{"ok":true,"date":"2026-07-20","dateKey":"07-20","liturgicalDay":"St. Jerome Emiliani, Confessor","rank":"Double","color":"white","quoteOfTheDay":{"text":"Suffer the little children, and forbid them not to come to me: for the kingdom of heaven is for such.","author":"Our Lord Jesus Christ","source":"Matthew 19:14, Douay-Rheims"},"season":"Time after Pentecost","novenas":[],"octaveContexts":[],"subject":"City of God in Exile: St. Jerome Emiliani, Confessor - 2026-07-20","previewText":"St. Jerome Emiliani, Confessor. Hold the Traditions. Resist innovation that claims continuity while contradicting what was handed down.","plainText":"CITY OF GOD IN EXILE\nSt. Jerome Emiliani, Confessor\n2026-07-20 - Time after Pentecost - Double - white\nPLAIN-LANGUAGE GUIDE FOR TODAY\nCommemoration: a shorter liturgical remembrance of another saint or observance occurring on the same day.\nMartyr: a Christian who was killed rather than deny Christ or abandon the Faith.\nConfessor: in the traditional calendar, a male saint who openly professed the Faith by a holy life but was not killed as a martyr.\nThe full Breviary lessons preserve an older English translation. Read the modern explanation first; it identifies the people, event, and doctrine before the historical wording appears.\nTODAY IN THE ROMAN YEAR\nSt. Jerome Emiliani allowed conversion to become stable responsibility for orphans and abandoned children. His charity fed, clothed, taught, corrected, protected, and prayed; it did not pity suffering from a distance or leave young souls defenseless before ignorance and sin. Ask Our Lady to make Jesus Christ known in you as He ought to be known: believed, adored, obeyed, and loved. Profess faith in Jesus Christ as true God and true man, and ask His Mother to lead you into complete obedience to Him.\n\n\"Jesus Christ is not known as He ought to be.\"\nSt. Louis-Marie de Montfort, True Devotion to the Blessed Virgin, no. 13\n\nSt. Louis de Montfort's grief is not that Our Lady receives too little attention as though she sought a kingdom apart from Christ. He grieves because ignorance of Mary's place accompanies an impoverished knowledge of Jesus. The Son is treated as an idea, a moral teacher, or a source of comfort rather than as the Incarnate King who came through her and demands the whole man.\n\nAsk whether you know Christ only in the truths you prefer. To know Him as He ought to be known is to receive His divinity, His Cross, His Church, His commandments, His sacraments, His judgment, and His mercy without division. Let Mary uncover every partial or comfortable image of Jesus that must give way to the Catholic whole.\n\nPRACTICE\nPray for unprotected children and perform concrete acts that strengthen Catholic formation and responsible care.\n\nQUOTE OF THE DAY\n\"Suffer the little children, and forbid them not to come to me: for the kingdom of heaven is for such.\"\nOur Lord Jesus Christ, Matthew 19:14, Douay-Rheims\n\nROMAN MARTYROLOGY - July 20\nThe festival of St. Jerome JEmiliani, confessor, -- founder of the Congergation of Somascha. Gaining renown for many miracles during his life and after his death, he was inscribed among the beatified by Benedict XIV., and canonized by Clement XIII. — At Antioch, St. Margaret, virgin and martyr. — On Mount Carmel, the holy prophet Eli as. — The same day, the birthday of blessed Joseph, surnamed the Just, whom the Apostles selected with blessed Matthias for the apostleship, in the place of the traitor Judas. The lot having fallen upon Matthias, Joseph, notwithstanding, continued to preach and to advance in virtue, and after having sustained from the Jews many persecutions for the faith of Christ, happily ended his life in Judea. It is related of him that having drunk poison, he received no injury from it, because of his confidence in the Lord. — At Damascus, the holy martyrs Sabinus, Julian, Maximus, Macrobius, Cassia, and Paula, with ten others. — At Cordova, St. Paul, deacon and martyr. For rebuking Mahometan princes for their impiety and cruelty, and preaching Christ courageously, he was put to death, and went to his reward in heaven. — In Portugal, St. Wilgefortes, virgin and martyr, who merited the crown of martyrdom on a cross in defence of the faith and her chastity. — At Boulogne, in France, the abbot St. Wulmar, a man of admirable sanctity. — At Treves, St. Severa, virgin.\n\nHIGHLIGHTED SAINT\nSt. Jerome Emiliani\nConfessor, founder, and father of orphans.\nSt. Jerome Emiliani was a Venetian soldier whose imprisonment became the beginning of deeper conversion. After his deliverance, he gave himself to works of mercy with a special love for orphans and abandoned children.