A Reflection on the Mass of S. Hieronymi Æmiliani Confessoris
III. classis · 20 July · Commemoratio ad Laudes tantum: S. Margaritæ, Virginis et Martyris
I. Liturgical Context
The traditional Roman calendar sets the feast of St. Jerome Emiliani on the twentieth of July, a feast of the third class, its Mass drawn substantially from the Common of Confessors not Bishops yet crowned with propers that fit the man with unusual precision. To it is joined at Lauds only the commemoration of St. Margaret, virgin and martyr of Antioch in Pisidia, whose veneration passed from the East into the Latin West during the age of the Crusades and there flourished mightily. The confessor and the virgin-martyr stand together this morning: one who gave his life in daily service, one who gave hers in a single hour of blood. The Church, in her wisdom, does not force them into competition. She lets the martyr’s palm and the confessor’s mercy illumine one another.
What is striking about this Mass is the marriage of its two great lessons. The Epistle from Isaiah commands the breaking of bread to the hungry and the taking of the harborless into the house; the Gospel from St. Matthew shows Our Lord receiving the little children and then summoning a rich young man to sell all that he possesses. Read together, they compose a single portrait — and it is the portrait of Jerome Emiliani, the Venetian nobleman and soldier who, ransomed by the Mother of God from a prison of iron, spent the remainder of his life gathering the orphaned children of the plague years into his arms.
II. Epistle (Isaias 58:7-11)
The prophet speaks in the voice of the Lord, describing the fast that God actually desires, over against the empty ritual of those who bow their heads like a bulrush while their hearts remain closed. Frange esurienti panem tuum, et egenos vagosque induc in domum tuam — “Deal thy bread to the hungry, and bring the needy and the harborless into thy house” (Isa 58:7, Douay-Rheims). The fast that pleases God is not the mortification that turns inward upon its own spiritual accounting but the mortification that spends itself outward upon the neighbor.
Then follows the promise, luminous and unconditional: Tunc erumpet quasi mane lumen tuum — “Then shall thy light break forth as the morning” (v. 8). To the one who pours out his soul for the hungry and satisfies the afflicted soul, the Lord pledges that orietur in tenebris lux tua — “thy light shall rise up in darkness” (v. 10). And the passage closes with an image the Fathers loved: eris quasi hortus irriguus, et sicut fons aquarum cujus non deficient aquæ — “thou shalt be like a watered garden, and like a fountain of water whose waters shall not fail” (v. 11).
St. Ambrose, expounding the duty of mercy, taught that what is given to the poor is not a diminishment of the giver but the very medicine of his soul; almsgiving does not empty the purse of grace but fills it, and the mercy shown to the destitute returns upon the merciful as their own healing (cf. De Officiis Ministrorum I). St. John Chrysostom, in his homilies on the poor, presses the point yet harder: the wealthy man is not the owner of his surplus but its steward, and what he withholds from the hungry he has, in the sight of God, already stolen from them (cf. Homiliæ in Lazarum). The Epistle, then, is no gentle suggestion. It is the announcement that the interior life and the works of mercy are one seamless garment, and that the light of the soul rises precisely in the measure that bread is broken.
III. Gospel (Matthew 19:13-21)
The Gospel opens with the children. They are brought to Christ that He might lay hands upon them and pray, and when the disciples rebuke those who bring them, the Lord answers with words the Church has never forgotten: Sinite parvulos, et nolite eos prohibere ad me venire: talium est enim regnum cælorum — “Suffer the little children, and forbid them not to come to me: for the kingdom of heaven is for such” (Matt 19:14). He does not merely tolerate the children; He makes them the very image of the Kingdom. St. Jerome, in his commentary on Matthew, observes that Our Lord blesses the little ones not because childhood is a merit but because it is a condition of humility and innocence, and it is that lowliness — not the years — which the Kingdom requires (cf. Commentarii in Matthæum III).
