This date marks the 1st Anniversary of the publication of Verbum Domini - on the place of Sacred Scripture in the life of the Church - by Pope Benedict XVI.
The following are extracts where the Holy Father alludes to the life and role of St Jerome. They have relevance in how seriously we are all called to take the place of the Word of God in our lives.
Extracts from Verbum Domini
Saint Jerome speaks of the way we ought to approach both the Eucharist and the word of God: “We are reading the sacred Scriptures. For me, the Gospel is the Body of Christ; for me, the holy Scriptures are his teaching. And when he says: whoever does not eat my flesh and drink my blood (Jn 6:53), even though these words can also be understood of the [Eucharistic] Mystery, Christ’s body and blood are really the word of Scripture, God’s teaching. When we approach the [Eucharistic] Mystery, if a crumb falls to the ground we are troubled. Yet when we are listening to the word of God, and God’s Word and Christ’s flesh and blood are being poured into our ears yet we pay no heed, what great peril should we not feel?”...
As Saint Jerome reminds us, preaching needs to be accompanied by the witness of a good life: “Your actions should not contradict your words, lest when you preach in Church, someone may begin to think: ‘So why don’t you yourself act that way?’ … In the priest of Christ, thought and word must be in agreement”...
Saint Jerome, in his great love for the word of God, often wondered: “How could one live without the knowledge of Scripture, by which we come to know Christ himself, who is the life of believers?”. He knew well that the Bible is the means “by which God speaks daily to believers”. His advice to the Roman matron Leta about raising her daughter was this: “Be sure that she studies a passage of Scripture each day… Prayer should follow reading, and reading follow prayer… so that in the place of jewellery and silk, she may love the divine books”. Jerome’s counsel to the priest Nepotian can also be applied to us: “Read the divine Scriptures frequently; indeed, the sacred book should never be out of your hands. Learn there what you must teach”...
Saint Jerome is likewise firmly convinced that “we cannot come to an understanding of Scripture without the assistance of the Holy Spirit who inspired it”.
Given in Rome, at Saint Peter’s, on 30 September, the Memorial of Saint Jerome, in the year 2010, the sixth of my Pontificate.
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