\nHe founded the Congregation of Somascha so that mercy would not remain passing emotion, but become stable Catholic service. His witness is especially tied to fatherly care, catechesis, and protection for children without ordinary guardians.\nLet St. Jerome Emiliani widen the heart toward the unprotected. Charity becomes Catholic when it takes form, bears cost, and guards souls for God.\nFROM MATINS\nFather of orphans and servant of wounded poverty.\nMatins - Second Nocturn - St. Jerome Emiliani, Confessor\nRoman Breviary and St. John Chrysostom\n\"He was an helper and a father to the fatherless.\"\n- The Breviary presents St. Jerome Emiliani as a soldier delivered from prison through Our Lady's mercy, who hung up his chains at her altar and gave himself to works of charity.\n- His charity became practical and fatherly: he gathered orphans, clothed and taught children, served the incurable sick, founded refuges for penitents, instructed laborers in the mysteries of the faith, and nursed the sick during contagion.\n- St. John Chrysostom's Gospel homily places the feast under Our Lord's welcome of little children, teaching humility, simplicity, freedom from resentment, and the danger of seeking honors.\nLet mercy become concrete. St. Jerome Emiliani teaches that love for the poor must feed, teach, cleanse, protect, correct, and pray, while remaining penitential and wholly dependent on Our Lady and Our Lord.\nFULL BREVIARY LESSONS\nFourth Lesson\nThis Jerome was born at Venice, of the Patrician family of the Miani. He was trained up to be a soldier, and in the most troublesome times of the Commonwealth, he commanded the fortress of Castel-nuovo at Quero, in the mountains near Treviso. After the fall of the place, he was chained hand and foot, and cast into a filthy prison.\nWhen all hope of help from man had forsaken him, the most blessed Virgin, in answer to his prayers, mercifully came to him, loosed his fetters, and brought him unhurt within sight of Treviso, through the midst of the enemy, who kept all the roads. As soon as he entered the city of Treviso, as an acknowledgment of the favour he had received, he hung up his chains, which he had brought away with him, at an Altar of the Mother of God, to whom he had vowed himself.\nAfter his return to Venice he gave himself up to godly works. Amid his great tenderness to all the poor, his compassion was chiefly roused by the fatherless little boys who wandered through the city starving and filthy; them he took into an house conducted by himself, where at his own cost he provided them with board, lodging, clothing, and a Christian education.\nFifth Lesson\nIn those days there came to Venice blessed Cajetan of Tiene, and Peter Carafa, who was afterwards Paul IV. They were pleased with the spirit of Jerome, and with his new Asylum for Orphans, and took him to the Hospital for Incurables, as well to bring up Orphans, as to extend his charity equally to the sick. Soon after, by the advice of the same, he went to the mainland, and built orphanages first at Brescia, then at Bergamo and Como.\nHis chief foundations were at Bergamo, where besides an orphanage for little boys, and another for little girls, he opened an house of Refuge for repentant harlots, being the first institution of that kind in that part of the world. In the end he went to dwell at Somascha, a hamlet in the district of Bergamo, close to the frontiers of the Venetian territory, and there made an house for himself and his disciples, and gave shape to a congregation, which is generally called the Congregation of Somascha.\nThis congregation grew and spread, and found its work not only in the education of orphans and the service of Churches, but also in a wider usefulness to the Christian Commonwealth, by training up lads in letters and good manners. Holy Pius V. enrolled it among the religious Orders, and other Popes have given it divers privileges.\nSixth Lesson\nJerome went to Milan and to Ticino to gather orphans together, and in both places he gathered a multitude of little boys for whom the charity of noblemen enabled him to provide board, lodging, clothes, and schooling. He returned to Somascha, and, still making himself all things to all men, refused no toil by which he saw that he could be of any use to his neighbour.\nHe was used to go about in the fields, helping the reapers in their work, and meanwhile teaching them in the mysteries of the faith. He was very patient in cleansing and healing the heads of little boys foul with lice, and proved so successful a physician to the stinking sores of the poor country-people, that he got a reputation for having the gift of healing.