Saint Roch.
Artist: Francesco Francia (1447 - 1517).
Date: 1502.
Collection: Metropolitan Museum of Art.
Credit Line: Gift of George R. Hann, 1965.
Source/Photographer:
This File is made available under the
(Wikimedia Commons)
Text from “The Liturgical Year”.
By: Abbot Guéranger, O.S.B.Volume 13.
Time After Pentecost.
Book IV.
Three years of famine, three months of defeats, three days of pestilence: The choice given to the guilty David between these three measures of expiation shows them to be equivalent before the Justice of God.
The terrible scourge, which makes more havoc in three days than would famine or a disastrous war in months and years, showed in the 14th-Century that it kept its sad pre-eminence; the Black Death covered the World with a mantle of mourning, and robbed it of a third of its inhabitants.
Doubtless the World had never so well merited the terrible warning: The Graces of Sanctity poured in profusion on the preceding Century had but checked for a while the defection of the Nations; every embankment being now broken down, entrance was given to the irresistible tide of schism, reform, and revolution, by which the World must die.
Nevertheless, God has Mercy so long as life lasts; and while striking sinful mankind, He gave them at the same time the Saint predestined to appease His vengeance.
At his birth, he appeared marked with “The Cross”. When a young man, he distributed his goods to the Poor, and, leaving his family and Country, became a Pilgrim for Christ’s sake.
Going to Italy to visit the Sanctuaries, he there found the Cities devastated by a terrible plague. Roch took up his abode among the dead and dying, burying the former, and healing the latter with the Sign of The Cross.
Himself stricken with the evil, he hid himself so as to suffer alone and a dog brought him food. When, cured by God, he returned to Montpellier, his native Town, it was only to be there seized as a spy and thrown into prison, where he died after five years.
Such are Thy dealings with Thy Elect, O Wisdom of God !
But, no sooner was he dead, than prodigies burst forth, making known his origin and history, revealing the power he still enjoyed of delivering from pestilence those who had recourse to him.
The reputation of his influence, increased by fresh benefits at each visitation of plague, caused his cultus to become popular; hence, although the Feast of Saint Roch is not universal, this short notice was due for him.