Then comes the rich young man, and the second movement of the Gospel begins. He has kept the commandments from his youth, and yet he senses a lack. Christ looks upon him and speaks the counsel of perfection: Si vis perfectus esse, vade, vende quæ habes, et da pauperibus, et habebis thesaurum in cælo: et veni, sequere me — “If thou wilt be perfect, go sell what thou hast, and give to the poor, and thou shalt have treasure in heaven: and come, follow me” (Matt 19:21). Here the two halves of the Mass lock together. The child received in the arms of Christ and the wealth surrendered into the hands of the poor are the same mystery seen from two sides: the Kingdom belongs to those who become small, and the way of becoming small is to let go of what the world calls great.
St. Augustine noted that the young man went away sorrowful because he possessed his riches in such a way that his riches possessed him; the tragedy was not that he had much, but that he could not part with it (cf. Sermones). The Gospel does not condemn possessions as such — it exposes the grip they take upon the heart, and it offers the one liberation: to give them to the poor and follow Christ empty-handed.
IV. Synthesis
The two lessons together describe a single movement of the soul, and it is the movement the Thomistic tradition names exitus et reditus — the going-forth from God and the return to Him. The Father pours Himself out in creation; the creature, made in His image, is perfected not by clutching what he has received but by pouring it out in turn, and so returning to the Source. Charity is not one virtue among many but, as St. Thomas teaches, the forma virtutum — the form that shapes and animates every other virtue (cf. Summa Theologiæ II-II, qq. 23-27). The fast of Isaias and the counsel of the Gospel are charity made visible: the light that breaks forth as the morning is nothing other than the soul become transparent to the love it has first received.
Isaias promises that the merciful man shall be quasi hortus irriguus — a watered garden whose spring never fails. The Gospel names the source of that unfailing water: habebis thesaurum in cælo, treasure in heaven. The one who breaks his bread does not run dry, because the fountain he draws from is not his own reservoir but the inexhaustible mercy of God flowing through him. This is why almsgiving, in the mind of the Fathers, is never mere philanthropy. It is participation — the creature made a conduit of the Creator’s own self-gift.
And here Jerome Emiliani stands before us as the lesson made flesh. Ransomed from his chains by the intercession of the Mother of God, he understood that a man set free is set free for something. He did not return to the fortress and the sword. He went into the streets of the plague, gathered the abandoned children whom no one wanted, clothed and fed and catechized them, and founded a company to continue the work when he was gone. He broke his bread to the hungry; he received the little children in the name of Christ; he sold what he had and gave to the poor. The Mass of his feast is, quite simply, the account of his conversion set to the words of Scripture.
V. Devotional Application
The propers of this day press three things upon the soul that would imitate them.
First, they teach that mercy is not the overflow of the spiritual life but its very substance. We are tempted to think of prayer and almsgiving as separate accounts, the one interior and the other external, and to imagine that a rich interior life might excuse a closed hand. Isaias forbids this division. The light of the soul rises in the darkness precisely when the bread is broken; the two are one act. Let the one who would grow in prayer ask first whether his hand is open.
Second, they teach that the little and the unwanted are the privileged place of encounter with Christ. Our Lord did not merely permit the children; He declared the Kingdom theirs. Jerome Emiliani found his Lord not in the fortress but among the orphans of the streets. Wherever there is one who is small, harborless, forgotten, there is a door into the Kingdom standing open.
Third, they teach the sober truth of the rich young man: that possessions, left unexamined, take hold of the heart and turn a good man away sorrowful. The counsel of perfection is not given to all in the same measure, but the detachment it demands is asked of everyone. What is it that we could not bear to part with? That, most likely, is what possesses us.
A concrete resolve suits this feast better than any abstraction. Let the one who keeps it today find some hungry person and feed him, some harborless person and shelter him, or — if that be beyond his means — give what he can to those who do this work in his stead, and give it as one who is returning to God what was never his own.
VI. Collect(s)
Oratio (S. Hieronymi Æmiliani):
Deus, misericordiarum pater, per merita et intercessionem beati Hieronymi, quem orphanorum patrem et adjutorem esse voluisti, concede nobis spiritum adoptionis, quo filii tui nominari et esse mereamur. Per Dominum nostrum Jesum Christum Filium tuum, qui tecum vivit et regnat in unitate Spiritus Sancti Deus, per omnia sæcula sæculorum. Amen.