\nHe found a cave in the mountain which hangs over Somascha, and there he would hide himself, passing whole days without meat or drink, and oftentimes scourging himself, continuing in prayer long into the night, and taking his short sleep upon the bare rock, in expiation of his own sins and the sins of others.\nIn the far end of this cave, there drippeth out of the dry stone some water, which is said by an unwavering tradition to have come there at the prayers of the man of God. It droppeth freely even to this day, and is taken to divers places at a distance, where it often hath an healing effect upon the sick.\nAt length an infectious disorder broke out in all the valley, and Jerome, who nursed the sick and carried the dead to burial on his own shoulders, caught it, and died a precious death, as he had himself foretold, in the fifty-seventh year of his age, and that of salvation 1537. He was famous for many miracles, both during his life and after his death; Benedict X. solemnly enrolled his name among those of the Blessed, and Clement XIII. inserted it in the Kalendar of the Saints.\nSeventh Lesson, St. John Chrysostom on Matthew 19\nWherefore did the disciples rebuke them that brought them? From an idea of His dignity. What therefore did He? To teach them to be lowly, and to be above the niceness of the world, He took the little children, and embraced them in His Arms, and declared that of such is the kingdom of heaven, as also He had said above.\nAnd we also, if we would fain be heirs of the kingdom of heaven, let us seek with great earnestness this virtue. For this is the highest peak of philosophy, to be simple and wise: this is the life of an Angel. The mind of a little child is free from all the diseases of the mind: a little child keepeth no remembrance of injuries, but goeth unto such as have inflicted them, as if unto friends, and as if nothing had happened. Although his mother give him stripes, yet a little child ever seeketh her, and putteth her before all.\nEighth Lesson\nIf thou wert to show him a Queen adorned with her crown, he would not prefer her before his own mother, in raiment how faded soever, and he would rather see her, albeit unkempt, than the Queen in all her glorious apparel. For his use is to account of things whether they be his own, or of others, not by the standard of poverty and riches, but by that of love only.\nHe seeketh no more than he needeth. When he is satisfied with milk, he leaveth the pap. The things that press upon us, such as the loss of money, and the like, do not press upon him, nor do the same transitory things that please us, please him, neither doth he gaze with admiration at loveliness of shape. Therefore Christ said: \"Of such is the kingdom of heaven,\" to make us do by force of will what little children do by nature.\nNinth Lesson\nThe Pharisees' usual springs of action were spite and vanity; therefore doth the Lord everywhere command His disciples to be simple, and in teaching the one, pointeth silently at the other class. Nothing breedeth pride so much as princedom and precedence.\nSince, then, His disciples were to receive much honour throughout all the world, He warneth their minds beforehand, and letteth them not stumble into the snare of men, nor go seeking for honours from the mob, nor put themselves forward before others. It is true, these may seem little things, but they give occasion for very great evils.\nIt was when they were placed in these positions, that the Pharisees fell into their direst misfortunes: from looking for salutations, and foremost or good places, they got into a keen desire of distinction, and from that into ungodliness.\nTHE PILGRIM'S SPIRITUAL CONFERENCE\nHold the Traditions\nThe Church places this truth before you today: Apostolic tradition is not nostalgia. It is the handing down of what the Church received from Christ and the Apostles. Do not hurry past it as though doctrine belonged only to books and controversies. A revealed truth is also a light by which the soul must judge its loyalties, its fears, its habits, and the duties immediately before it. Tradition protects the faithful from the tyranny of the present moment and from teachers who mistake novelty for life.\nThe grace to be practiced is Protective mercy, drawn from today's saintly witness. Ask God for more than the natural appearance of this virtue. Temperament may make an action seem easy for a time, but supernatural virtue remains faithful because God is worthy of obedience, even when feeling offers no assistance and no one notices the cost. Practice integrity of faith: receive Christ whole rather than selecting only what consoles or agrees with the age.