Novena of Saint Jerome
By Fr. Giuseppe Oddone.
Translated by Fr. Remo Zanatta and Fr.Julian Gerosa
- Our Prayer
The text can be found in the “Book of Proposals” (Manuscript 30 – Somasca’s Archives) at the beginning of the second part. It is the transcription of a prayer, before the “proposals” presented at the Chapter of Merate, on the day of St. Bartholomew of August 1538. It is a prayer St. Jerome wanted to be said twice a day, morning and evening, guided by the fathers in the orphanages and then in the seminaries. It was recited for a couple of centuries; today, only the first part is prayed. It has been published, with photographic reproduction, in “Fonti per la Storia dei Somaschi,” 4, 1978, Roma, Curia Generalizia dei Padri Somaschi.
Analysis of the Prayer
The sign of the Cross
Our Prayer starts with the sign of the cross, an invocation to the Trinity. Everything is placed under the divine Name. Words and gesture remind us of the main mysteries of our faith, the unity and trinity of God, and the mystery of Incarnation.
The sign of the cross for St. Jerome and his children is a synthesis of Christian faith: it the banner under which we have to serve with living faith, certain hope, and ardent charity; the cross is our shield against the flesh, the world and the devil; it our forma mentis with which we look at the reality of life, it is even the mold in which we have to be cast in order to carry the cross with Jesus, to die with Him, and to rise and live eternally with Him; the cross is our joy.
Our Father
The prayer of the Our Father follows.
It is a heavenly prayer for the instruction of the Christian faith, for the catechism of St. Jerome. It transports us into the ardent charity of Paradise, that we have in a way to build and anticipate here on earth. Here one of three paraphrases
We find in the Catechism attributed to St. Jerome, with all the due distinctions:
“O most holy our Father, our creator, redeemer, savior, and consoler, who are in the heavens, the angels and the saints, enlightening them with the knowledge of You. And because, Lord, you are the light that inflames to your love; because you, O Lord, love, in which you live and with which you fill them with beatitude; because you, O Lord, are the supreme good, from which comes every good and without which there is no good, be your name sanctified.
Be manifested in us your news, so that we may know the width of your benefits, the length of your promises, the height of your majesty and the depth of your judgments.
Your kingdom come so that you may reign in us because of your grace and it makes us come to your reign, where your vision is manifested, the delight of you perfect, the association with you blessed and the fruition of you eternal.
Your will be done in heaven as in earth so that we may love you with all our heart by thinking always about you, with all our soul by always desiring you, with all our mind by straitening in you all our intentions and looking for your honor in everything and, with all our strength, by exerting all our strength and senses of the soul and body in serving your love and nothing else. And we may love our neighbor as ourselves, and work for drive them to the love of you, by rejoicing of the goods of others as of ours, by being compassionate of their evil and by not giving offenses to anybody.”
This is the paraphrase of the first part of the Our father, It follows the second part where love builds the new community here on earth, trough the gift of Jesus who is our daily bread, the beloved Son of yours our Lord, bread we share with others through forgiveness. Make us be able to forgive what we cannot, so that for your love truly we may love our enemies and intercede for them before you, by never returning evil for evil and by trying to be helpful to everyone for your love.
Truly a prayer that leads us to paradise, in the contemplation of God’s mystery: we can feel in the paraphrase of this prayer the anointing, the presence of the Spirit.
Hail Mary
The other prayer is the one of the e Hail Mary, the prayer of joy: in the catechism the children are invited to say three Hail Marys in the morning, three time at midday, three times in the evening. And they ask what they have to think in reciting this prayer? In the morning: rejoice, Mary, for the grace of humility, because of which God the Father could send his Son, rejoice Mary for the grace of virginity and chastity, for the Word could become flesh in you, rejoice Mary for the grace of charity, because the Holy Spirit descended in you and covered you with His shadow. At midday: rejoice Mary because you are without sin, immaculate, rejoice Mary because you conceived Jesus and carried him inside you, rejoice Mary because you gave us Jesus who is born from you. In the evening: rejoice Mary because Jesus is risen, rejoice Mary because Jesus ascended to heaven, rejoice Mary for the glory of assumption, in which you have become our Lady and advocate.
