitant of Lima. Isabel Flores de Oliva felt a great religious vocation and dedicated herself to being a laywoman, without belonging to any religious order in particular.

She was to spend her life caring for the sick and her penitence undertaken to resist sin, as well as her good nature earned her fame even while she was alive.

Veneration of her figure spread not only in Peru but also to the Philippines. Her shrine, located in downtown Lima, is constantly visited by pilgrims in search of a miracle, especially those seeking to cure an illness.

On August 30, pilgrims often cast letters detailing their needs into the wishing well where Saint Rose dropped the key from her cilice. Others visit the hermitage that the saint herself built. Saint Rose is the patron saint of Peru.

Although her festival is celebrated across the country, it has a special Quechua emphasis in the town of Santa Rosa de Quives, in the highlands of the department of Lima.