Roch

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Saint Roch

Saint Roch (Latin: Rochus; Italian: Rocco; French: Roch; Spanish and Portuguese: Roque; c. 1295 – 16 August 1327) was a Christian Saint, a confessor whose death is commemorated on 16 August; he is specially invoked against the plague.

1 Biography
2 Saint Roch churches
3 Trivia
4 References
5 External links

[edit] Biography

According to his Acta and his vita in Legenda Aurea, he was born at Montpellier, France, about 1295, the son of the noble governor of that city. Even his birth was accounted a miracle for his mother had been barren until she prayed to the Virgin Mary. Miraculously marked from birth with a red cross on his breast that grew as he did, he early began to manifest strict asceticism and great devoutness; on days when his "devout mother fasted twice in the week, and the blessed child Rocke abstained him twice also, when his mother fasted in the week, and would suck his mother but once that day" (Legenda Aurea).

On the death of his parents in his twentieth year he distributed all his worldly goods among the poor like Francis of Assisi— though his father on his deathbed had ordained him governor of Montpellier— and set out as a mendicant pilgrim (a habit in which he is generally portrayed). Coming to Italy during an epidemic of plague, he was very diligent in tending the sick in the public hospitals at Acquapendente, Cesena and Rome, and is said to have effected many miraculous cures by prayer and the sign of the cross and the touch of his hand. At Rome he preserved the cardinal of Angleria in Lombardy (perhaps Angera) by making the mark of the cross on his forehead, which miraculously remained (Legenda Aurea). Ministering at Piacenza he himself fell ill. He was expelled from the town; and withdrew into the forest, where he made himself a hut of boughs and leaves, which was miraculously supplied with water by a spring that arose in the place; he would have perished had not a dog belonging to a nobleman named Gothard supplied him with bread. The lord Gothard, following his hunting dog that carried the bread, discovered Saint Roch and became his acolyte.

On his return incognito to Montpellier he was arrested as a spy (by orders of his own uncle) and thrown into prison, where he languished five years and died on 16 August 1327, without revealing his name, to avoid worldly glory. After his death, according to Legenda Aurea"

"anon an angel brought from heaven a table divinely written with letters of gold into the prison, which he laid under the head of S. Rocke. And in that table was written that God had granted to him his prayer, that is to wit, that who that calleth meekly to S. Rocke he shall not be hurt with any hurt of pestilence."

The townspeople recognized him as well by his birthmark; he was soon canonized, and a great church erected in veneration

When the Council of Constance was threatened with plague in 1414, public processions and prayers for the intercession of Roch were ordered, and the outbreak ceased.

His cult spread through Spain, France, Belgium, Italy and Germany, when he was often interpolated into the roster of the Fourteen Holy Helpers, whose veneration spread in the wake of the Black Death. The magnificent 16th-century Scuola Grande di San Rocco and the adjacent church were dedicated to him by a confraternity at Venice, where his body was said to have been surreptitiously translated; the Scuola Grande is famous for its sequence of paintings by Tintoretto, who painted St Roch in glory on a ceiling canvas (1564).

Numerous brotherhoods have been instituted in his honour. He is usually represented in the garb of a pilgrim, with a wound in his thigh, accompanied by a dog carrying a loaf in its mouth.

Saint-Roch, Paris, by Lemercier, begun 1653: pen-and-ink drawing by Charles Norry, 1787

[edit] Saint Roch churches

San Roque (Cádiz), town in Andalucia, Spain, named after Saint Roch.
Saint-Roch, Paris, Rue St.-Honoré: the largest Late Baroque church in Paris.
São Roque (disambiguation), a list of Portuguese towns named after Saint Roch
Saint Roch Catholic Church in Kahuku Hawaii
St. Roch Church in St. Louis, Missouri
St. Roch's Church in Glasgow, Scotland
St. Roch's Church in Staten Island, New York
Chiesa della Scuola Grande di San Rocco in Venice, Italy
Chiesa di San Rocco in Scilla, Italy
Eglise St. Roch in Montpellier, France
St. Rocco's Church in Cleveland, Ohio
St. Rochus Chapel in Bingen, Germany
St. Rocco's Church in Johnston, RI.
St. Roch's Church in Glen Iris, Melbourne, Australia
San Roque Church in Santa Barbara, California

[edit] Trivia

A popular Spanish tonguetwister is El perro de san Roque no tiene rabo porque Ramón Ramírez se lo ha robado ("Saint Roch's dog has no tail because Ramón Ramírez stole it").

In Bolivia his day is celebrated as the "birthday of all dogs", in which the dogs around town can be seen with colourful ribbons tied to them. This is not as celebrated as it once was.

The main train staition of Montpellier, France is named after St. Roch, as well as a church and many squares and streets.

In Bingen, Germany there is a St. Rochus pilgrimage church on top of a hill. Every year in August a one week pilgrimage -the "St. Rochusfest"- is held in memory of a 17th century vow of the city council.

Some churches that are named after the saint distribute, as a pietistic practice, the "bread of Saint Rocco" to parishioners on August 16th, his feast day.

[edit] References

This article incorporates text from the Encyclopædia Britannica Eleventh Edition, a publication now in the public domain.
Acta sanctorum, August, iii.
Charles Cahier, Les Caracteristiques des saints, Paris, 1867