Sept. 4, St. Rose of Viterbo, Virgin of the third Order.

St. Rose, who was born in Viterbo in 1234, was like that queen of flowers, which opens its leaves as soon as dawn breaks. The first words she uttered were the holy names of Jesus and Mary. It is related how, when she was not yet four years old, she restored one of her aunts to life. The child had an admirable attraction for solitude. She therefore begged her father to allow her to live in a little cell in the house, so that she might devote herself to work and prayer.
There she suffered, mortified and scourged herself, and prayed for the Church, then cruelly persecuted by the German Emperor, Frederick II. She was in her ninth year when she put on the habit of the Third Order, on June 24, 1249, having been ordered to do so by the Blessed Virgin, and walked the streets of Viterbo preaching penance. She disputed publicly with the Manichaean heretics, defeated them, and to confirm the truth of her words, remained for three hours in the middle of a fiery furnace, with being touched.
She spoke so strongly against the detestable heresy of Frederick II, and she tore so many souls away from him to bring them back to the Church, that Peter des Vignes, the emperor’s minister, decided that it was useless to continue the fight against the Church in Italy. However, an edict banishing her was issued. Her exile was a real triumph. The population rushed in front of her, to thank her for the miracles which she strewed on her path. Jesus and Mary often deigned to appear to her. She was not yet eighteen years of age when her noble soul left her body, in 1252. After six centuries her body is still preserved at Viterbo, incorrupt. – (from) The Franciscan Supplement.