Saint Jerome Emiliani

Saint Jerome Emiliani was a Venetian patrician and soldier who, after his conversion, gave his life to orphans, the sick, and the poor. From the companions he gathered around him grew the order of the Somascans. He himself remained a layman to the end. The Church commemorates him on February 8, the day of his death.

He was born in Venice, the youngest of the four sons of Angelo Miani and Eleonora Morosini. His family name was Miani, and in the Church the form Emiliani became established. The Holy See and his order give 1486 as the year of his birth, while older works give 1481. He chose military service, and his youth, as the Roman Martyrology recalls, was a stormy one.

During the War of the League of Cambrai he commanded the defense of the Venetian fortress of Castelnuovo di Quero on the Piave River. In 1511 the fortress fell, and he was thrown into a dungeon in chains. In captivity he began to pray and vowed to the Mother of God that he would change his life. After about a month, on the night of September 27, he regained his freedom. He attributed this to Mary’s intercession, and later he laid his chains on the altar of her shrine in Treviso.

The change matured over years. Jerome became the guardian of his orphaned nephews and read the Holy Scriptures. The turning point came in 1528, when famine drove thousands of people into Venice. He gave away his money, sold the furnishings of his house, fed the hungry, took them under his roof, nursed the sick, and at night buried the dead left lying in the streets. For children left without parents he opened his first orphanage in Venice.

With the help of Saint Cajetan of Thiene and Gian Pietro Carafa, the future Pope Paul IV, he resolved to share the life of the poor: he put on their clothing, went to live with them, and left his family home for good. In 1532 the bishop of Bergamo called him to organize works of charity in his diocese. There he cared for orphans, the sick, widows, and women leaving prostitution, and afterward he carried on similar works in Milan, Como, Pavia, Brescia, and Verona. He taught the orphans a trade and the catechism, according to Pius XI as the first to use the method of questions and answers.

Priests and laymen joined him, and so the Company of the Servants of the Poor came into being. In 1534 he settled in the village of Somasca near Bergamo, where in poverty he cared for orphans and the sick and taught the catechism to the peasants. In January 1537, while nursing victims of the plague, he fell ill himself. He died in Somasca in the night between February 7 and 8. As he was dying, he asked his companions to follow Christ and serve the poor.

The Company was approved in 1540 by Paul III, and in 1568 Saint Pius V placed it among the orders of clerics regular. From Somasca its members came to be called Somascans. Jerome was beatified by Benedict XIV in 1747 and canonized by Clement XIII on July 16, 1767. On March 14, 1928, Pius XI declared him the universal patron of orphans and abandoned youth. John Paul II called him a layman and an animator of the laity.