\nThere is also an enemy to recognize: Resist innovation that claims continuity while contradicting what was handed down. Do not study this danger only in other people. Look quietly for the door by which it seeks entrance into your own soul - perhaps through delay, curiosity, resentment, human respect, attachment to comfort, or the desire to control the outcome. Dying to self today means choosing protective mercy when pride, comfort, fear, resentment, or human respect asks for control.\nDo the faithful act and entrust its fruit to divine Providence, God's wise and loving governance of all things. Place effort and outcome into Our Lady's hands so that the whole offering may be presented to her Divine Son. Confidence in God is not passivity: obey, pray, work, and accept that visible success, consolation, or immediate relief may not be given. God remains faithful when the duty is hidden and the outcome uncertain. Therefore, perform the duty that belongs to you, use the lawful means God has provided, and then surrender the fruit. Accept the cost of belonging to the real Christ when the world offers a gentler counterfeit. Obey Christ's commandments today, beginning where feeling or human respect has encouraged delay.\nThe Church's witness: this truth manifests the Church's mark of apostolic; the witness placed beside it is St. Paul.\nYour resolution before God: Pray for unprotected children and perform concrete acts that strengthen Catholic formation and responsible care.\nCarry this word: Catholic mercy takes responsibility for both the body and the soul of the vulnerable.\nTHE PILGRIM'S MIRROR\n\"Then shall a good clean conscience make us more gladsome and merry than the cunning of all philosophy.\"\nThomas à Kempis, The Imitation of Christ, Book I, chapter 24, p. 44\nAt judgment, appearances will fall away and the soul will stand in truth before God. Learning, reputation, and skill have their proper uses, but none can replace a conscience purified by repentance and kept faithful through obedience.\n\nDo not seek peace by avoiding examination. Ask the Holy Ghost to show you every matter that remains unsettled: sins requiring confession, injuries requiring forgiveness, restitution that can be made, or duties repeatedly postponed. A clean conscience is not sinlessness claimed by pride; it is the peace of a soul that refuses concealment and returns to grace.\nToday's Practice: Settle every matter of conscience that can rightly be settled today, and prepare definitely to bring the rest to Confession.\nDAILY EXAMEN\nExamine where you sought Christ's comfort while resisting His kingship, and ask pardon through the Sorrowful Mother.\n- For what grace or mercy should I thank God today?\n- What sin, fault, neglected duty, or resistance to grace must I confess?\n- What definite amendment will I carry into tomorrow?\nPRAYER\nO God, through St. Jerome Emiliani, give me fatherly charity toward abandoned children and courage to protect souls entrusted to me.\nDAILY RULE FOR THE PILGRIM\nA brief rule to keep every day:\nBegin with morning prayer\nAdore the Blessed Trinity and offer the whole day to Jesus through Mary before other duties claim the mind.\nKeep the Angelus\nPause morning, noon, and evening to remember the Incarnation.\nSeek Our Lord in the Blessed Sacrament\nAttend Holy Mass when duty permits; otherwise make a Spiritual Communion and renew desire for Jesus in the Blessed Sacrament.\nReturn to Jesus and Mary\nUse frequent holy aspirations during work, waiting, suffering, and temptation.\nPray the Rosary\nKeep the mysteries of Christ before the mind with Our Lady and learn to imitate what they contain.\nEnd with night prayer and examen\nGive thanks, confess faults, forgive injuries, make a practical amendment, and entrust the night to Our Lady.\nCONTINUE STUDY\nHold the Traditions and Refuse the Innovators: https://cityofgodinexile.com/scripture-treasury/2-thessalonians-2-14-15-hold-the-traditions-and-refuse-the-innovators?entered=1\nOpen this day in the Sacred Calendar: https://cityofgodinexile.com/sacred-calendar?date=2026-07-20&entered=1\nOpen this day's Daily Pilgrimage: https://cityofgodinexile.com/daily-dispatch?date=2026-07-20&entered=1\nBrowse the Formation Index: https://cityofgodinexile.com/daily-dispatch/formation?entered=1","html":"\n\n \n \n \n City of God in Exile: St. Jerome Emiliani, Confessor - 2026-07-20\n \n \n
\n St. Jerome Emiliani, Confessor. Hold the Traditions. Resist innovation that claims continuity while contradicting what was handed down.\n
\n \n \n \n \n
\n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n
\n \"City\n
\n

