The Day Before Thursday

Yes, Thursdays is my goal each week, get to Thursday and hopefully the update will be good. Most times its a huge let down. As most we are on the edge of our seats regarding the status of adoptions in Vietnam. Rumors of deadlines, DNA memo with no clear direction or public notice yet. Families that wish to wait in peace are now waiting with uncertainty and sometimes panic. Financial strain for those that have managed to keep it together so far. What once was a 6-9mth wait is now creeping up to excess of 2years. My sister followed lead of a fellow blogger and posted a St. Joseph photo on a condo she has been desperate to sell. In the last two days she has had some serious inquiries. Lets hope a deal comes together for her. So for this post we will learn about the Catholic Saint that "Keeps Watch" over the orphans. It only seems fitting for the state that we are currently in. So enjoy the following.

St. Jerome Emiliani

(1481?-1537)

A careless and irreligious soldier for the city-state of Venice, Jerome was captured in a skirmish at an outpost town and chained in a dungeon. In prison Jerome had a lot of time to think, and he gradually learned how to pray. When he escaped, he returned to Venice where he took charge of the education of his nephews—and began his own studies for the priesthood.

In the years after his ordination, events again called Jerome to a decision and a new lifestyle. Plague and famine swept northern Italy. Jerome began caring for the sick and feeding the hungry at his own expense. While serving the sick and the poor, he soon resolved to devote himself and his property solely to others, particularly to abandoned children. He founded three orphanages, a shelter for penitent prostitutes and a hospital.

Around 1532 Jerome and two other priests established a congregation dedicated to the care of orphans and the education of youth. Jerome died in 1537 from a disease he caught while tending the sick. He was canonized in 1767. In 1928 Pius Xl named him the patron of orphans and abandoned children.

Comment:

Very often in our lives it seems to take some kind of “imprisonment” to free us from the shackles of our self-centeredness. When we’re “caught” in some situation we don’t want to be in, we finally come to know the liberating power of Another. Only then can we become another for “the imprisoned” and “the orphaned” all around us.

Quote:
“‘The father of orphans and the defender of widows is God in his holy dwelling. God gives a home to the forsaken; he leads forth prisoners to prosperity; only rebels remain in the parched land’ (Psalm 68).... We should not forget the growing number of persons who are often abandoned by their families and by the community: the old, orphans, the sick and all kinds of people who are rejected…. We must be prepared to take on new functions and new duties in every sector of human activity and especially in the sector of world society, if justice is really to be put into practice. Our action is to be directed above all at those men and nations which, because of various forms of oppression and because of the present character of our society, are silent, indeed voiceless, victims of injustice” (Justice in the World, 1971 World Synod of Bishops).