As I mentioned in my previous column, St Jerome was born into a wealthy Venetian family in the sixteenth century. After a spiritual conversion, he met members of the Company of Divine Love and began to engage in works of charity with them, helping them feed and care for the victims of a famine which had broken out in 1528.
It was through this work that God inspired in his soul the thought of leaving his wealth and family and dedicating himself to the service of the poor. He made a firm decision to do this on 6 February 1531, at the age of 44.
On that day he returned to his home, where he had been looking after his deceased brother Luke’s wife and her three children, aged 16, 15 and 14. He made provision for their upkeep, gave away his estate, took off his patrician clothing, put on the clothing of the poor and left his house, never to return again.
He opened a craft shop at St Rocco and opened a house for orphans, giving them a new home. Many people volunteered to help him, perhaps in some measure because there was a rumour that he performed miracles.
One such account was related by John Paul from Seriate, a child whom Jerome had sheltered in Bergamo. John Paul says:
“I was there only a short time. One morning, we were 28 at St Magdalene Hospital and we were praying. Since we had nothing to eat, father Jerome told us, ‘Do not doubt, my sons, the Lord will take care!’ And while he was still praying, we heard the doorbell ring. They went to open the door. A person wanted to see father Jerome.
“He went to the door and came back with four loaves of bread and repeated that we should not doubt, because the Lord would not abandon us. When the prayer was over, we went downstairs to eat. So, he fed all 28 of us with only those four loaves and fresh water because he did not have anything else. And everybody had enough.
“And the father kept saying we had to eat cheerfully because the Lord would never abandon us.”
Jerome and his companions decided to select a place that would be the heart of their organisation, a peaceful place where they could rest from their constant activity. They chose Somasca, a tiny village between Milan and Bergamo.
It was there, in 1534, that the Company of the Servants of the Poor came into being, dedicated to the care of orphans, the poor and the sick. Jerome entrusted the new congregation to the protection of the Blessed Virgin, the Holy Spirit and the Archangel Raphael.
He established a “Spiritual Congregation,” which brought a large number of men from all over the valley together on Sundays, and he developed a structure for teaching catechism. All of this work was accompanied and supported by long hours of prayer.
Everywhere, Jerome found people who showed interest in his work and who were eager to help. He entrusted to them the various economic and administrative roles, reserving to himself the task of education.
These people made up associations called Companies of the Orphans. Little by little, Jerome’s enterprise came to take the shape of a well-structured organisation. At the heart were the orphans themselves, then the Company of the Servants of the Poor, and finally the members of the Companies of the Orphans.
After Jerome’s death from the plague in 1537, the organisation was approved by Pope Paul III in 1540, and then confirmed by Pope Pius IV in 1563. In 1568 Pope Pius V constituted the community as a religious order, according to the Rule of St Augustine, with solemn vows.
Their official name is the Order of Clerics Regular of Somasca (CRS). In Sydney they have the care of two parishes, St Christopher’s Holsworthy and St Joseph’s, Moorebank.
Among the ministries of the Somascans today are the care of orphans and the poor; the treatment of at-risk youth; the rehabilitation of drug addicts; education; pastoral care and spiritual guidance; the pastoral care of minorities; parish work, foreign missions and youth formation.