Look how the Hail Mary is the prayer of joy. Here the paraphrase of this prayer: Hail Mary, and we are happy of your eternal glory and we wish you any good and any crown (there is the desire to increase the glory of Mary on this earth) and continually we desire that this glory may persevere forever, as doubtless it will persevere. And we rejoice for you are the object of the grace of God and we desire that this increase your status in greater glory, if it possible (it is the prayer for increasing the “accidental joys,” the worship and devotion to Mary on this earth), O Mary, queen lady and light of the universe, spouse of the eternal Father, star and haven of the troubled. You were full of faith, hope, charity, justice, fortitude, temperance, and prudence, and of every perfection of grace and, now, of glory in great triumph.
It an explosion of joy the prayer of the Hail Mary: it is the Christian joy of redemption. And here the conclusive part: O most holy Mary, the purest, whitest, immaculate and confirmed in grace and the contemplation of the highest and utmost Trinity, daughter and spouse of the Father, mother of the Son, tabernacle and temple of the Holy Spirit, pray for us, miserable sinners, so that we may be ashamed and feel not worthy to come before the throne of God’s majesty because of the multitude and frequency of our sins, in the present time of our much frail life and the hour of our feared death. And thus we humbly pray that this be done. The stress is mainly on joy of salvation and the Rosary should be the prayer of Christian joy.
Creed – Salve Regina
The Creed is the prayer of the Church and for the Church, remembering our baptismal faith. Our Catechism has three paraphrases on the Creed: the central part is an impassionate meditation on the passion and cross of Christ.
At last, the Salve Regina. In our Catechism there is no paraphrase on the Salve Regina. However, we know that our Fr. Barili, first companion of St. Jerome, had among his works a commentary on the hail Mary and Salve Regina. It is a Marian prayer much loved by St. Jerome who recited it with his children before the night rest.
Beginning of Our Prayer
After these initial prayers, Our Prayer starts. It is divided in numerous (15) clauses, usually spaced out by Hail Mary or Our Father and Hail Mary.
Sweet: the adjective recalls some texts of the Imitation of Christ and is connected to tasting Jesus in the mystery of the Eucharist (Book IV, 2,2): “O sweet and benign Jesus…”; Book IV, 11,1: “O sweet Jesus, how much sweetness for the devoted soul…” The Christian who nourishes himself with the Eucharist perceives its sweetness and gentleness. St. Jerome would pray: O sweet Jesus, do not be my judge but my savior. In the Book of Proposals, it is established that during the 40 hours, a little procession take place and then sing, as soon as the Eucharist is placed on the altar, the song of the Sweet Jesus (Fonti, 4, pag 36).
Our Father Lord Jesus Christ, not in the Trinitarian sense, ad intra, but ad extra, as a characteristic of all the divine persons; in fact, in the Our father Jerome says: O God. Our Father creator, redeemer, savior, sanctifier, because God’s fatherhood is shown in the creation as well as in the redemption of Jesus, and in the sanctification of the Spirit: it is a fatherhood not ad intra, but ad extra, in human sense, referred to Jesus as a figure of reference and protection of the orphans, who gives sense of trust and abandon. It is scriptural term that recalls Isiah’s prophecy on the Immanuel: a child is born for us… he will be called father forever, prince of peace… It is the Immanuel, the God with us (Is 9:5). Christ is perceived as the faithful image of the Father among men. Our: of us, little ones, gathered in a community of faith and love. We have to imagine Jerome surrounded by his little orphans and by the Servants of the Poor. Jerome’s dream was to found evangelical communities in order to reform the Church inside hospitals and different charitable structures.
We pray to you
What is prayer? Here how it is defined in St. Jerome’s catechism: “It is the elevation of our mind in God and a question to remove evil and obtain the goods necessary to health, accompanied by faith, hope, and charity; and it must be continuous by desire, if we cannot continue with our voice: and in it, we must speak to God more with the heart than with voice.”