City of God in Exile

\n

St. Jerome Emiliani, Confessor

\n

2026-07-20 - Time after Pentecost - Double - white

\n
\n
\n
“Walk whilst you have the light, that the darkness overtake you not.”
John 12:35
\n \n
\n

Plain-Language Guide for Today

\n
\n
Commemoration
\n
a shorter liturgical remembrance of another saint or observance occurring on the same day.
\n
Martyr
\n
a Christian who was killed rather than deny Christ or abandon the Faith.
\n
Confessor
\n
in the traditional calendar, a male saint who openly professed the Faith by a holy life but was not killed as a martyr.

The full Breviary lessons preserve an older English translation. Read the modern explanation first; it identifies the people, event, and doctrine before the historical wording appears.

\n
\n \n
\n

Today in the Roman Year

\n

St. Jerome Emiliani allowed conversion to become stable responsibility for orphans and abandoned children. His charity fed, clothed, taught, corrected, protected, and prayed; it did not pity suffering from a distance or leave young souls defenseless before ignorance and sin.

Ask Our Lady to make Jesus Christ known in you as He ought to be known: believed, adored, obeyed, and loved.

Profess faith in Jesus Christ as true God and true man, and ask His Mother to lead you into complete obedience to Him.

“Jesus Christ is not known as He ought to be.”

St. Louis-Marie de Montfort, True Devotion to the Blessed Virgin, no. 13

St. Louis de Montfort's grief is not that Our Lady receives too little attention as though she sought a kingdom apart from Christ. He grieves because ignorance of Mary's place accompanies an impoverished knowledge of Jesus. The Son is treated as an idea, a moral teacher, or a source of comfort rather than as the Incarnate King who came through her and demands the whole man.

Ask whether you know Christ only in the truths you prefer. To know Him as He ought to be known is to receive His divinity, His Cross, His Church, His commandments, His sacraments, His judgment, and His mercy without division. Let Mary uncover every partial or comfortable image of Jesus that must give way to the Catholic whole.

Pray for unprotected children and perform concrete acts that strengthen Catholic formation and responsible care.

\n
\n \n \n
\n

Quote of the Day

\n
“Suffer the little children, and forbid them not to come to me: for the kingdom of heaven is for such.”
\n

Our Lord Jesus Christ, Matthew 19:14, Douay-Rheims

\n
\n \n \n
\n

Roman Martyrology - July 20

\n

The festival of St. Jerome JEmiliani, confessor, -- founder of the Congergation of Somascha. Gaining renown for many miracles during his life and after his death, he was inscribed among the beatified by Benedict XIV., and canonized by Clement XIII. — At Antioch, St. Margaret, virgin and martyr. — On Mount Carmel, the holy prophet Eli as. — The same day, the birthday of blessed Joseph, surnamed the Just, whom the Apostles selected with blessed Matthias for the apostleship, in the place of the traitor Judas. The lot having fallen upon Matthias, Joseph, notwithstanding, continued to preach and to advance in virtue, and after having sustained from the Jews many persecutions for the faith of Christ, happily ended his life in Judea. It is related of him that having drunk poison, he received no injury from it, because of his confidence in the Lord. — At Damascus, the holy martyrs Sabinus, Julian, Maximus, Macrobius, Cassia, and Paula, with ten others. — At Cordova, St. Paul, deacon and martyr. For rebuking Mahometan princes for their impiety and cruelty, and preaching Christ courageously, he was put to death, and went to his reward in heaven. — In Portugal, St. Wilgefortes, virgin and martyr, who merited the crown of martyrdom on a cross in defence of the faith and her chastity. — At Boulogne, in France, the abbot St. Wulmar, a man of admirable sanctity. — At Treves, St. Severa, virgin.

\n
\n \n \n \n
\n

Highlighted Saint

\n

St. Jerome Emiliani

\n

Confessor, founder, and father of orphans.

\n

St. Jerome Emiliani was a Venetian soldier whose imprisonment became the beginning of deeper conversion. After his deliverance, he gave himself to works of mercy with a special love for orphans and abandoned children.

