Key Facts

  • Lay widow

  • Built 1st Hospital in Rome

  • Died: 399, Rome

  • Feast Day: December 27

Italy - Rome

d. 399

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She was the first person to found a hospital where she might gather sufferers from the street and where she might nurse 
the unfortunate victims of sickness and want.

St. Jerome (342-420)

Details

  • 1
    Divorced husband for his dissolute life
  • 2
    Remarried
  • 3
    Returned to the Church after her second husband’s death
  • 4
    Put on sackcloth to make public confession of her errors
  • 5
    Devoted life to charitable works and aiding the Church
  • 6
    Built the 1st Christian public hospital in the west
  • 7
    Gave food to help patients with her own he and, and moistened the scarce breathing lips of the dying with simps of liquid
  • 8
    Supplied monasteries with her wealth
  • 9
    Supplied garments to clothe the naked and bedridden persons
  • 10
    Traveled to Jerusalem where she met St. Jerome
  • 11
    Studied Scripture under St. Jerome
  • 12
    As hordes of Huns descended on the Holy Land, returned to Rome in poverty, having sold and given away her property
  • 13
    With Pammachius, established a home for strangers at Portus to serve as a shelter for those fleeing from the Holy Land to which crowds flocked
  • 14
    She fell asleep in the way that she had wished and having at last laid aside her burden soared more lightly up to heaven The entire city gathered to attend her funeral rites; streets, porches and roofs from which a view could be obtained were inadequate to accommodate the spectators.
  • 15
    The entire city gathered to attend her funeral rites; streets, porches and roofs from which a view could be obtained were inadequate to accommodate the spectators.