For your infinite goodness
Christ is the infinite goodness of the Father communicated to us by the Spirit.
Of reforming…: here is the greatest thirst of Jerome. It reappears the myth of the origins (renaissance) and of the apostolic Church. The goal is the holiness of the Church, always to be realized. It is the holiness of the early Church, the Church of Resurrection and Pentecost, realized today in our time and in our life. This is the holiness wanted by God… For St. Paul the spiritual goods are communicated to the world and new Churches by the mother Church, the Church of the Saints, the Church of the Apostles of Jerusalem. The biblical texts of reference are the Acts of the Apostles, kin particular Ac 2:42-48 and 2Cor (Chapter 8-9) where Paul invites the Christians of Corinth to be generous with the Church of Jerusalem, that is poor, in order to reward the abundance of spiritual graces received from it.
Listen to us, O Lord, because benign is your mercy… it is from Ps 68:17, the Psalm of Jesus’ passion, with the variant ‘we’ instead of ‘me’. The benign mercy of the Father, his immense tenderness that is manifested in Jesus, permeate all the saving words and gestures.
Lord, Jesus Christ, Son of the living God, have mercy on us (three times)
Lord, Jesus Christ comes from the Pauline letters, from the New Testament, from the liturgy of the Church. The words Son of the living God especially recall Peter’s faith in Mt 16:16-18, but express besides Peter’s faith the one of the 12, of the Church of any time; have mercy: mercy is a gift from the Father and the Son (spirit of mercy) that is given us so that we may share it with others. The invocation of Jesus’ name is the heart of the oriental monastic reformation. Jesus is present in this name. This same invocation is the soul of the Story of a Russian pilgrim who associates this prayer to the breath and heartbeat till the point of becoming of the same nature of the Holy Name. Let us not forget also what the Catechism says on the name of Jesus: we have to carry this name always sculpted in our heart, sealed in our mind, portrayed in our memory, depicted in our soul.
The way of peace is the messianic way of the Benedictus, is the paschal way that recalls the Exodus and Easter; it is also the way of charity (they are the meetings of our existence; how many anonymous faces, how many little ones. Sick, loved by Jerome in his continuous journey of apostolate in Venice, Lombardy, in the countryside, in shelters…); it is also way of prosperity spiritual and material of the poor guided by the power of the father, the source, by the wisdom of the Son, the Logos, by the strength of the Holy Spirit, the protagonist of the holiness of the Church, and by the glorious Virgin Mary: glorious because invested by the divine glory of the Spirit that shines, even in a visible way, in the Church. Then the angel Raphael who leads Tobias, little and exiled, reminds us that God’s intervention is always actual and God protects with his angels our journey. No doubt it is a book of the Bible dear to Jerome. He felt he was the angel for his children and he would invite them the Guardian Angels so that they may protect them in their journey. O good Jesus, repeated three times, is invoked as the only love and the only God… There are allusions to the Ps 17:2.3 and to the episode of Thomas who recognizes the Risen one with the invocation, “My Lord and my God.” I trust in you: trust in Jesus is the thematic word of his prayer and letters. That I not be confused is taken from Ps 25:2, psalm of hope in the trials of life.
Prayer of Intercession
Let us have confidence in our benign Lord and let have true hope in Him alone…
A great universal prayer of intercession starts here. This part of the prayer is quoted on the 2 letter of July 21, 1535: “as we say in our prayer, that if we confide in Him alone and not in others, our benign Lord has wanted.” Confidence is connected to faith and hope, to perseverance in trials. There is the reference to Ps 25, already quoted in the previous sentence: they will not be confused forever. It is the logic of the Beatitudes. He who practices them, he is building on solid rock (Mt 7:24-27; Lk 6:48) that is Christ. It is the first, the most important grace to ask Mary, mother of graces.
