September 30
Saint Jerome, Priest
and Doctor of the Church
Today's Gospel: Luke
9:57-62
Today’s
Gospel: Matthew 18:1-5,10
(Greatest In The Kingdom)
“At that time the
disciples came to Jesus, saying, "Who is the greatest in the kingdom of
heaven?" And calling to him a child, he put him in the midst of them, and
said, "Truly, I say to you, unless you turn and become like children, you
will never enter the kingdom of heaven. Whoever humbles himself like this
child, he is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven. "Whoever receives one
such child in my name receives me; "See that you do not despise one of these
little ones; for I tell you that in heaven their angels always behold the
face of my Father who is in heaven.”
Reflection:
Today the Church remembers Saint Jerome, the irritable, brilliant, relentlessly devoted scholar who spent decades in a cave in Bethlehem translating the entire Bible into Latin, producing the Vulgate that would shape the Church's understanding of Scripture for the next fifteen hundred years. He was famous for his temper, his sharp tongue, and his even sharper conscience, plagued, by his own account, with visions of being judged for loving pagan literature more than Scripture, a wound that drove him deeper into the text rather than away from it. His own words have outlasted every argument he ever had, including his ignorance of Scripture and of Christ. Job's words today capture something of the anguish that drove Jerome to that cave in the first place, how can a mortal be just before God? If I summoned him and he answered me, I do not believe he would listen to my voice. Jerome wrestled with exactly that terror for most of his life, and instead of retreating from it, buried himself in the very Word he feared he might be judged by, until there was nothing left of his life but the translation.
That total, irrevocable commitment is what the Gospel names today, in some of the hardest words Jesus ever spoke. Several people offer to follow Him, each with a reasonable condition attached: let me bury my father first, let me say farewell to my family, and Jesus answers plainly: no one who puts a hand to the plow and looks back is fit for the kingdom of God. Once he committed to his life's translation, Jerome never looked back. He gave up comfort, popularity, even peace with several of his fellow churchmen, because the plow, he'd set his hand to demanded everything, and he knew it.
That should press on wherever you've kept one hand on the plow and one eye on the life you'd rather be living, the conditions you've quietly attached to your commitment to Christ. Jerome's temper and his flaws are well documented; he wasn't an easy man. But he never once looked back from the vocation he'd taken up, however costly it became. What have you committed to with conditions attached that Jesus is asking you to drop?
There's a small chapel in Lorraine, Our Lady of Beaumont, where a peasant girl named Joan of Arc went to pray every Saturday of her childhood, and where, tradition holds, Mary herself commissioned her to take up arms and deliver France. Joan, like Jerome, never looked back once the plow was set in her hands, however impossible the task appeared. Jerome buried himself in a cave for Scripture; Joan walked out of a chapel into war. Both were ordinary people who let an irrevocable calling, so they did not use every excuse the world offered them to look back.
What have you committed to with quiet conditions attached, the exceptions you'd make, the looking back you've allowed yourself? Jerome and Joan both put their hand to the plow and never turned around. What would it take for you to do the same today?
Reflection:
Today the Church remembers Saint Jerome, the irritable, brilliant, relentlessly devoted scholar who spent decades in a cave in Bethlehem translating the entire Bible into Latin, producing the Vulgate that would shape the Church's understanding of Scripture for the next fifteen hundred years. He was famous for his temper, his sharp tongue, and his even sharper conscience, plagued, by his own account, with visions of being judged for loving pagan literature more than Scripture, a wound that drove him deeper into the text rather than away from it. His own words have outlasted every argument he ever had, including his ignorance of Scripture and of Christ. Job's words today capture something of the anguish that drove Jerome to that cave in the first place, how can a mortal be just before God? If I summoned him and he answered me, I do not believe he would listen to my voice. Jerome wrestled with exactly that terror for most of his life, and instead of retreating from it, buried himself in the very Word he feared he might be judged by, until there was nothing left of his life but the translation.
That total, irrevocable commitment is what the Gospel names today, in some of the hardest words Jesus ever spoke. Several people offer to follow Him, each with a reasonable condition attached: let me bury my father first, let me say farewell to my family, and Jesus answers plainly: no one who puts a hand to the plow and looks back is fit for the kingdom of God. Once he committed to his life's translation, Jerome never looked back. He gave up comfort, popularity, even peace with several of his fellow churchmen, because the plow, he'd set his hand to demanded everything, and he knew it.
That should press on wherever you've kept one hand on the plow and one eye on the life you'd rather be living, the conditions you've quietly attached to your commitment to Christ. Jerome's temper and his flaws are well documented; he wasn't an easy man. But he never once looked back from the vocation he'd taken up, however costly it became. What have you committed to with conditions attached that Jesus is asking you to drop?
There's a small chapel in Lorraine, Our Lady of Beaumont, where a peasant girl named Joan of Arc went to pray every Saturday of her childhood, and where, tradition holds, Mary herself commissioned her to take up arms and deliver France. Joan, like Jerome, never looked back once the plow was set in her hands, however impossible the task appeared. Jerome buried himself in a cave for Scripture; Joan walked out of a chapel into war. Both were ordinary people who let an irrevocable calling, so they did not use every excuse the world offered them to look back.
What have you committed to with quiet conditions attached, the exceptions you'd make, the looking back you've allowed yourself? Jerome and Joan both put their hand to the plow and never turned around. What would it take for you to do the same today?
Rosary Man Jim
🌹
Freely given. Freely shared.
