Presentation of the Association

EUROPEAN ASSOCIATION FRIENDS OF ST. ROCCO: A SIGN OF HOPE

In the history of Christianity bright examples of sodalities that have given new impetus to spiritual life, shine, marked by the teachings of the Gospel, to which are anchored the authentic values of the Son of God or of the Saints, the latter are faithful interpreters of the message of the Lord.
The European Association Friends of St. Rocco is the tangible sign of a witness, a search for the footprints of the Pilgrim God, to focus the incomparable examples of a young wanderer who walking the pilgrim’s way, achieved the inner peace.
The Sodality, founded by the creative Procurator of St. Rocco and Fr. Guardian of the Archconfraternity, Costantino De Bellis, by its witness animates and is an irreplaceable guide for Groups and Associations, throughout Italy and Europe.
In recent years, devotees of the ‘Pilgrim of the Absolute’ met to seek in one another the Face of Christ, the only Mediator between God and humanity. Through St. Rocco, He is the only certainty in difficult times, the irreplaceable bulwark, a ray of light that illuminates the tortuous path of life, the hope that never fails. The ‘Broken Bread’ of the pilgrims, the ‘Food of the Souls’, feeds the evangelical mildness of Christians; is the support of the devotees who experience the involving power of love, the parameter of brotherly love, which is the hallmark of St. Rocco, his invitation to look at the neighbors as the image of God.
Simplicity, humility, the encounter with others, the differences and the diversities, are for the faithful, in everyday life, indispensable qualities to build the ‘Culture of Love’. In this way, they are part of our lifestyle to embody in our reality the Word of the Gospel, which is still alive and enlightens the consciences darkened by perverse logics.
Among the prominent initiatives of the European Association, proposed by the Procurator, supported by the irreplaceable spiritual guidance of Mons. Filippo Tucci, we mention the prayer meeting, reinforced by the recitation of the Rosary in May, held on the first Saturday of each month.
‘St. Rocco’s Bread’ merits special attention, a fraternal sharing of food, a sign of kindness, like the dog that ran through a short stretch of path to feed the French Pilgrim, suffering from plague, in a narrow cave in Sarmato, the table for the poor in the Augusteo Church in Rome. A CD has been made with songs dedicated to the Pilgrim of the Absolute. The proceeds are destined for the Third World, to carry out projects to alleviate the sufferings of so many brothers and sisters living in poverty. We thank Maestro Luigi Quindieri for his generous hekp.
An important piece was placed in the ‘Mosaic of Witness’, with the inauguration of the Museum of Iconography in Capriati al Volturno (CE), a project conceived and implemented by the Procurator and Fr. Guardian of the Archconfraternity, Costantino De Bellis. The Museum dispays pictures of the Pilgrim of God, venerated in many communities of the Peninsula, from North to South, as he walks along the ‘Spaces of Charity’, pauses to look at the face of the ‘Pilgrim of the History’, gives peace of heart, opens a perspective toward the infinite, directs the devotees to horizon of the spirituality, the inexhaustible source of hope.
In daily life, the cultural witnesses, collected in the Museum of Iconography are eloquent symbols of Christianity that, through St. Rocco, remind the faithful of the meaning of pilgrimage, which is walking toward our destination, an interior journey, a revision of our being that seeks God in the difficult present. The devotees of St. Rocco rediscover in the sanctity of life the authentic hope in the fullness of faith.