Jerome (III) of Gesù Maria, Venerable (GIROLAMO (TERZO) DI GESÙ MARIA, VENERABILE)

Machine translation of the 1948–1954 Italian original. The original text is authoritative.

GIROLAMO (Terzo) di GESÙ MARIA, venerable. – Carmelite, b. at Noto (Sicily) on 17 May 1683, d. 11 Apr. 1758.

From 1707 onward he lived as a hermit near Noto, in a narrow cave, where he led a life of prayer, contemplation, and penance. Having become superior in 1710 of the other hermits of S. Maria della Scala, he introduced an observance so austere that within a short time the hermitage of the Scala became an example and rule for all the others, which were reformed by him. In 1741, together with the other hermits, he ceded the convent of the Scala to the Carmelites of the Ancient Observance and introduced there, with the help of Fr. Statella, the reform of this Order; he himself took the Carmelite habit as a lay brother on 6 Oct. 1741, assuming the name of Fra' G. di Gesù Maria e Giuseppe, as did all the other hermits of the Scala with him. Endowed by God with supernatural gifts, especially those of healing the sick, rapture, and ecstasy, he died in the convent of the Scala. The process for his beatification was introduced by decree of 23 Feb. 1782.

BIBL.: M. Ventimiglia, Il Carmelo italiano, Napoli 1779, pp. 190-92; O. C. Caioli, Ven. G. Terzo, carmelitano, Roma 1939; P. M. Mayer, Vita ven. H. Terzo, in Analecta O. Carm., 2 (1911-13), p. 345 ff.; 10 (1938-39), p. 370; Analecta Iur. Pontif., 20 (1881), cols. 259-60; Il Monte Carmelo (Roma), 4 (1918), p. 158 ff.; 27 (1941), pp. 216-18.

Ambrogio di Santa Teresa