Text from The Saint Andrew Daily Missal,
unless stated otherwise.
Saint Jerome Emilian.
Confessor.
Feast Day 20 July.
Double.
White Vestments.
Saint Jerome Emilian.
Founder of The Somascan Fathers.
Over Five Hundred Years Service
to Orphans and The Needy Youth of this World.
Illustration: SOMASCAN FATHERS
Born at Venice, Italy, of the patrician family of Emiliani, Jerome unreservedly gave himself up to the influence of Divine Grace, "which, on the ruins of the corrupt man, raised him as a new man made in The Image of God" (Secret).
Filled with The Spirit of Adoption, which makes us Children of The Father, he was chosen by Heaven to be The Father of Orphans and of The Poor. (Collect).
As Jesus had asked the young man in the Gospel to do, he left everything and, like his Master, made little Children come unto him (Gospel).
He Founded, at Somascha, between Milan and Bergamo, Italy, a Congregation whose object was to educate youth in Orphanages and Colleges. Wherefore, the Introit, applying to him the words of Jeremias, shows him full of compassion for children, who, thanks to him, learned to praise The Lord.
Dividing his bread with those who were hungry, and covering the naked, he opened asylums for The Poor and gave them abundant alms with the help of The Nobility of Pavia and Milan (Epistle, Gradual, Alleluia).
He died of the plague in 1537, having borne on his shoulders the plague-stricken to their burial place (Offertory).
Let us have recourse to The Father of Mercies, so that we may be filled, like Saint Jerome, with Holy Charity for The Poor and for Children.
Mass: Effúsum est.
Commemoration: Saint Margaret.
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