Somascan Fathers

In 1496, when Jerome was ten, he tragically lost his father. At twenty-five, Jerome was entrusted the directorship of Castel Nuovo of Quero. Placed on the straits on the Piave River.

He was defeated and imprisoned on August 27, 1511 and lasted one month. Jerome addressed the Blessed Virgin of the Madona Grande’s shrine. “A woman clothed in white” then appeared to him. She handed him the keys to open the chains and the door of the tower. Once he gained his freedom, he had to pass through the hostile army. Moreover, he did not know the way. He again beheld Mary and she led him to the sigh of Treviso’s gates.

In the meantime, a deep spiritual transformation was taking place in Jerome’s soul. It must have been about 1525. Started listening to God’s word. He wept often and at the foot of the Crucified Lord, prayed to him not to be his judge, but his Savior.

Throughout Italy, a very great famine broke out in 1528. Tens and hundreds of people died of starvation. At night, carried the dead bodies abandoned by the city. He fed, clothed and sheltered the poor in his house, comforted the sick.

Many people also joined in association which were called “Companies of the Orphans”. Jerome moved to Somasca and settled there. In Somasca, the Company of the Servants of the Poor which became the Order of the Somascan Fathers. Thus the “Company of the Servants of the Poor” was founded in 1534.

He too contracted the plague. He drew a cross on the opposite wall. Four days later, during the night between February 7 and 8, 1537 he died.

The great concern of Jerome was always the renewal of the Church for which he composed a prayer that the children said daily: “Dear Father, our Lord Jesus Christ, we ask of your infinite mercy to return the Christians to the state of sanctity that showed forth at the time of apostles”.

By the Bulla of June 6, 1540 Pope Paul III approved the newly born institute and gave faculty to elect superiors, to call for a general chapter, to issue the constitutions. In 1565 a prelate of twenty-seven years of age, Charles Borromeo, made a solemn entry to Milan. He entrusted the Somascan the direction of St. Maiolus college in Pavia. A few months later, the young Arch-bishop of Milan made an official visit to the tomb of the Father of the poor, opened the coffin and incensed the relics. It was the first ecclesiastical approval of the sainthood of Jerome Emiliani. In December 6, 1568 the Society was officially named “The Order of the Clerics Regular of Somasca (CRS)” by Pope Pius V, once Jerome’s friend in Pavia.

In the region of Lombardy as well in Venice the example of Jerome Emiliani continued to stir enthusiasm. However, it is only in 1747, under the pontificate of a Somascan alumnus, Pope Benedict XIV, that the ceremony of the beatification took place in the Vatican Basilica. Twenty years later, the 16th of July 1767, Clement XlII proclaimed saint Jerome Emiliani

The 24th of May 1921 by a decree of the Congregation of the Rites, Pope Benedict XV granted the Somascan Order the privilege of venerating the Blessed Mother under the name of “Maria, Mater Orphanorum”, “Mary, Mother of the Orphans”.

On 1928 Pope Pius XI proclaimed solemnly St. Jerome Emiliani “Father of the Orphans and Universal Patron Saint of Needy Youth”.

Following the foot steps of St. Jerome Emiliani his disciples have founded seminaries, houses of education, colleges, professional schools, workshops in Italy, Spain, Poland, Belgium, Romania, Albania, America: USA, Mexico, Guatemala, Honduras, El Salvador, Colombia, Ecuador, Brazil, Santo Domingo; Asia: The Philippines, India, Sri Lanka, Indonesia, Australia; Africa: Mozambique and Nigeria.

Link for further details:
https://somascans.org/

Beginning in Sri Lanka

Our presence in Sri Lanka began with the first Somascans confreres who visited Sri Lanka. They were Fr. Giovanni Tarditi and Fr. Vittorio Veglio who came around 1993. They did preliminary assessment for the possibility ways to start our congregation.

Bro. Joseph Eugene Libut from the Philippines volunteered for the mission. He arrived there on February 8, 1998. He met the Bishop of Kandy, His Lordship Joseph Vianney Fernando. Bishop offered a house in the heart of the city. The house used to be the Catechetical center of the diocese. With the arrival of Fr. Hose Luis (Spanish), Bro. Varghese Parakudigil (Indian), along with Bro. Ugine (Philipino) who was already here; had formed official community on 30/12/1998 with a community chapter.

Within some months of our religious stay in Catechetical center of the Kandy Diocese, Bishop Vianney has assigned a property of the diocese to the Somascans for perpetual use at Dodamwala, George E De. Silva Mawatha where they could start their mission. This is where the present house in Kandy was built. It was built on a solid rock.