Saint Roch
According to the Legenda Aurea, he was born at Montpellier,. Even his birth was accounted
a miracle, for his noble mother had been barren until she prayed to the Virgin Mary.
On the death of his parents in his twentieth year he distributed all his worldly goods among
the poor and set out as a mendicant pilgrim for Rome.Coming into Italy during an
epidemic of plague, he was very diligent in tending the sick in the public hospitals
, and is said to have effected many miraculous cures by prayer and the sign of the cross and the touch of his hand. A. Ministering at Piacenza he himself finally 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 Palastrelli supplied him with bread and licked his wounds, healing them. Count 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. The townspeople recognized him as well by his birthmark;he was soon canonized in the popular mind, and a great church erected in veneration.
He is invoked against all epidemic diseases affecting humans and against diseases affecting animals.
His help may also be required when selling a house of a shop.
Copyright Abraham 2009
Listen to Louis Lachance's Méditations angéliques. We gratefuly thank him!
