Saint Roch, the favorite plague saint

Saint Roch was considered particularly efficient in averting the plague through his intercession. After all, was not the saint himself touched by this disease when he returned home from Rome? Sick, he took shelter in a cave, but every day an angel descended from heaven with water, and every day the baker's dog came to bring him a piece of bread. Rochus healed.

In every village church there was a statue of the saint. And when the plague was gone, he had enough work with new infectious diseases such as dysentery and cholera.

In the Church of Our Lady we see some signs of this veneration of Saint Roch: a painting of Saint Roch, a processional banner of the brotherhood of this saint. In Diest it was the people from the neighbouring monastery who actively promoted the worship. They sold litanies and the saint's biography. They possessed certified relics. If you were a member of a brotherhood, you were sure that mutual solidarity would pray for you, that you could die with an expensive wax candle in your hands, and that your funeral and mass would be arranged.

Jan Rymenams