Again, let us thank God…
It follows a paragraph that recalls all the graces received from the heavenly Father (cf Mt5:45), either of the past or the current ones, forever in action, in the theological hope and in the invocation to be helped in the future in all the temporal and spiritual needs. There is perfect balance between body and spirit. We need both the earthly bread of nourishment, and the spiritual bread of the Word: the clause of intercession is indeed the Our Father in which we ask the Lord our daily bread.
Prayer to Mary in order to obtain spiritual graces
The clause 8 is a supplication to Mary so that she may obtain for us from her beloved son 4 different graces:
- To be meek and humble of heart. It is a clear allusion to Mt 11:29 so that we may be clothed with Christ and we learn to be meek and humble of heart.
- To love God and the neighbor. It is the greatest commandment in which there is all the law and the prophets, that is more precious than all the holocausts and sacrifices (Mk 12:28-34)
- To uproot the vices and grow in grace. The Anonymous reminds us of Jerome’s ascetical method that tries to uproot his vices one at a time by exercising in the opposite virtue and “in short every plant of vice uprooted from his soul” (An. Ch. 3)
- To obtain the supreme gift of his holy peace. It is the paschal peace of the risen Christ: the wish and exchange of peace were common praxis in use among the confreres of the Divine Love. How not remember the letter 4 and 5 addressed to the friend Giovan Battiste Scaini that begin just with this greeting: My dear in Christ, pax (let 4); My dear brother in Christ, the peace of the Lord be with you (let 5). It follows the Hail Mary and the exchange of peace among the present.
Prayer for the Church
It is an extraordinary prayer for the Church in cosmic and universal perspective, valid for all times, for all spaces, for all men. The Church is one and embraces:
- The perfect Church in heaven; we pray for it because the conscience of this holiness may spread among the Christian people, and the “accidental joys” of the saints may grow, that is their worship;
- The perfect Church around us, that lives in divine grace: they are the saints who live among us; even those need our prayer in order to keep up with their journey in growing in virtue, in grace, in faithfulness to the commandments;
- The imperfect Church on earth, that is all the Christians who live in a state of sin: we ask for them conversion and forgiveness of sins;
- The Church of the deceased, that too still imperfect because in state of purification: they need our prayer in order to be freed from their sufferings and reach eternal glory;
- For the potential Church, that can be, for the Church that lives of missionary impulse and bring the news to the pagan: we pray for them so that they may welcome the gift of faith.
It is really a magnificent ecclesial prayer that breaths with the Church of all times. After one Our Father and one Hail Mary, we continue praying mentally in silence for the above mentioned intentions.
Prayer for the people close to the Servants of the Poor
In the clause 10, the prayer assumes different directions and is for people, identified with their names. With the first Hail Mary, we pray:
- For Monsignor Cardinal of Chieti, Giovan Pietro Carafa (1470-1559), Cardinal from December 1536, Pope Paul IV from 1555 to 1559. We have a letter that Gaetano Thiene wrote to Carafa’s sister soon after his appointment to be a Cardina (December 23, 1536): Iudicia Dei abissus: let us pray for this poor one so that he may ynderstand that the glory of being Cardinal is something transitory, and that on the contrary he may merit paradise by working and suffering for the Church. Carafa was friend, spiritual director and guide in his charitable activity.
- For Fr. Gaetano and all his congregation. Also Gaetano (St. Gaetano Thiene) was a personal friend of Jerome in Venice. His Congregation of the Regular Clerics Teatini was active in Rome from 1524, in Venice (from 1527), in Naples (from 1533).
- For the Capuchin Fathers, who from 1535 were moving their first steps in Veneto and Lombardy as a reformed religious family. Jerome foster their introduction in Bergamo with the help of the noble Domeico Tasso; Fra Giovanni da Fano entrusted to Jerome in 1536 the orphans gathered by him in Brescia, Fra Girolamo Molfetta was at Jerome’s side in his apostolate, assisted him in his death and dedicated to the Servants of the Poor in 1539 with a dedicatory letter a work titled: On Divine Love.
