Feast of St. Jerome
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Today is the Feast of St. Jerome
It should give us hope that Jerome did not start out a saint. None of them ever do. He lived from 347 to 420 AD, and was baptized and became a Christian at the age of 19. As a young man he had a hunger for knowledge, so he dedicated himself to languages, learning Greek and then Hebrew. Most of all he loved reading the Roman and Greek philosophers such as Cicero to which he devoted all his time and energy.
While on his way to Jerusalem to study Hebrew, Jerome fell gravely ill and most thought he was on the brink of death. It was then that God gave him a vision of his particular judgment which he would receive at the moment of his death. Of this Jerome writes: Suddenly I was caught up in the spirit and dragged before the judgment seat of the Judge; and here the light was so bright, and those who stood around were so radiant, that I cast myself upon the ground and did not dare to look up. Asked who and what I was I replied: “I am a Christian.” But He who presided said: “You lie, you are a follower of Cicero and not of Christ. For ‘where your treasure is, there will thy heart be also.’” LETTER XXII. 30
At that moment his soul came back to his body and when he arose, shared with those around him the vision he received and from that day forward, he read the books of God with an even greater zeal than he ever read the books of men again.
We are all like Jerome. Think how much time, energy and attention we give to reading email, news, social media, political and sports analysts…and how little time in comparison to reading and thinking about all that God wants to share with us in the Bible.
At our particular judgment, will Christ declare us a follower of him or of some hashtag…So who do you follow?
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Pilgrimage to the Holy Land
In 385, Jerome made it to the Holy Land. In 386 he arrived in Bethlehem to reverence the birthplace of Jesus, a cave beneath the Church of the Nativity built by Queen Helena. And there he decided to make his home, living in a cave adjoining the cave where Jesus was born.
In the very place where the Word of God was born, Jerome translated the Bible from its original languages of Hebrew and Greek in Latin, the common language of the West so that all people could read or hear and have their souls nourished by the Word of God.
The translation of the Bible created by Jerome came to be known as the Vulgate, the official text of the Church which, after the recent revision continues to be the official Latin text of the Church to this day.
What can we learn from St. Jerome? Above all, this: to love the Word of God in Sacred Scripture.
St. Jerome said: Ignorance of the Scriptures is ignorance of Christ.
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The Bible is the most direct way God speaks to us
So often people say, “God never speaks to me.” Well, how much time do you spend reading Scripture and then thinking about it and talking it all over with the Lord in a personal dialogue?
CCC 104
In Sacred Scripture, the Church constantly finds her nourishment and her strength, for she welcomes it not as a human word, but as what it really is - the word of God. In the sacred books the Father who is in heaven comes lovingly to meet his children and talks with them.
Instead – we wake up and read email and the news, when we have this letter straight from God waiting for us that we rarely open.
The amazing thing about the Bible is that God is its author. God only lives in the present moment. So the Bible is not some writing from the past, it is God speaking to you in your particular circumstances right now, today. How many times I have read a passage I know a thousand times over yet God speaks to me in my specific circumstances today. That is because “the word of God is something alive and active: it cuts like any double-edged sword but more finely: it can slip through the place where the soul is divided from the spirit, or joints from the marrow; it can judge the secret emotions and thoughts.” Hebrews 4:12
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Scripture really is the words of God
Because God is the primary author who inspired the human authors to write whatever He wanted and nothing more, Scripture is the words of God.
That is why the CCC teaches that the inspired books teach the truth. Since therefore all the inspired authors or sacred writers affirm should be regarded as affirmed by the Holy Spirit, we must acknowledge that the books of Sacred Scripture firmly, faithfully and without error teach that truth which God, for the sake of our salvation, wished to see confided to the Sacred Scriptures.
Because God is its author, Scripture teaches without error those truths which are necessary for our salvation.
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Let’s end with that near death experience of Jerome because it forever changed his life.
Having died and finding himself before the judgment seat of God, God said to Jerome, “You are a follower of Cicero and not of Christ.”
Who would God say I follow?
Let’s make the firm resolution to read the Bible every day. A good place to begin is with the daily readings of the Mass, or even just the Gospel of the day.
But don’t just read them. Think about them. It does no good to read them and not think about them. Then make the choice to do what they made you think about.
And you will change.