Nathaniel Hawthorne's Daughter
Nathaniel Hawthorne (1804-1864) is remembered as a writer, best known as the author of The Scarlet Letter, but he may soon be recalled as “the father of a Saint.”
Last month, Pope Francis authorized the Dicastery for the Causes of Saints to decree Hawthorne’s daughter, Rose, also known as Mother Mary Alphonsa - founder of the Congregation of the Dominican Sisters of St. Rose of Lima - as “Venerable.”
Rose (1851-1926), a convert to Catholicism at age 40, founded, along with her husband, George Lathrop, the Catholic Summer School Movement in Connecticut and New York in the 1890s. They also co-wrote a history of the Georgetown Visitation Convent.
Poor George succumbed to alcoholism and their marriage ended in 1895, after which Rose focused on a life of charitable service to others. At age 45 she trained to be a nurse to cancer patients and was at George’s side in 1898 when he died of kidney and heart disease.
Soon after, on the Lower East Side of Manhattan, she founded the St. Rose Free Home for Incurable Cancer, and in 1900 successfully petitioned the Vatican to found her religious order, the Congregation of the Dominican Sisters of St. Rose of Lima - today known as the Dominican Sisters of Hawthorne, Congregation of St. Rose of Lima.
Rose Hawthorne died in 1926. Her cause was opened in 2003 by the late Cardinal Edward Egan of New York and submitted to the Vatican in 2013.
On March 14 the Congregation announced on its website:
It is with joy that we announce that Mother Mary Alphonsa's (Rose Hawthorne) cause has advanced from Servant of God to Venerable Servant of God by the Congregation of Saints in Rome. At this point miracles will begin to be examined. Please rejoice with us! It is our hope that the heroic and holy life of our foundress will be a source of inspiration to more people.
To learn more about Venerable Mother Mary Alphonsa and the Hawthorne Dominicans, visit their website here.