He founded the Congregation of Somascha so that mercy would not remain passing emotion, but become stable Catholic service. His witness is especially tied to fatherly care, catechesis, and protection for children without ordinary guardians.

\n

Let St. Jerome Emiliani widen the heart toward the unprotected. Charity becomes Catholic when it takes form, bears cost, and guards souls for God.

\n
\n \n \n \n
\n

From Matins

\n

Father of orphans and servant of wounded poverty.

\n

Matins - Second Nocturn - St. Jerome Emiliani, Confessor

\n

Roman Breviary and St. John Chrysostom, Proper lessons for St. Jerome Emiliani and Homily on St. Matthew

\n
“He was an helper and a father to the fatherless.”
\n \n
    \n
  • The Breviary presents St. Jerome Emiliani as a soldier delivered from prison through Our Lady's mercy, who hung up his chains at her altar and gave himself to works of charity.
  • His charity became practical and fatherly: he gathered orphans, clothed and taught children, served the incurable sick, founded refuges for penitents, instructed laborers in the mysteries of the faith, and nursed the sick during contagion.
  • St. John Chrysostom's Gospel homily places the feast under Our Lord's welcome of little children, teaching humility, simplicity, freedom from resentment, and the danger of seeking honors.
    • \n
\n

Let mercy become concrete. St. Jerome Emiliani teaches that love for the poor must feed, teach, cleanse, protect, correct, and pray, while remaining penitential and wholly dependent on Our Lady and Our Lord.

\n \n
\n

Full Breviary Lessons

\n \n

Fourth Lesson

\n

This Jerome was born at Venice, of the Patrician family of the Miani. He was trained up to be a soldier, and in the most troublesome times of the Commonwealth, he commanded the fortress of Castel-nuovo at Quero, in the mountains near Treviso. After the fall of the place, he was chained hand and foot, and cast into a filthy prison.

When all hope of help from man had forsaken him, the most blessed Virgin, in answer to his prayers, mercifully came to him, loosed his fetters, and brought him unhurt within sight of Treviso, through the midst of the enemy, who kept all the roads. As soon as he entered the city of Treviso, as an acknowledgment of the favour he had received, he hung up his chains, which he had brought away with him, at an Altar of the Mother of God, to whom he had vowed himself.

After his return to Venice he gave himself up to godly works. Amid his great tenderness to all the poor, his compassion was chiefly roused by the fatherless little boys who wandered through the city starving and filthy; them he took into an house conducted by himself, where at his own cost he provided them with board, lodging, clothing, and a Christian education.

\n \n

Fifth Lesson

\n

In those days there came to Venice blessed Cajetan of Tiene, and Peter Carafa, who was afterwards Paul IV. They were pleased with the spirit of Jerome, and with his new Asylum for Orphans, and took him to the Hospital for Incurables, as well to bring up Orphans, as to extend his charity equally to the sick. Soon after, by the advice of the same, he went to the mainland, and built orphanages first at Brescia, then at Bergamo and Como.

His chief foundations were at Bergamo, where besides an orphanage for little boys, and another for little girls, he opened an house of Refuge for repentant harlots, being the first institution of that kind in that part of the world. In the end he went to dwell at Somascha, a hamlet in the district of Bergamo, close to the frontiers of the Venetian territory, and there made an house for himself and his disciples, and gave shape to a congregation, which is generally called the Congregation of Somascha.

This congregation grew and spread, and found its work not only in the education of orphans and the service of Churches, but also in a wider usefulness to the Christian Commonwealth, by training up lads in letters and good manners. Holy Pius V. enrolled it among the religious Orders, and other Popes have given it divers privileges.

\n \n

Sixth Lesson

\n

Jerome went to Milan and to Ticino to gather orphans together, and in both places he gathered a multitude of little boys for whom the charity of noblemen enabled him to provide board, lodging, clothes, and schooling. He returned to Somascha, and, still making himself all things to all men, refused no toil by which he saw that he could be of any use to his neighbour.

He was used to go about in the fields, helping the reapers in their work, and meanwhile teaching them in the mysteries of the faith. He was very patient in cleansing and healing the heads of little boys foul with lice, and proved so successful a physician to the stinking sores of the poor country-people, that he got a reputation for having the gift of healing.

