Friar Alfonso Davila, from St. Rita Parish in Madrid, shares a moving personal testimony about how roses have taken on new meanings in his life: from adolescent love to prayer for the impossible in the parish of St. Rita. A floral tribute to hope.
The roses of my adolescence
When I was a teenager, one of my favorite songs was Rosas, by La Oreja de Van Gogh. At that time, roses had a very different meaning than they do today in my life. Back then, they were a token of romantic love. I imagined myself capable of bringing a thousand roses to the person I loved.
Roses for Maria
Over the years, roses stopped being for a girl and became a gift to the Virgin Mary, especially during the month of May. In my novitiate year, 2016, the roses were a meaningful offering, addressed to someone I loved deeply and asked for protection. That year, I gave them as a gift by singing the hymn to Our Lady of the Way, the one we all learned in the novitiate.
Roses for Santa Rita
It took four years for me to give roses again. It was when I arrived at my first assignment as a religious, at my first love: my beloved parish of St. Rita. This parish, which I will fearlessly defend as the
cathedral of the Augustinian Recollects in Europe -and if I dare say, in the world-, became the new garden where my prayers flourish.
Since I have been living in Santa Rita, every year I give roses. It is no longer one, as in my adolescence; nor a dozen, as in the novitiate; not even a thousand, as in the song I sang when I was young. Since I have been here, thousands of roses are given. But they are not just any roses: they are special.
Roses that are prayer
This year 2025, the year of hope, we will give 3,000 roses. Each one of them becomes a prayer of the faithful of the parish and of all Madrid. Thousands of people come to our beautiful church in Chamberí to present their dreams to the advocate of the impossible: to form a family, to conceive a long-desired child, to find a job, or to ask for a cure for an illness.
Each rose at St. Rita’s is a sincere plea to the saint, so that its petals may bring to the ear of Christ the Good Shepherd the most intimate needs of his children.
Thank you, Santa Rita
Every May 22nd is a day of gratitude and petition in our parish. It is a day when roses are transformed into living prayers. A day that, although it might seem the least expected, St. Rita waits – with a soaked face – for us to arrive with our 3,000 roses, those that are our sincere prayer.
Thank you, Santa Rita, for taking care of us. For giving meaning to my roses. To the roses of my life. For teaching me that roses are important.
Friar Alfonso Dávila
Madrid, 2025