St Jerome

St Jerome, priest and Doctor of the Church

St. Jerome was one of those guys who was hard to like and to get to know. I think he was irascible but was serious about his seeking God and had personal holiness. But that was in the fourth century and people had a different way of interpersonal relationships. It is clear from his biographers, Jerome was graced by great talent: priest, biblical scholar, well-travelled, secretary to a Roman Pontiff, ascetic, monastic founder, translator of the Bible and ecclesial writers and an apologist. Of particular note, Jerome was involved the theological controversies of his time: Arianism, the virginity of Mary, and the teachings of Origen.

Jerome studied and was baptized in Rome, then returned to his native Aquileia where he lived the ascetic life. He attended the lectures of Apollinarius and decided to live as a hermit in the Syrian desert around 374. He learned Hebrew, returned to Antioch and was ordained priest.

Jerome spent time in Constantinople before returning to Rome to become the secretary to Pope Damasus. Following the Pope’s death, went to Egypt, Palestine, and Antioch settling in Bethlehem. There he founded a new men’s monastery, and continued his scholar work.

Jerome is a good example of letting the Light shine brightly for the service of the Proclamation of the Gospel. In what ways does St. Jerome inspire you to be of service to Jesus Christ and the Church?

Typically remembered as curmudgeon, the Church remembers Saint Jerome, priest, monk and Doctor of the Church known for the depth of scriptural learning and his translation of the Bible into what we call the Vulgate, the Latin version of sacred Scripture. Among the many significant things Jerome was known for is his insistence on the necessity for Christians knowing the Old Testament.

The Church has experience with human nature an never fails to recognize the God-given mission of his people: Jerome is the patron saint of people with difficult personalities. You’ll notice many of the pictures of Jerome position him in the regalia of a cardinal (a position that did not exist in Jerome’s era) yet more realistic is his sacrificial life, the ascetic life for the training of all Christians to be in relationship with Christ Jesus, with others for the sake of building the Kingdom of God.

Historians tells us that Jerome was born around 340 as Eusebius Hieronymous Sophronius in present-day Croatia, and homeschooled in the Christian faith from his father and later was sent him to Rome for instruction in rhetoric and classical literature. Pope Liberius baptized Jerome in 360.

Drawn to monastic and intellectual centers of the newly Christian empire (remember that Christianity had recently become legal), he set out to learn and be formed by a proper sense of culture (focussed on the Savior) and knowing the history, language, and sacred writ. His studied under Chromatius and Heliodorus, who were outstanding teachers of orthodox theology. Both were named saints.

Saint Jerome once said, “I interpret as I should, following the command of Christ: ‘Search the Scriptures,’ and ‘Seek and you shall find.’ For if, as Paul says, Christ is the power of God and the wisdom of God, and if the man who does not know Scripture does not know the power and wisdom of God, then ignorance of Scriptures is ignorance of Christ.”

Saint Jerome died in his Bethlehem monastery in 420.

Saint Jerome

Today we liturgically remember Saint Jerome (340-420). Because the sacred Liturgy is our first theology, let me quote the opening collect prayed at Mass:

O God, who gave the Priest Saint Jerome a living and tender love for Sacred Scripture, grant that your people may be ever more fruitfully nourished by your Word and find in it the fount of life.

And from the Communion collect:

…stir up the hearts of your faithful so that, attentive to sacred teachings, they may understand the the path they are to follow and, by following it, obtain life everlasting.

The controlling ideas the Church wants us to focus on are namely, that we have a living and tender love for Scripture with the hope that we would be nourished by it and find in Scripture a source of life. Likewise, our understanding this path we may enter into heaven. Christians: we are to walk toward the light of everlasting life. Indeed. Jerome is one of our guides in our study of Scripture.

Jerome was born in Dalmatia (present day Croatia). Having studied in Rome and he was baptized there before being ordained a priest in the Eastern part of the Roman Empire. Recognizing his giftedness, Pope Damasus called Jerome to Rome to serve as his secretary; following the death Damasus, Jerome went East again, that is, Bethlehem, where he was active in building projects: a monastery, a hospice, and a school. His intellectual gifts were set on translating the Bible into the vernacular Latin. We still us Jerome’s biblical translation (with some revisions) today. His letters and commentaries on Holy Scripture still give insight. He is honored with being a Doctor of the Church.

And, likely his most famous line is noted in today’s Office of Readings from Jerome’s prologue of the commentary on Isaiah:

I interpret as I should, following the command of Christ: Search the Scriptures, and Seek and you shall find. Christ will not say to me what he said to [others]: “You erred, not knowing the Scriptures and not knowing the power of God.” For if, as Paul says, Christ is the power of God and the wisdom of God, and if the man who does not know Scripture does not know the power and wisdom of Gods, then ignorance of Scripture is ignorance of Christ.