He found a cave in the mountain which hangs over Somascha, and there he would hide himself, passing whole days without meat or drink, and oftentimes scourging himself, continuing in prayer long into the night, and taking his short sleep upon the bare rock, in expiation of his own sins and the sins of others.

In the far end of this cave, there drippeth out of the dry stone some water, which is said by an unwavering tradition to have come there at the prayers of the man of God. It droppeth freely even to this day, and is taken to divers places at a distance, where it often hath an healing effect upon the sick.

At length an infectious disorder broke out in all the valley, and Jerome, who nursed the sick and carried the dead to burial on his own shoulders, caught it, and died a precious death, as he had himself foretold, in the fifty-seventh year of his age, and that of salvation 1537. He was famous for many miracles, both during his life and after his death; Benedict X. solemnly enrolled his name among those of the Blessed, and Clement XIII. inserted it in the Kalendar of the Saints.

\n \n

Seventh Lesson, St. John Chrysostom on Matthew 19

\n

Wherefore did the disciples rebuke them that brought them? From an idea of His dignity. What therefore did He? To teach them to be lowly, and to be above the niceness of the world, He took the little children, and embraced them in His Arms, and declared that of such is the kingdom of heaven, as also He had said above.

And we also, if we would fain be heirs of the kingdom of heaven, let us seek with great earnestness this virtue. For this is the highest peak of philosophy, to be simple and wise: this is the life of an Angel. The mind of a little child is free from all the diseases of the mind: a little child keepeth no remembrance of injuries, but goeth unto such as have inflicted them, as if unto friends, and as if nothing had happened. Although his mother give him stripes, yet a little child ever seeketh her, and putteth her before all.

\n \n

Eighth Lesson

\n

If thou wert to show him a Queen adorned with her crown, he would not prefer her before his own mother, in raiment how faded soever, and he would rather see her, albeit unkempt, than the Queen in all her glorious apparel. For his use is to account of things whether they be his own, or of others, not by the standard of poverty and riches, but by that of love only.

He seeketh no more than he needeth. When he is satisfied with milk, he leaveth the pap. The things that press upon us, such as the loss of money, and the like, do not press upon him, nor do the same transitory things that please us, please him, neither doth he gaze with admiration at loveliness of shape. Therefore Christ said: "Of such is the kingdom of heaven," to make us do by force of will what little children do by nature.

\n \n

Ninth Lesson

\n

The Pharisees' usual springs of action were spite and vanity; therefore doth the Lord everywhere command His disciples to be simple, and in teaching the one, pointeth silently at the other class. Nothing breedeth pride so much as princedom and precedence.

Since, then, His disciples were to receive much honour throughout all the world, He warneth their minds beforehand, and letteth them not stumble into the snare of men, nor go seeking for honours from the mob, nor put themselves forward before others. It is true, these may seem little things, but they give occasion for very great evils.

It was when they were placed in these positions, that the Pharisees fell into their direst misfortunes: from looking for salutations, and foremost or good places, they got into a keen desire of distinction, and from that into ungodliness.

\n \n
\n
\n \n
\n

The Pilgrim's Spiritual Conference

\n

Hold the Traditions

\n

The Church places this truth before you today: Apostolic tradition is not nostalgia. It is the handing down of what the Church received from Christ and the Apostles. Do not hurry past it as though doctrine belonged only to books and controversies. A revealed truth is also a light by which the soul must judge its loyalties, its fears, its habits, and the duties immediately before it. Tradition protects the faithful from the tyranny of the present moment and from teachers who mistake novelty for life.

The grace to be practiced is Protective mercy, drawn from today's saintly witness. Ask God for more than the natural appearance of this virtue. Temperament may make an action seem easy for a time, but supernatural virtue remains faithful because God is worthy of obedience, even when feeling offers no assistance and no one notices the cost. Practice integrity of faith: receive Christ whole rather than selecting only what consoles or agrees with the age.

There is also an enemy to recognize: Resist innovation that claims continuity while contradicting what was handed down. Do not study this danger only in other people. Look quietly for the door by which it seeks entrance into your own soul - perhaps through delay, curiosity, resentment, human respect, attachment to comfort, or the desire to control the outcome. Dying to self today means choosing protective mercy when pride, comfort, fear, resentment, or human respect asks for control.

