St. Roch

Who they were

Roch was born in Montpellier, in France, around the time the Black Death arrived in Europe. Orphaned at twenty, he gave away his inheritance and walked to Rome as a pilgrim, straight into the plague years, and stopped in town after town to nurse the sick. At Piacenza he caught it himself. Rather than burden anyone he withdrew to the woods to die, and the story every image of him tells is what happened next: a hunting dog found him, licked his wounds, and brought him bread daily from its master's table until he recovered. Returning home unrecognizable, he was arrested as a spy and died in prison rather than reveal who he was. Almost all of this is tradition rather than documented history, and the page should say so plainly; the devotion that grew from it carried Europe through five centuries of epidemics.

Why people turn to St. Roch

He walked toward the sick when everyone else fled, and he knew the disease from the inside. Invoked during outbreaks, and, from the dog, by anyone who loves one.

How to ask their intercession

In an outbreak: for the sick, for the exposed, and for the people who cannot stay home. And it is entirely allowed to ask his prayers over a sick dog. ---