Today is the feastday of St Jerome Emiliani, another post-Trent or Counter Reformation saint, first a member of the St Cajetan's lay association, the Confraternity of the Divine Love, then in 1534, himself an orphan, founder of the Somascans, or Somaschi or Company of the Servants of the Poor, an association of regular clerics.
St Jerome Emiliani, sometimes called San Girolamo Milani
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Hieronymus, e gente patrícia Æmiliáni Venetiis ortus, a prima adolescéntia milítiæ addictus, difficillimis reipublicæ temporibus Casto novo ad Quárum in móntibus Tarvisinis præfícitur. Arce ab hostibus capta, ipse in teterrimum carcerem detrúditur, mánibus ac pédibus vinctus ; cui omni humana ope destituto beatíssima Virgo, ejus precibus exorata, clemens adest, víncula solvit, et per médios hostes, qui vias omnes obséderant, in Tarvisii conspéctum incólumum ducit. Urbem ingréssus, ad Deíparæ aram, cui se vóverat, mánicas, compedes, catenas, quas secum detulerat, in accepti beneficii testimónium suspendit. Reversus Venetias, cœpit pietátis stúdia impensius cólere, in páuperes mire effúsus, sed puerórum præsertim misértus, qui paréntibus orbati, egeni et sórdidi per urbem vagabántur ; quos in ædes a se conductas recepit de suo alendos, et christiánis moribus imbuéndos. |
Jerome was born at Venice, of the Patrician family of the Emiliáni. He was trained up to be a soldier, and in the most troublesome times of the Commonwealth, he commanded the fortress of Castelnuovo at Quero, in the mountains near Treviso. After the fall of the place, he was chained hand and foot, and cast into a filthy prison. When all hope of help from man had forsaken him, the most blessed Virgin, in answer to his prayers, mercifully came to him, loosed his fetters, and brought him unhurt within sight of Treviso, through the midst of the enemy, who kept all the roads. As soon as he entered the city of Treviso, as an acknowledgment of the favour he had received, he hung up his chains, which he had brought away with him, at an Altar of the Mother of God, to whom he had vowed himself. After his return to Venice he gave himself up to godly works. Amid his great tenderness to all the poor, his compassion was chiefly roused by the fatherless little boys who wandered through the city starving and filthy ; them he took into an house conducted by himself, where at his own cost he provided them with board, lodging, clothing, and a Christian education. |
the motherhouse of the Somascans, 1957
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Per eos dies Venetias appúlerant beátus Cajetanus et Petrus Caráfa (postmodum Paulus quartus), qui, Hieronymi spíritu novoque instituto colligendi órphanos probato, illum in Incurabílium hospitale adduxérunt, in quo órphanos simul educaret, atque ægrotis pari caritate inservíret. Mox eorúmdem hortatu in próximam continentem profectus, Brixiæ primum, deinde Bérgomi atque Novocómi orphanotróphia eréxit : Bérgomi præsertim, ubi præter duo, pro púeris unum et pro puellis alterum, domum excipiendis, novo in illis regiónibus exemplo, muliéribus a turpi vita ad pœniténtiam conversis, apéruit. Somaschæ, in humili pago agri Bergoménsis ad Vénetæ ditiónis fines, sibi ac suis ibi sedem constituit, formamque indúxit, congregatiónis, cui proptérea a Somascha nomen factum ; quam subinde auctam et propagatam, nedum orphanórum regímini et ecclesiárum cultui, sed ad majórem christianæ reipublicæ utilitátem, adolescéntium in litteris et bonis moribus institutióni in collegiis, academíis et seminariis addictam, sanctus Pius quintus inter religiósos ordines adscripsit, ceteríque Pontifices privilegiis ornarunt. |
In those days there came to Venice blessed Cajetan and Peter Carafa, who was afterwards Paul IV. They were pleased with the spirit of Jerome, and with his new Asylum for Orphans, and took him to the Hospital for Incurables, as well to bring up orphans, as to extend his charity equally to the sick. Soon after, by the advice of the same, he went to the mainland, and built orphanages first at Brescia, then at Bergamo and Como. His chief foundations were at Bergamo, where besides an orphanage for little boys, and another for little girls, he opened an house of refuge for repentant harlots, being the first institution of that kind in that part of the world. In the end he went to dwell at Somasca, a hamlet in the district of Bergamo, close to the frontiers of the Venetian territory, and there made an house for himself and his disciples, and gave shape to a congregation, which is generally called the Congregation of Somasca. This congregation grew and spread, and found its work not only in the education of orphans and the service of Churches, but also in a wider usefulness to the Christian Commonwealth, by training up young men in letters and good manners. Holy Pius V enrolled it among the religious Orders, and other Popes have given it divers privileges. |