- For Fr, Fra Paolo and his companions: the most plausible hypothesis is that he may be Blessed Paolo Gustiniani, known in Venice by Jerome, and founder of the Camaldoli Hermits of Monte Corona, he, too, a great reformer of the Church, dead in 1528. Others think of a canonical monk (Augustinian) lateranense of the monastery of charity in Venice, Jerome’s spiritual director, in his journey of asceticism and conversion. According to someone, as it appears from a codex preserved at the Ambrosiana, it was he who addressed to Jerome Miani an exhortatory letter to religious life in the century. There is indeed an extraordinary similarity between the ascetical journey traced by Paolo and what is attested by the Anonymous of Jerome’s spiritual journey. Otherwise, we have to think of another Paolo Veronese and Jerome Miani (same name) of the early fifteen century. Some others hypothesize that he is a Fr. Paolo who was teaching catechism to the orphans and the people of Olginate and surroundings, assisted by the orphans. In the prayer, Fr. Paolo seems to still be alive.
- For the Mother sister Andrea, Benedictine nun gifted with mystical graces; she collaborated with St. Jerome and Fr. Angiolmarco Gambarana in the foundation of the converts and the orphan girls in Pavia.
- For the Mother sister Arcangela and sister Bonaventura: they are: one a living saint who was in the convent of St. Marta in Milan; the superior who will replace her is sister Bonaventura; they are charismatic figures whom Jerome appreciates as signs of the holiness of the Church.
- For Madonna Elisabetta: she is the noblewoman Elisabetta Cappello, Prioress of the Hospital of the foundlings in Venice.
- For Madonna Cecilia: niece of Madonna Elisabetta. She too is one of the Venetian women who had Jerome as a point of reference and were companions in his charitable activity.
It is really significant and ecclesial (and unfortunately rare) the prayer for other religious families and charitable institutions: Teatini, Capuchins, Hermits of Monte Corona, other charitable works, so that the fervor and the holiness of the Church be always alive.
Prayer for the Servants of the Poor
With a second Hail Mary, we pray for the Company of the Servants, – for the – priests present and absent (they are the most important in dignity) or who are about to enter in the works: This is a vocational aspect of the prayer. To have priests in the works for the organization of the Company and the pastoral care of the poor was very important. In the letter 3 we remember: “everybody is looking for them and we cannot find them.” In more than one occasion in the letter 1 and 3, Jerome invites to pray the Father so that he may send workers to the Company.
- for the “commessi”: they had in their hands all the charitable and educational organization; they were responsible with other Servants of the Poor of the works in different places
- for those who are entrusted to them (to the priest and “commessi”) to be served: it is the crowd of poor of the Company (other companions and cooperators, the little ones, the poor, the sick, included also the spiritual care of the orphan girls and converts). For all who live in the Company of the Servants (priests, laypeople, poor) it is asked, for the intercession of Mary perfect charity, deep humility, and patience for the love of his Majesty. Almost the same words we find in Jerome’s letter 6 of January 11, 1537: “Don’t they know that they offered themselves to Christ and live in his own house and eat his bread and they make themselves be called Servants of the Poor of Christ. How come, therefore, they want to do what it is told without charity, without humility of heart, without bearing with the neighbor…” They are the indispensable virtues for the Servants of the Poor.
Prayer for the benefactors of all the works
With the third Hail Mary we pray for the benefactors of all the works, specified clearly: for the procurators (the legal representatives before the civil and religious society); for the cashiers (the economical administration was entrusted to the friends of the works); for the buyers who provided for the food and the necessary for the poor; for all those who give help, advice in favor of the works. The works were therefore well structured and inserted in a civil and religious context that involved both the Servants of the Poor, priests and lay, the poor themselves, and all the friends of the works, whose support was indispensable for the management of the different charitable initiatives.
Prayer for the Living and the Deceased
Then for… It follows, kin the Manuscript 30, a white half page: either it is a gap or it is left to those who direct the prayer to complete or add new intentions for other people.
