26th Week, Friday, Sept 30, St. Jerome

  26th Week, Friday, Sept 30, St. Jerome

Job 38:1, 12-21; 40:3-5 / Luke 10:13-16

Job talks about God; God's wisdom far surpasses ours.

The scholar St. Jerome (347-419/20) translated most of the Bible from the original languages into Latin and revised some parts already translated to make them more understandable. His immense work opened the Scriptures to the parts of Europe that spoke Latin. He fought all his life against his difficult character. He can still inspire us today to love the Word of God… and to live it.

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God's words to Job take the form of a litany recounting the wonders of nature. God reminds Job, in a dramatic series of rhetorical questions, that Job neither created nor understands the workings of the universe. This doesn't answer Job's questions directly, but it does suggest a new line of thought. It is this: If Job admits that God's wisdom greatly surpasses his, why does he question God's fairness to him? If he can't understand other things, why does he expect to understand this? Job's wisdom falls so short of God's wisdom that it is folly for Job to challenge God. To challenge God is the posture of a fool, not a wise man. In any event, Job's experience of God changes him from a sage into a saint. It transforms him into a true person of faith.

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Do we sometimes challenge God? Why? "Belief in a cruel God makes a cruel man." Thomas Paine

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If nothing happens by coincidence, then it is only natural that we want to know what is the link between the various events and experiences of our lives. We would want to know why such an event happened in our lives and why we had certain experiences.

Although we know that everything that has happened has a meaning and a purpose, yet we can be rather impatient to know the answers immediately. Especially so when misfortune and tragedy happens. We won't be just asking for answers; we will be demanding for answers and demanding it furiously too. For the character of Job in the 1st reading, he too was demanding for answers from God as misfortune and tragedy befell upon him one upon another, although he had insisted that he had not done anything wrong.

 And this time God spoke. From the heart of the tempest, the Lord gave Job his answer. Yet the answer was a series of question that began with "Have you ... ". In the end, Job realized who he was and in his own words "I had better lay my finger on my lips. I will not speak again." When we can realize what Job had realized, that God had a perfect plan for everything in our lives and that His ways are above our ways and His thoughts are above our thoughts, then we too in humility would lay our finger on our lips.

 If we ever open our lips, then it will be to praise and thank the Lord. And may those who hear us glorify the Lord, be edified and do the same too.

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 Saint Jerome

Feast day September 30  

Jerome was a man of extremes. His real name was Eusebius Hieronymus Sophronius. He lived to age 91 even though he undertook extreme penances. Jerome had a fierce temper but an equally intense love of Christ.

This brilliant saint was born in Eastern Europe around 345. His Christian family sent him to Rome at age 12 for a good education. He studied there until he was 20. Then he and his friends lived in a small monastery for three years, until the group dissolved. Jerome set out for Palestine, but when he reached Antioch, he fell seriously ill. He dreamt one night that he was taken before the judgment seat of God and condemned for being a heretic. This dream made a deep impression on him.

Although Jerome wished to study rather than to be a priest, he was ordained. Again he tried the life of a monk in the desert, but impure temptations plagued him. To fight them, he studied Hebrew, wrote letters counseling friends in the spiritual life, and copied books. Finally, Jerome moved to Constantinople. He studied Scripture under the Greek theologian Gregory Nazianzen. Pope Damasus summoned him to Rome and had him translate the Bible into Latin, a 30-year task. His translation, called the Vulgate, became the official text of the Catholic Church.

Jerome was strong willed. His writings, especially those opposing what he considered heresy, were sometimes explosive. His temperament helped him do difficult tasks, but it also made him enemies. Jerome was named a Doctor of the Church for the Vulgate, his commentaries on Scripture, his writings on monastic life, and his belief that during a controversy on theological opinions, the See of Rome was where the matter should be settled.

Jerome also guided a group of Christian widows who were practicing a semimonastic life. Gossip about his spending so much time with women led Jerome to move to Bethlehem. There, Jerome trained Paula and Eustochium to be Scripture scholars and to assist him.

Prayer

Lord our God, you continue speaking your word to us today as St. Jerome loved it. Like him, may we understand it in your way, keep your word faithfully in word and deed, and pass it on to those who are with us and who will come after us. We ask you this through Christ, our Lord.