ST JEROME AND LOVING GOD’S WORD

Fr Billy Swan

One of the great fruits of the Second Vatican Council has been the return of the Word of God to heart of the Church. In the Bible we find God’s living Word that encounters us, instructs us and feeds us. Through his Word, ‘the invisible God, out of the abundance of His love, speaks to people as friends….so that He may invite and take them into fellowship with Himself’ (Dei Verbum, 2).

This return of the Church to the centrality of obedience to God’s Word and loving God’s Word, brought to life the prophetic words of St Jerome who famously said that ‘ignorance of the Scriptures is ignorance of Christ’ (Comm. On Isaiah). As we celebrate his feast day on 30^th September, it is an opportunity to ask ourselves how our thoughts, words and actions are shaped each day by the Word of God.

Jerome was born into a Christian family around 347 A.D. in modern-day Croatia or Slovenia. He was sent to Rome for studies and soon after, departed for a contemplative life in the desert of modern-day Syria. He studied Hebrew and Greek and after a return to the Eternal city, he was commissioned by Pope Damasus to embark on a new translation of the Biblical texts from Greek and Hebrew into Latin. It was to become the work of his life and would facilitate the Scriptures spreading through the Roman world, especially in the West. In 385, Jerome went to the Holy Land and stayed in Bethlehem until he died there in 420.

What can we learn from St Jerome? In answering this question, the late Pope Benedict XVI answered this way: ‘It seems to me, this above all; to love the Word of God in Sacred Scripture’ (General Audience, 7 November 2007). To love God’s Word is the key to understanding it, for it contains a word of love that comes first. Being a scholar of the highest calibre, Jerome prioritised love of Sacred Scripture above academic scrutiny of the texts. To a Roman lady, he offered this advice about the education of her daughter: ‘Ensure that each day she studies some Scripture passage.... After prayer, reading should follow, and after reading, prayer.... Instead of jewels and silk clothing, may she love the divine Books’ (Letter, 107, 9, 12).

For Jerome, daily meditation on God’s Word shaped ordinary life. The Bible is an instrument ‘by which God speaks every day to the faithful’ (Letter 133, 13), thus becoming a stimulus and source of life for all situations and for each person. In addition to this formative effect of the divine Word, he also claims that through meditation on the Scriptures, one ‘maintains the equilibrium of the soul’. Praying with the Scriptures centres us on Christ. He becomes the centre around which everything turns and unites, where our minds, words and actions harmonise.

Here are just a few suggestions of how a greater love and familiarity with God’s word can help us to be clear and confident about our faith.

The first suggestion is to buy a family Bible and to put it in a prominent place in the home. Second, buy a copy of the Sunday and Daily readings for Mass. Can I predict that once you begin to practise the habit of prayerfully reading the daily readings, you will come to love what you read? In many parishes, there are Scripture reflection groups, Bible study groups, Lectio Divina groups and other prayer groups who share around the Word of God. For many, the Scriptures have moved from the periphery to the centre of their spiritual lives, resulting in a revival of their faith.

This does not mean that we need to go around quoting the Bible all the time or become fundamentalists. But it does mean that every word we speak and action we take is under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit and in some way is obedient to the Word of God.

Another dimension of loving God’s Word is to discern what it is saying to us as a Church, and as a faith community. Here is where the prayerful reading of Scripture in groups, in faith communities and before meetings becomes so important. It is listening together what God’s Word is saying to us and not just to me. This continues to be our task as a prophetic and missionary people – to internalise the message before we share it: ‘When I found your words I devoured them. They became my joy and the happiness of my heart’ (Jer. 15:16).