O God, Father of mercies, by the merits and intercession of blessed Jerome, whom Thou didst will to be the father and helper of orphans, grant unto us the spirit of adoption, whereby we may deserve to be named and to be Thy sons. Through our Lord Jesus Christ Thy Son, who liveth and reigneth with Thee in the unity of the Holy Ghost, God, world without end. Amen.
Commemoratio S. Margaritæ, ad Laudes tantum:
Indulgentiam nobis, quæsumus, Domine, beata Margarita Virgo et Martyr imploret: quæ tibi grata semper exstitit et merito castitatis, et tuæ professione virtutis. Per Dominum nostrum Jesum Christum. Amen.
May the blessed Virgin and Martyr Margaret implore for us Thy pardon, we beseech Thee, O Lord: she who was ever pleasing unto Thee both by the merit of her chastity and by the profession of Thy power. Through our Lord Jesus Christ. Amen.
VII. Aspiration
O Lord, who didst break the chains of Thy servant Jerome that he might spend his freedom upon the least of Thy children, break in me every fetter of the grasping heart. Make my bread the bread of the hungry and my house a harbor for the harborless, that the light Thou hast promised may break forth in me as the morning, and that on the last day I may be found among the little ones for whom the Kingdom is kept. Amen.
VIII. For Further Study
On the theology of mercy and almsgiving:
- St. Ambrose, De Officiis Ministrorum, Book I — the classic Latin treatment of mercy as the medicine of the soul (critical text: CSEL; cf. also the Testard edition).
- St. John Chrysostom, De Lazaro and homilies on wealth and poverty — the steward, not the owner, of surplus goods (Greek text: PG 48; SC for select homilies).
On the Gospel passages:
- St. Jerome, Commentarii in Matthæum, Book III, on 19:13-21 — humility as the condition of the Kingdom (critical edition: CCSL 77; SC 259).
- St. Augustine, Sermones on the rich young man — possession that becomes possession-by (PL 38; critical work in CCSL).
On charity as the form of the virtues:
- St. Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologiæ II-II, qq. 23-27 — caritas forma virtutum, the theological anchor of the synthesis above.
On the saints of the day:
- The vita of St. Jerome Emiliani (companion hagiography, this collection).
- On St. Margaret of Antioch, the notices in the Bollandist Acta Sanctorum under 20 July, with due attention to the legendary character of much of her surviving passio.
Forward links within the collection:
- Caritas forma virtutum — the theology of charity as the form of every virtue (Theology and Doctrine path).
- The Catholic Reform in France and the wider sixteenth-century movement of active charity against the pagan Renaissance (Church History path).
IX. Source Transparency
The liturgical framework — the feast of St. Jerome Emiliani as a third-class feast on 20 July with the commemoration of St. Margaret at Lauds only, Gloria, no Credo, common preface — is confirmed against the 1962 General Roman Calendar and the corresponding Ordo. The pairing of the readings with the saint’s life reflects the proper Mass assigned to his feast.
The patristic citations in this reflection are given as paraphrase-with-locus, not as verified direct quotation: Ambrose (De Officiis I), Chrysostom (De Lazaro / homilies on poverty), Jerome (Comm. in Matthæum III), and Augustine (Sermones) are cited to work and book level and should be collated against the critical editions named (CSEL, CCSL, SC, PG, PL) before any of these formulations is asserted as the Father’s own words. The theological substance is faithful to each author’s known teaching; the wording is the present writer’s.
The Collect of St. Jerome Emiliani and the commemoration of St. Margaret given here are marked NON-AUTHENTICATED and remain the priority pre-publication item: both are to be collated against a physically printed 1962 Missale Romanum before publication. Online proper databases were used for orientation only.
Scripture is quoted from the Douay-Rheims with the Vulgate given inline. The weakest-anchored claim in this entry is the material of St. Margaret’s passio, which belongs to traditio pia rather than to securely attested history and is flagged as such.