Saint Drogo

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Saint

Drogo
Église Saint-Druon de Sebourg 29.JPG
Anchorite
BornMarch 14, 1105
Epinoy, France
Diedc. April 16, 1186
Sebourg, France
Venerated inCatholic Church
Major shrineSt. Druon Church, Lower Side Chapel, Sebourg, France
FeastApril 16, the same day on which he died in 1186
AttributesBenedictine with sheep, shepherd
Patronagethose 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

Drogo of Sebourg (March 14, 1105– April 16, 1186), also known as Dreux, Drugo, and Druron, is a Flemish saint. He was born in Epinoy, Flanders,[1] and died in Sebourg, France. His is known as the patron saint of shepherds, coffee, and the ugly,[2] and his feast day is on April 16.[3]

Life[]

Drogo was a child of Flemish nobility.[4][unreliable source?] His father died before he was born, and his mother died due to complications from labor leaving him an orphan from birth to be taken care of by his family. When Drogo learned about the cause of his mother's death, he became sad and was known to weep for her suffering. He believed her death to be his fault and practiced fasting, abstinence, and works of charity as a way to ask for God's forgiveness. [5]

At age eighteen, he rid himself of all his property and became a penitential pilgrim. He distributed his considerable inheritance from his wealthy family to the poor and kept only the clothes on his back. He took to the road as a pilgrim and never returned to his birthplace. Drogo eventually found himself in Sebourg, France about 35 miles from Epinoy where he took a job tending sheep for a peasant woman which allowed him to spend a lot of time on his own. [5]


Reportedly, Drogo was able to bilocate, to maintain his 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.[citation needed]

After spending about six years in Sebourg, Drogo travelled to Rome to visit the tombs of Saint Peter and Saint Paul while also making a few stops in Italy and France. Drogo suffered through immense hunger and thirst during his pilgrimage and often put himself in harmful situations which resulted in him developing a debilitating and disfiguring hernia.[5] 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. 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 on only barley, water, and the holy Eucharist.[citation needed] While Drogo lived in his cell in solitude, many people would visit him and seek spiritual advice or ask for prayers. Drogo died on April 16, 1186 after living a long life marked will illness and hardship.


Controversy[]

Although Drogo is now regarded as the patron saint of coffee, this patronage is anachronistic. There is no evidence that a pilgrim from Flanders in the 12th century had any connection to a drink associated with Ethiopia and the middle East in the 15th century. As Mark Pendergrast writes in his scholarly text "Uncommon Grounds: the History of Coffee and How It Transformed Our World" (2019), “Though Rhazes and Avicenna may have been writing about some form of coffee, they were not describing our brew. It probably wasn’t until sometime in the fifteenth century that someone roasted the beans, ground them and made an infusion.” [6]

It's also worth noting that there are no primary sources on Drogo's life, and that the books and sites listed on this page are drawn primarily from the work of a Catholic writer, Joan Carroll Cruz, who in two books, "Lay Saints: Ascetics and Penitents" and "Mysteries, Marvels and Miracles: In the Lives of the Saints" gives brief overviews of Drogo's life with no scholarly sources.[7]

References[]

  1. ^ Drogo of Sebourg, Hermit (RM), Saint of the Day, Saint Patrick Catholic Church, Washington, D.C.
  2. ^ Gutierrez, Angelica (November 1, 2017). "5 Seriously Bad-Ass Saints for All Saints' Day". Esquire Magazine. Retrieved January 19, 2021.
  3. ^ San Drogone, Recluso a Sebourg, Martirologio Romano, in Italian.
  4. ^ Saint Drogo, Saints Index Star Quest Production Network (SQPN).
  5. ^ Jump up to: a b c "Saint of the Day: Saint Drogo, Druon". Saints, Feast, Family. Retrieved 16 September 2021.
  6. ^ Pendergrast, Mark (2019). Uncommon Grounds: the History of Coffee and How It Transformed Our World. Basic Books. pp. 4–5.
  7. ^ Cruz, Joan Carroll (1997). Mysteries, Marvels, Miracles in the Lives of Saints. TAN Books.

External links[]

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