Thursday, September 30, 2021

 Memorial of Saint Jerome, Priest and Doctor of the Church

(Nehemiah 8:1-4a.5-6.7b-12; Luke 10:1-12)

In today’s first reading the people discover the wonder of the word of God.  Apparently for the first time they grasp the meaning of what Scripture intends. Ezra reads to them “the book of the law.”  This is not primarily a legal code.  More substantially, it is the story of how God brought the enslaved Hebrews into the promised land.  They cannot help but weep.  Their unfaithfulness to the same God exiled them to Babylonia until He delivered them again.

More than just about anyone else, St. Jerome likewise appreciated Scripture.  He studied it, commented on it, and translated it.  He knew its importance.  “Ignorance of Scripture,” he once wrote, “is ignorance of Christ.” He meant that one cannot know about salvation unless he or she learns the lessons of Scripture.  Both Old and New Testaments reveal how God saves all humans as surely as He rescued Israel.

One way to learn Scripture is to take to heart the daily Mass readings.  They don’t cover all thirty thousand or so verses found in the Bible.  But they do provide representative passages from each book.  They also emphasize what is sometimes called “the canon within a canon.”  We easily recognize these inspiring texts.  They are passages like, “God so loved the world…” and “The Lord is my shepherd…”