10 Biblical Verses leading to Catholicity

Lord God, your words were found and I consumed them;

your word became the joy and happiness of my heart. (Jer. 15:16)

10 Biblical Verses that lead to a deeper, more vibrant Catholic faith:

1. Matthew 16:18-19 / Isaiah 22:22 (Authority)

2. 1 Timothy 3:15 (Authority)

3. 2 Thessalonians 2:15 (Tradition)

4. 1 Peter 3:21 (Baptism)

5. John 20:23 (Confession)

6. John 6:53-58, 66-67 (Eucharist)

7. 1 Corinthians 11:27 (Eucharist)

8. James 5:14-15 (Anointing)

9. Colossians 1:24 (Suffering)

10. James 2:17- 26 (Works)

This is what you’ll call evangelical Catholicism: relying on the scripture base your faith. The first question we have to ask ourselves: What does Scripture reveal? These bible verse are ones it is said, that Protestants Cannot Accept (without becoming Catholic). Blessed feast of Saint Jerome, patron saint of biblical scholars.

Saint Jerome

Saint Jerome, patron of biblical scholars, pray for us.

We need to pray for the gift of final perseverance, as Jerome did.

Saint Jerome

At Mass today the preacher told us of a vision Saint Jerome had of Christ who asked him: Are you going to follow Cicero or me? (Jerome was educated in Latin literature and was a “student” of Cicero.) We know the end of the story for Jerome, but what of each of us?

Whom do you follow? Are you in love with Christ or merely giving lip service in being in relationship to Him?

Saint Jerome, pray for us!

Saint Jerome

O God, for the expounding of the Holy Scriptures did raise up in Thy Church the great and holy Doctor Jerome; we beseech Thee, grant that by his intercession and merits we may, by Thy help, be enabled to practice what he taught us both by word and by work.

Don’t miss Pope Benedict XVI on Saint Jerome, part I and part II.

Saint Jerome: encourages us to live by the Word

The example of Saint Jerome, priest, confessor of the faith and doctor of the Church lived ca. 341-420. He lived a simple life dedicated to the Church; he made the sacred Scriptures accessible to the people by translating them into Latin and writing commentaries. Saint Jerome was a colorful character and concerned for the welfare of others.

O God,

Who for the expounding of the Holy Scriptures

did raise up in Thy Church the great and holy Doctor Jerome;

we beseech Thee, grant that by his intercession and merits we may,

by Thy help, be enabled to practice what he taught us both by word and by work.

Given that today is a feast day of a great saint dedicated to knowing and living the Scriptures, an excerpt from the work, All About the Bible, seems useful for our meditation today.

Man Shares with God

Making all this known to man was not the work of a moment, from our point of view. God had made man to His own image and likeness. This means that man shares with God the power to know himself and others. Man shares with God the freedom to embrace that which is good. Man can even know the infinite goodness Itself which is God; he has the power to make his whole being center on that goodness of God – to bring about his own human perfection and the perfection of those with whom he lives.

But man had so distorted this image of God as to seek happiness where there is only misery, peace where there is only disturbance, security where there is only danger. But God is not so weak that He would have to start over with a new human race. God is not so petty as simply to seek revenge on the man who betrayed Him. Because man had made himself an ugly distortion of the image of God, God came into man’s world as Savior to bring beauty out of ugliness. In this is seen the power of God; in this also is known the love of God who can never cease to pursue this fallen man so as to give him greater blessings than those he had thrown away. When God took a hand in our world, He still respected that image of Himself in man that man had distorted. Man doesn’t change overnight from an infant into an adult. He doesn’t learn all things suddenly in a flash of light. This is not the way God made us. In coming to man as his Savior, God dealt with man as God Himself had made him – a being who learns step by step, a being who learns from others and from the world about him, a being who can do only as much as he knows how to do.

To bring to the world the knowledge of the astonishing love and goodness of God was a long process. Two thousand years passed before the full work of God as Savior was established in our world as a living thing. The central point of this work was the coming of Jesus of Nazareth, One who was wholly and completely a man like us in all save sin, and yet true God from all eternity. Christians group all the events that led up to this central event of history under the term “Old Testament.” It was that period between the call of Abraham about 1800 years before Christ to the coming of Christ Himself. It was that patient struggle of God to show man how far he had drifted from God, how little he actually knew about either God or man himself. By His unselfish, relentless pursuit of man, God brought at least some – those who were willing to do what they knew how to do for God – to realize that their only happiness in their own lives and in their nation was to be found in obedience to God.

All About the Bible is a booklet published by the Catholic Information Service. There are more than 60 titles published by CIS to help learn the Catholic faith or just to review some things about the faith.