Now the prayer is extended to everyone, living and deceased. It is the highest form of charity and creates spiritual communion, an identity of Spirit: the Hail Mary, as a conclusive clause, is said for: for those who ask for our prayers; this is also a Jerome’s praxis that is present in his personal letters: to recommend himself to the prayers of his friends: let 4, “Please, recommend me to the prayers of our brothers, especially Sir Bartolomeo and Sir Stefano;” let 5, “Pray to God for me and ask prayers from Sir Stefano.” For those who pray for us. Jerome himself would pray for his companions: let 1, “Never I abandon you with those prayers that I know; and though I am nor with you in the battlefield, I hear the clash and raise my arms in prayer as much as I can.” For those whom we are in debt to pray for: they exist spiritual debts of gratitude, especially for those who have guided us to faith and encounter with God. Jerome already has given proof of this sensitivity when he addressed the prayer for the Cardinal of Chieti (Carafa), for Fr. Gaetano, for Fr, Paolo Giustiniani: they are his masters of Spirit and his spiritual directors. For our friends and enemies: the expression recalls the Gospel of Lk 4:27-28. To pray for the enemies is the extraordinary, the specific of the Christian. Jerome won over many to God with his prayer, goodness and patience: he was object of slander in Milan and Calolzio. Beautiful is the witness in the Somasca’s Trial by Antonio Ondei who remembers how Jerome returned the hostility of Antonio Mazzoleni, his adversary in Calolzio; he will get back his health by visiting the body exposed after his death in Somasca: “I remember that Sir Antonio Mazzoleni, notary in Calolzio, was suffering of a certain sickness. Being dead athe above said father, he made a vow to him, prayed to him and he was freed. And everybody was puzzled because this Mazzoleni when he was speaking of them he called them miserable; and also because the above father wanted to enter Calolzio, but Mazzoleni opposed that, saying that he did not want to help miserable people, because after a while they would have driven away the others.” (Fonti per la storia dei Somaschi, 8, Acta at Processus.., pag 14). Let us pray, then, for all the faithful departed. With admirable synthesis Jerome had said that the faithful departed are the Church, the Church to which we belong, in a way of purification in the after-life. We are united to them and they, in the communion of saints, need our prayer. After having prayed for all of them, in particular for our parents and brothers and sisters, relatives and friends. When saying this prayer, Jerome would think in particular of his father Angelo, tragically dead in 1519, his brother Marco, dead in 1526, his relatives, his friends, especially those of the Divine Love. And also for our father Sir Jerome, is an appropriate addition done after Jerome’s death, recognized as a father, inspiratory and founder of the Company; for all other brothers of ours in the Company and for all the departed of the pious works. We know that with Jerome died because of the plague other collaborators, as the Dominican Fra Tomaso and an excellent piemontese doctor, buried in the church of St Bartholomew in Somasca.
Prayer so that the Lord may listen
The clause 13 is constitute by a prayer that mirrors in the prayer itself: let us elevate our mind to God and pray that he may because of his mercy listen to the prayers done so miserably… There is the idea of the prayer we find in St. Paul, Rm 8:26-28: “The Spirit comes to aid our weakness, because we do not know what is convenient to ask, but the Spirit intercedes for us with inexpressible groaning…”; aware of our own limits, we pray for the gift of prayer… that he himself may stand in for us because of all our faults made by us; we bring even in prayers our limits of distraction and volubility, our lack of love… There the certitude that the Spirit of Christ is praying in us and can give efficacy to our invocations, because he is beginning, means, and goal and fulfillment of every good. Truly Christ is everything for Jerome: alpha and omega (a reminder of the Apocalypse, 1:8 and paschal liturgy), but also center and realization of every good we can realize in the works, prayer and life. It is evident the assimilation of the evangelical principle stated in the parable of the vine and the branches: “without me you can do nothing” (Jn 15:5). Say these and other prayers as the Lord inspires you.
