Wednesday of the 26th Week in Ordinary Time (Memorial of St. Jerome)
Luke 9:57–62
There are people we meet – or we may be a person – who others might describe as “larger than life,” or a “force to be reckoned with.” They have a presence, a way about them, that seems to always compel a response, good or bad.
The saint we remember today, Jerome, strikes me as such a person. Like everyone, he had strengths and weaknesses. But like those who live larger than life, his good could seem very good, and his bad,very bad.
On the good side, Jerome was brilliant; one of the greatest minds the Church has ever known. What’s more, he loved Scripture with all his heart, and spent his life studying and writing about it. Above all, Jerome loved God, and wanted more than anything to live a life pleasing to Him.
But then there were weaknesses. First, pride. Like many intellectuals, Jerome didn’t like to be wrong and didn’t want anyone having the last word but him. Worse, he had such a fiery temper and was so hard to get along with that his most loyal supporter and patroness, Paula, and her daughter, became saints just dealing with him. On top of all that, Jerome was strongly attracted to women and was constantly tempted to impure thoughts.
This last temptation was so bad that Jerome left Rome to live as a hermit in the Holy Land. Although that helped, the temptations persisted. In desperation, he vowed to study Hebrew – a language he found hard to learn – every time lewd thoughts came back. Thanks to that vow, Jerome became an expert in Hebrew.
That was a stroke of the Holy Spirit. When Jerome’s friend, Pope St. Damasus I, assigned him the task of producing a new version of the Bible based on the ancient languages, he poured himself into it. Despite some disagreements with the Church in the process, Jerome sacrificed his pride, submitted himself to her authority, and gave the world the Bible we still know as Jerome’s Vulgate.
St. Jerome’s victory in the struggle against himself gives us great insight on the gospel today. People want to follow Jesus, but they want to do so on their own terms. Can we set conditions on discipleship? The life of St. Jerome underscores our Lord’s point: Following Christ means submitting ourselves entirely – mind, body, passions, strengths, and weaknesses — to his authority and his alone.
That doesn’t mean that we are to somehow become people without strong desires, without opinions, personalities, or weaknesses. No, God made us; He knows who we are. We may, in our own ways, be larger than life, but St. Jerome reminds us that we’re never larger than God’s love. And, like him, we may be a force to be reckoned with, but let us pray that we, too, can – by God’s grace – be a force for good, submitting ourselves to God’s authority, and praying, as all the saints have prayed, “Lord God, all of me is yours. Tell me what to do with it and help me do it. Your will be done.”
St. Jerome, pray for us.
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