Saint Jerome

St. Jerome was born in Dalmatia, studied in Rome, and then traveled for years passionately searching for knowledge. He first went to Treves to study theology and then to Antioch, where he studied Greek and Holy Scripture. Then, he withdrew for five years to the desert, where he practiced penance and studied Hebrew. At the age of 39, in 380, he was ordained a priest. He spent a year in Constantinople learning from the great St. Gregory Nazianzen, then went on to Rome. In Rome, he served the Pope for five years as a secretary, revised the Bible, opened a library, and guided a group of pious Roman women in studying the Scriptures. St. Paula and her daughter, St. Eustochium, were among the women he guided. When the ease-loving Roman clergy, whom the outspoken Jerome had bitterly criticized, caused him to leave the half-pagan city in disgust after the death of Pope St. Damasus, these holy women followed him to Bethlehem. Here, besides governing a monastery and a school, he completed his prolific and monumental writings, especially the translation of the Bible. The reading of Holy Scriptures should follow upon prayer, and prayer in turn should follow the reading." He would say, "Ignorance of the Scriptures is ignorance of Christ!" The books of Wisdom, Ecclesiasticus, Baruch, and the Maccabees were left untouched by him in the "Old Latin" version that Pope St. Damasus had prepared in 382. The New Testament was merely revised. But the remaining books of the Old Testament were newly translated by him directly from the Hebrew and Aramaic. This great task was completed in 404, after some 18 years of labor, and it was this easily-read "Vulgate" translation that the great Council of Trent defined as the Church's authoritative one. Throughout his life, he subjected his body to strict fasting and vigils. St. Jerome died on September 30, 420, and is venerated as the patron saint of archaeologists, Bible scholars, librarians, students, and translators.

O God, who gave the Priest St. 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.

Jonathan Fabian Ginunggil,

Most High Servant,

Jesus, Mary, Joseph Ministry of Love 

(Blessed and Saints and the Nine Choirs of Angels)