St. Jerome

Today is a special feast day  for

• students and archivists and translators – anyone really with a big time consuming task ahead of them.
• Curmudgeons
• Parents with wayward older children

St. Jerome – who received the finest education his parents could give them and then as a young man chucked it all to fall in with a bad crowd and live a sinful life.  According to Catholic Online:

 He acquired many worldly ideas, made little effort to check his pleasure-loving instincts, and lost much of the piety that had been instilled in him at home. Yet in spite of the pagan and hedonistic influences around him  Jerome was baptized by Pope Liberius in 360. He tells us that “it was my custom on Sundays to visit, with friends of my own age and tastes, the tombs of the martyrs and Apostles, going down into those subterranean galleries whose walls on both sides preserve the relics of the dead.” Here he enjoyed deciphering the inscriptions. 

He was then able to pull it together, study hard and then translated the entire bible into Latin!

So a few things stick out for me in this –

• Piety was instilled in him at home – and eventually he found his way back.
• He was surrounded by pagan and hedonistic influences – much like our sons are today and…
• It was something that interested in – deciphering inscriptions, that at least kept him connected to his faith and brought him back. 

St. Jerome, pray for us!

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