Another patron saint for the coronavirus pandemic

I had written an earlier blog post about Saint Rosalia, the patron of one of the four parishes in our grouping and her special intercession during the time of plague.  Recently, I was reminded of another patron saint in times of pandemic by my friend District Justice Anna Marie Scharding.  She was a parishioner of that magnificent church in the Allentown section of Pittsburgh which is now closed, Saint George.  I had the joy of serving as a parochial vicar at Saint George in the earliest days of my priesthood from 1986-1989.   Anna Marie recently reminded me of Saint Roch and his long-standing connection to the people of the South Side and Allentown, especially Saint Michael Church, right down the road from Saint George.  Many of the German immigrants belonged to Saint Michael and then moved to the newly built Saint George as life expanded up the hillside.

He is known as San Rocco in Italy and Saint Roch, Roche or Roc in English speaking countries. According to his Acta and his vita in the Golden Legend, he was born at Montpellier, at that time "upon the border of France," the son of the noble governor of that city. Even his birth was accounted a miracle, for his noble 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 Roch abstained as well.

On the death of his parents at the age of 20, Roch distributed all his worldly goods among the poor like Saint Francis of Assisi 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. Roch himself finally fell ill 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 supplied him with bread and licked his wounds, healing them.

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. Tradition has it that after his death, an angel brought from heaven a table divinely written with letters of gold into the prison, which he laid under the head of St. Roch.. And in that table was written that God had granted to him his final prayer, that is to wit, that anyone who calls meekly and faithful to St. Roch, shall not be harmed with any hurt of pestilence. The townspeople recognized him as well by his birthmark and he was soon canonized in the popular mind and a great church erected in veneration.

In 1849, as cholera swept through the Pittsburgh neighborhoods, the parishioners of Saint Michael Church on the South Side slopes turned to St. Roch to spare them.  They promised to forever honor this patron saint of plague victims if he helped them.  And he did.  Members of the parish community stopped dying.  Even when the plaque returned with greater force the following year, not one member of Saint Michael Parish died.  St. Roch had kept his promise and the parishioners are keeping theirs.

Every year now for over 160 years, parishioners and former parishioners of the now Prince of Peace parish gather in the South Side for Cholera Day, August 16, to honor San Roch.  A Mass is celebrated, a procession follows, and the tradition lives on.  We know that some Italians celebrate the Festa of San Rocco as well for similar reasons in Pittsburgh and all around the world.

Many non-believers and even some people of faith may think its all superstitious.  But we know how saints have been given by God to his people to help them.  Their goal is to strengthen faith and to help us get to heaven.  But along the way miracles do happen.  God’s power does break into the world and can defy the rules of nature according His divine will.  People can be healed and others kept safe and we understand that as a gift of God’s merciful love extended to his people.  Perhaps our devotion to St. Roch can bring some hope and light to these times of darkness and struggle.  It is not for us to understand God’s mysterious ways, but to have faith in his promises.  Jesus said, “I will be with always until the end of time.”  That’s a promise we can count on.