St Jerome Emiliani writing
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Orphanis colligéndis intentus, Mediolanum proficíscitur atque Ticinum ; et utrobíque collectis agmínibus puerórum, tectum, victum, vestem, magistros, nobílibus viris favéntibus, próvide constituit. Inde Somascham redux, ómnibus ómnia factus, a nullo abhorrebat opere, quod in próximi bonum cédere prævidéret. Agricolis immixtus per agros sparsis, dum se illis adjutórem in meténdis frugibus præbet, mysteria fidei explicábat ; puerórum cápita porígine fœda abstergens, et patienter tractans curábat ; pútridis rusticórum vulnéribus medebátur eo successu, ut grátia curatiónum donatus censerétur. In monte, qui Somaschæ imminet, reperta specu, in illam se ábdidit ; ubi, se flagellis cædens, dies integros jejunus tránsigens, oratióne in plurimum noctem protracta, super núdo saxo brevem somnum carpens, sui aliorúmque noxárum pœnas luebat. In hujus specus interiori recessu ex árido sílice exstillat aqua, precibus servi Dei, ut constant tradítio est, impetrata, quæ usque in hodiérnam diem jugiter manans, et in varias regiónes delata, ægris sanitátem plerumque conciliat. Tandem, ex contagióne quæ per omnem vallem serpebat, dum ægrotántibus inservit, et vita functos propriis humeris ad sepultúram defert, contracto morbo, annos natus sex et quinquaginta, quam paulo ante prædixerat, pretiósam mortem obiit anno millesimo quingentésimo trigesimo septimo. Quem plúribus in vita et post mortem miraculis illustrem, Benedíctus décimus quartus Beatórum, Clemens vero décimus tertius Sanctórum fastis solemniter adscripsit. |
Jerome went to Milan and to Ticino to gather orphans together, and in both places he gathered a multitude of little boys for whom the charity of noblemen enabled him to provide board, lodging, clothes, and schooling. He returned to Somasca, and, still making himself all things to all men, refused no toil by which he saw that could be of any use to his neighbour. He was used to go about in the field, helping the reapers in their work, and meanwhile teaching them in the mysteries of the faith. He was very patient in cleansing and healing the heads of little boys foul with lice, and proved so successful a physician to the stinking sores of the poor country people, that he got a reputation for having the gift of healing. He found a cave in the mountain which hangs over Somasca, and there he would hide himself, passing whole days without meat or drink, and oftentimes scourging himself, continuing in prayer long into the night, and taking his short sleep upon the bare rock, in expiation of his own sins and the sins of others. In the far end of this cave, there drippeth out of the dry stone some water, which is said by an unwavering tradition to have come there at the prayers of the man of God. It droppeth freely even to this day, and is taken to divers places at a distance, where it often hath an healing effect upon the sick. At length an infectious disorder broke out in all the valley, and Jerome, who nursed the sick and carried the dead to burial on his own shoulders, caught it, and died a precious death, as he had himself foretold, in the fifty-seventh year of his age, and that of salvation 1537. He was famous for many miracles, both during his life and after his death ; Benedict X solemnly enrolled his name among those of the Blessed, and Clement XIII inserted it in the Kalendar of the Saints. |
The Somaschi's 'expansion, however, was abruptly stopped by laws obstructing religious life issued by Napoleon in 1810 and by the Italian government in 1861. It followed a painful dark period characterized by persecution, injustice, suffering, from which only at the beginning of the XX century has the Order emerged with new vitality. It expansion resumed, reaching new continents and new countries. Nowadays, the Somascans number about 500 religious.' (from History of Our Order.)
