Saint Drogo
Saint Drogo | |
|---|---|
 | |
| noble | |
| Born | March 14, 1105 Epinoy, Flanders |
| Died | c. April 16, 1186 Sebourg, France |
| Venerated in | Roman Catholic Church |
| Feast | April 16 |
| Attributes | Benedictine with sheep, shepherd |
| Patronage | those whom others find repulsive, unattractive people, Baume-les-Messieurs, bodily ills, broken bones, cattle, coffee house keepers, coffee house owners, deaf people, deafness, dumbness, Fleury-sur-Loire, gall stones, hernias, illness, insanity, mental illness, mentally ill people, midwives, mute people, muteness, mutes, orphans, ruptures, sheep, shepherds, sick people, sickness |
Saint Drogo of Sebourg (March 14, 1105– April 16, 1186), also known as Dreux, Drugo, and Druron, is a French saint. He was born in Epinoy, Flanders,[1] and died in Sebourg, France. His feast day is on April 16.[2]
Life
Drogo was a child of Flemish nobility.[3] His mother died when he was born. He learned the reason for her death, and it made an emotional impact on him. He held himself responsible. Later in his life he went to extreme penances, perhaps to relieve his guilt. Drogo was orphaned when he was a teenager.
At age eighteen, he rid himself of all his property and became a penitential pilgrim. As a pilgrim he traveled to Rome about nine or ten times. He became a shepherd for about six years working in Sebourg, near Valenciennes, where he worked for a woman named Elizabeth de l'Haire.
Reportedly Drogo was able to bilocate, which refers to the ability to maintain one's actual presence in two totally different places at the same time. Witnesses claimed seeing Drogo working in fields simultaneously, and going to mass every Sunday.
During a pilgrimage he was stricken with an unsightly bodily affliction. He became so terribly deformed that he frightened the townspeople. In his twenties, a cell was built for him to protect the local citizens of the village from his appearance. Since he was so holy, his cell was built attached to his church. St. Drogo stayed in his cell without any human contact, except for a small window in which he received the Eucharist and obtained his food. He stayed there for the rest of his life, about forty more years, surviving only on barley, water, and the holy Eucharist.