Prayer as request of forgiveness
We pause in silence for some minutes… we make mental prayer for the time of a miserere, Ps 50 of penance, of the invocation for forgiveness. We enter another climate: prayer is also fear and terror for the sins committed, for the risks we have run in our past; it is humiliation under the powerful hand of God: let us all humiliate before our heavenly Father as prodigal sons who squandered every spiritual and material good, by living badly. The prodigal son’s parable (Lk 15:11-32), here actualized, is also a hymn to the mercy of the Father who waits for the return of his son, hugs him and forgives him; therefore, lest us ask him mercy, by saying: Mercy, give us mercy, son of the living God. The prayer of the publican at the temple concludes this paragraph (Lk 18:13), true model of repentant and praying sinner, who, aware of his immense debt asks God striking his chest: “O God, be favorable to me sinner.” The sign of the cross, that has opened the prayer, is used here as a closing formula.
Conclusive prayers
The intercession and invocation prayer should be concluded. However, the prayer remains open for the climate of fervor that moves now the priest to address to the Lord a free prayer – as the Lord inspires. It is an expression that we find various times in the letter of St. Jerome, for example in the 1: “to provide when God inspires you… to have the better way that God inspires him… confirm that work with the modesty that Christ inspires him with.” Other times, analogue formulas are used, such as: as Christ’s charity will show him, as the Lord shows you, etc. It follows three Our Fathers and Hail Marys said by whispering with the arms in the shape of a cross, with the mind fixed on Jesus’ cross and in memory of the three nails with which he wanted to be crucified. It is the contemplation of the cross; it is implicit the assimilation to Jesus’ cross with the explicit request that the Crucified Jesus grant us the grace to despise the world and ourselves. How can we not remember the letter 6 that is a living commentary to this prayer: “I do not know what else can I say but to beg them for Christ’s plagues so that they may want to do mortification in their exterior acts… and be faithful in prayer before the Crucified…” and Jerome’s testament reported by the Anonymous: “He would exhort everyone to follow the way of the Crucified, to despise the world, to love one another, and take care of the poor…”
It follows another prayer for the Church, so that the Lord grant her to reform herself to the early state of his holy Church. It comes back the ardent thirst of Jerome, his ideal of a reformed Church and holy of the holiness of the early Church of Jerusalem and of the Apostles. We pray then for the peace and harmony of all the Christian princes, so that, united by that peace, march against the infidels and heretics so that they may convert and come under the yoke of the Holy Catholic Church. A reference to the political situation of the time, to the Church, torn apart inside by political discord among the Christian princes (in particular, between Charles V and Francis I) and threatened by the losses to the Turks in the East and by the heretics in the North of Europe. It surfaces the spiritualized ideal of a Crusade, never quenched in all the XVI century, finalized however to the conversion of the infidels and heretics (the Church that can be, it is said in the clause 9) and to their entrance or return under the yoke of the Catholic Church.
We come to the last silent invocation, while we say one Our Father and Hail Mary in secret in the honor and glory of all the saints, the angels, archangels, especially of those who guard us. It is a prayer for the perfect Church in heaven (clause 9) in order to increase glory and honor. We have an explicit reference to the devotion to the Guardian Angels, characteristic of our spiritual tradition. But there is a desire of intercession: so that they may defend us from every temptation of the world, of the flesh, and of the devil. Faithfulness to God for those who have offered themselves to Christ is proved by temptation, from which nobody, even the Servant of the Poor, can escape. We need the defense of the saints and angels. It is evident the allusion to Christ’s temptations. So that they may carry all our lukewarm prayers before the Lord our God. It returns the theme of the inadequacy of our prayer (clause 13), supported here by the prayer of the heavenly Church. The word lukewarm reminds us of the Apocalypse 3:16: Since you are lukewarm, that is you are neither warm or cold, I am about to vomit you from my mouth. Jerome detests and fears a life and a prayer that are not fervent of love. Tepidity needs to be continually stressed and eliminated. May they preserve us from slander and rash judgment: temptation is now identified with the sin against our neighbor, so common even in the communities that profess a life inspired to religious principles; and make us walk in truth on his holy way. The prayer ends by recalling the theme of exodus (clause 5), on the journey toward the holy Jerusalem with Jesus, way, truth an life (Jn 14:6).