Saint Rocco

Another day, another procession.

Good Saint  Rocco. Blessed Saint Rocco. Although of French descent, this saint is a popular devotion throughout Southern Italy, especially Sicily. 

At Holy Rosary church in Jersey City, he’s a bit of a step child when it comes to the Italian Feast, but so it goes for a saint whose feast day follows the Feast of the Assumption, a holy day of obligation, major Blessed Mother icon and key theological component of Roman Catholic Dogma. According to Parish lore, rivalries existed within the parish between groups of immigrants who retained their village devotional preference for separate mid-august novenas (Saint Rocco now receives a Triduum of prayers, mass and worship, which is three days). There may even been competing street fairs within the same handful of blocks, but some history cannot be verified. Can’t imagine though, much if any significant animosity arising among the camps within what is claimed to be the oldest Italian parish in New Jersey.  

Whatever there was, was resolved decades ago. Saint Rocco gets his due, with a special Mass and procession and with a little smaller but perhaps a little more enthusiastic crowd. And after the mass, the men processed the statue out of the church and onto the same wagon used to haul the Assumption statues the day before. Pots of fresh flowers were also placed on the mobile platform.  Red Mikes’ FestivalBand played a mix of hymns and Italian songs. Two representatives from the Liberty Animal Shelter had pit bulls on leashes. The dogs wore adopt me bibs. Saint Rocco’s icon includes a dog so the canine presence was appropriate.

There seemed to be a lot more elderly at the mass and on the street outside the church as the procession was organized. The elderly even seemed more elderly, compared to the day before. They had not attended the assumption day mass and procession even though it was held at the same time of day. Dignified senior citizens, using canes to walk, you could tell that for some it was not easy to be here but by their faces and the faces of everybody who recognized them, the effort was worth it.

This procession also made more stops than the assumption march. The blocks around Holy Rosary mostly remain an Italian enclave. Senior citizens, presumably homebound, waved from windows and the procession stopped often for people to pin more bills to the ribbon adorning the statue.  Judging from the folks in the windows and on the stoops, the Saint Rocco procession attracted more spectators.  Imaging these same streets filled with people waving from the windows seemed easy. The tradition of processing with Saint Rocco is decades old, probably as old as Holy Rosary itself and just as many there remembered past processions – reminiscences dominated the talk, which was probably true back in their day too. Traditions always inspire nostalgia, memories are shared and passed down and the passing down of those memories are as much a part of the ritual as the actual customs. There were probably processions were the reminiscences were entirely of processions in Sicilian villages, dating back to the time of plague when St. Rocco was alive.

Saint Rocco was French, of Noble birth, his father a governor. On his 20^th birthday, following the example of St. Francis, he donated his wealth to the poor and embarked on a pilgrimage to Rome. It was the 14^th century and the plague was ravaging Europe. He ministered to the sick in public hospitals, was said to have performed miraculous cures as he made is way towards the center of European Christianity. Eventually, he fell ill and was thrown out of a village, so he made himself a shelter of branches and leaves and would have died but a nobleman’s dog would bring him bread and lick his wounds. One day, the nobleman followed his dog and discovered the saint, and became a follower. When he was fully healed, St. Rocco went back home and was falsely accused of being a spy – or of murdering someone, stories differ – and was thrown in prison by his own uncle, who did recognize him. He died in prison on August 16^th (most saint feast days are celebrated on the date of their death), but was identified by a birthmark in the shape of a crucifix. Also, the cell was filled with light, according to some accounts.

 St. Rocco is one of the few saints who have pets as part of the iconography. The dog is depicted holding a loaf of bread in its mouth. The saint is also exposing wounds on his thigh. Although some images of the saint have him in robes, the statue at Holy Rosary he is in what looks like peasant garb, with a wide brimmed hat slung on his back. The garments are believed to be what a pilgrim would have worn.

 

The celebrant of the Saint Rocco mass gave a homily that made much of the pilgrim aspect of the saint, the idea being we are all on a pilgrimage, a spiritual journey. Along the way, Saint Rocco followed the teachings of Christ. He gave his wealth and time to the poor and suffering. He lived a life of compassion. For Americans, pilgrim has additional connotations being that early creation myth are of the pilgrims fleeing persecution and after a year held a turkey dinner with the then Native American neighbors. The hat on Saint Rocco would not look out of place on a puritan’s head.  Pilgrims embody a personal statement about faith, and a healthy disregard for authority.

More than two centuries had passed after Saint Rocco’s death before Pope Gregory XIV canonized him. This passage of time is not unheard of – Saint Joan of Arc took about half a millennium – what is revealing though is that a catholic church in his name was erected in  Montpellier, his hometown and feasts were celebrated by 1390, a mere 20 years after his death.  He was “venerated in the popular mind” throughout Italy, where his travels and the miracle of the dog were well known, as well as France and Spain – during the two centuries preceding official recognition. These were the decades of the Black Death, bubonic plague which decimated populations and one can imagine that a contemporary saint was a useful focal point for home during these horrific years.

Many of the icons and devotions in Catholicism actually have a similar history of rising among the people and majorities resisting official recognition until they seem to have no other choice but bending to the popular will. A nobleman giving up his goods and tending to the sick before succumbing to the same sickness seems like a subversive idea in an era where near-poverty peasants, who were essentially slaves to lords and other noblemen – were dying in droves while the leaders, including church leaders, lived in unfathomable luxury far away from the diseased corpses rotting in the muddy streets of the village. Saint Rocco’s story was a threat to the status quo and it took several generations (and one assumes effective devotions) before the leaders had no other choice but to acknowledge what the faithful laity already knew.

My favorite Saint Rocco attribution is the patron saint of pestilence. And like back in the plague years between the crusades and the renaissance, the intercession of Saint Rocco is prayed for in times of sickness and disease and infective illnesses. Because of the canines in his depiction, he is also prayed to as the patron saint of dogs.

We walked, we talked and in the back yard entrance to Holy Rosary on Seventh Street the procession concluded with coffee and cake.  Saint Rocco is about compassion and hope. During desperate times – some of the most desperate in world history, the plague was more devastating than war – people found consolation in prayers for his intercession.  So many that the authorities were finally forced to embrace the saint. After the plague subsided, the people get the mass, procession and feast alive. We live with death even when it’s not so apparent. But the better angels of our nature – as Lincoln said, a quote which the priest at the Holy Rosary mass alluded to – make us strive towards compassion and live with hope alongside death and all its anxiety. Saint Rocco’s procession reminds us of that as it also reminds us of the tradition of processing that is a century old.

As the statue was brought back into the church through its basement, and the people followed towards folding tables and refreshments, Red Mike’s Festival band played the fitting finale. The Theme to Rocky.