Do the faithful act and entrust its fruit to divine Providence, God's wise and loving governance of all things. Place effort and outcome into Our Lady's hands so that the whole offering may be presented to her Divine Son. Confidence in God is not passivity: obey, pray, work, and accept that visible success, consolation, or immediate relief may not be given. God remains faithful when the duty is hidden and the outcome uncertain. Therefore, perform the duty that belongs to you, use the lawful means God has provided, and then surrender the fruit. Accept the cost of belonging to the real Christ when the world offers a gentler counterfeit. Obey Christ's commandments today, beginning where feeling or human respect has encouraged delay.

\n

The Church's witness: this truth manifests the Church's mark of apostolic; the witness placed beside it is St. Paul.

\n

Your Resolution Before God

\n

Pray for unprotected children and perform concrete acts that strengthen Catholic formation and responsible care.

\n
Catholic mercy takes responsibility for both the body and the soul of the vulnerable.
\n
\n \n
\n

The Pilgrim's Mirror

\n

How shall I imitate Christ today?

\n
“Then shall a good clean conscience make us more gladsome and merry than the cunning of all philosophy.”
\n

Thomas à Kempis, The Imitation of Christ, Book I, chapter 24, p. 44

\n \n

At judgment, appearances will fall away and the soul will stand in truth before God. Learning, reputation, and skill have their proper uses, but none can replace a conscience purified by repentance and kept faithful through obedience.

Do not seek peace by avoiding examination. Ask the Holy Ghost to show you every matter that remains unsettled: sins requiring confession, injuries requiring forgiveness, restitution that can be made, or duties repeatedly postponed. A clean conscience is not sinlessness claimed by pride; it is the peace of a soul that refuses concealment and returns to grace.

\n

Today's Practice

\n

Settle every matter of conscience that can rightly be settled today, and prepare definitely to bring the rest to Confession.

\n
\n \n
\n

Daily Examen

\n

Three questions before night prayer

\n

Examine where you sought Christ's comfort while resisting His kingship, and ask pardon through the Sorrowful Mother.

\n \n
    \n
  • For what grace or mercy should I thank God today?
  • What sin, fault, neglected duty, or resistance to grace must I confess?
  • What definite amendment will I carry into tomorrow?
    • \n
\n
\n \n
\n

Prayer

\n

O God, through St. Jerome Emiliani, give me fatherly charity toward abandoned children and courage to protect souls entrusted to me.

\n
\n \n
\n

Daily Rule for the Pilgrim

\n

A brief rule to keep every day:

\n

Begin with morning prayer

Adore the Blessed Trinity and offer the whole day to Jesus through Mary before other duties claim the mind.

Keep the Angelus

Pause morning, noon, and evening to remember the Incarnation.

Seek Our Lord in the Blessed Sacrament

Attend Holy Mass when duty permits; otherwise make a Spiritual Communion and renew desire for Jesus in the Blessed Sacrament.

Return to Jesus and Mary

Use frequent holy aspirations during work, waiting, suffering, and temptation.

Pray the Rosary

Keep the mysteries of Christ before the mind with Our Lady and learn to imitate what they contain.

End with night prayer and examen

Give thanks, confess faults, forgive injuries, make a practical amendment, and entrust the night to Our Lady.

\n
\n
\n
\n

Continue Study

\n

Carry today's lesson into a focused chapter from the library.

\n Hold the Traditions and Refuse the Innovators\n
\n \n
\n
\n
\n \n
\n

Persevere, pilgrim.

\n

The gates remain open to the faithful.

\n
\n \"The\n
\n
\n \n","links":{"sacredCalendar":"/sacred-calendar?date=2026-07-20","webPreview":"/daily-dispatch?date=2026-07-20","emailPreview":"/daily-dispatch/email?date=2026-07-20","formationIndex":"/daily-dispatch/formation","subscribe":"/daily-dispatch/subscribe"},"included":{"martyrology":true,"gospelReflection":false,"saintlyWitness":true,"breviaryReading":true,"patristicBreviaryLesson":true,"faithPoint":"Hold the Traditions"}}