Imprisoned, St. Jerome Emiliani made a deal with Mary–if she freed him, he would dedicate his life to serving God. That’s just what happened.

Jerome was born in Venice, Italy, in 1481. When he was a teenager, his father died, and Jerome ran away from home. It may have been this experience as a homeless and orphaned teenager that allowed Jerome to identify with other abandoned children and devote his adulthood to serving them.

Joining the military pulled Jerome from his wayward path, and he soon rose in rank to command a league of forces in charge of a castle near Venice. When the fortress was captured, he was imprisoned in a dungeon.

There, in the dungeon, he had a lot of time to think, and he gradually learned to pray. He prayed to Mary and promised that if she helped him escape, he would live a life worthy of being called a Christian. She appeared to him in a vision, freed him from his chains, and led him out past his captors. When he returned to Venice, he placed his shackles in a Church as an offering of thanksgiving and a sign of his dedication.

He immediately began studies for the priesthood, and cared for the poor he found in Venice. He was ordained in 1518 amidst an outbreak of a plague, and he continued to care for the sick—especially for children who were orphaned by the sickness. He took these orphans into his own home and fed, clothed, and taught them. He was the first to use a question-and-answer format to teach children the Catholic faith, an approach that became common in catechisms.

He would wander the streets of Venice to bury the dead who had died of the plague that day. Eventually, he caught the fever himself, but survived, and he redoubled his efforts to help those who were suffering. He founded six orphanages, a hospital, and a shelter for prostitutes.

Others started to gather around him to help him, and he established a religious order of priests dedicated to the care of orphans, called the Clerks Regular of Somascha, after the place where they had their headquarters. This order continues his work today in a dozen countries.

St. Jerome is patron saint of orphans and abandoned children, and his relics rest in the reliquary chapel in the Basilica. His image is used here with permission from Catholic.org.

St. Jerome Emiliani, you braved the plague to care for children who were orphaned by it, pray for us!