Saint Jerome, born in Dalmatia in 329, was sent to school in
Rome. His boyhood was not free from faults; his thirst for knowledge was
excessive, and his love of books, a passion. He had studied under the best
masters, visited foreign cities, and devoted himself to the pursuit of learning.
But Christ had need of his strong will and active intellect for the service of
His Church. He told him in a supernatural experience he never forgot that he was
not a Christian, but a Ciceronian: “Your heart is where your treasure is,” said
the Lord to him — that is, in the eloquent writings of antique times. Saint
Jerome obeyed the divine call, making a vow never again to read profane works,
and another of celibacy. In Rome he had already assisted a number of holy women
to organize houses of retirement where they consecrated themselves to God by
vow. Calumnies, arising from jealousy, made a certain headway against the
scholar whose competence was beginning to attract honors.
He fled from Rome to the wild Syrian desert, and there for four
years learned in solitude, intense sufferings and persecution from the demons,
new lessons in humility, penance and prayer, and divine wisdom. “I was very
foolish to want to sing the hymns of the Lord on foreign soil, and to abandon
the mountain of Sinai to beg help from Egypt,” he declared.
Pope Damasus summoned him back to Rome, and there assigned to
the famous scholar, already expert in Hebrew and other ancient languages, the
task of revising the Latin Bible. Saint Jerome obeyed his earthly Head as he had
obeyed his Lord. Retiring once more in 386 to Bethlehem, the eloquent hermit
sent forth from his solitary cell not only a solidly accurate version of the
Scriptures, but during thirty years’ time, a veritable stream of luminous
writings for the Christian world. He combated with unfailing efficacy several
heresies being subtly introduced by various personages in his own region and
elsewhere.
For fourteen years the hand of the great scholar could no
longer write; but Saint Jerome could still dictate to six secretaries at a time,
to each on a different subject, in those final years. He died in his beloved
Bethlehem in 420, when over 80 years old. His tomb is still in a subterranean
chapel of its ancient basilica, but his relics were transported to Saint Mary
Major Basilica of Rome, where the crib of Bethlehem is conserved.
Sources: Little Pictorial Lives of the Saints, a
compilation based on Butler’s Lives of the Saints and other
sources by John Gilmary Shea (Benziger Brothers: New York, 1894); Les Petits
Bollandistes: Vies des Saints, by Msgr. Paul Guérin (Bloud et Barral: Paris,
1882), Vol. 11.
Veronica - Our Lady now
is rising very high up into the sky, and She's--now the sky is becoming very,
very bright, very bright, and Our Lady is pointing upward with Her hand, and
there is a tremendous white cross now forming in the sky. It's a brilliant
cross. And now--it's a large cross, but behind it, I see many, many smaller
crosses. They are also white. It's like a field, a whole field of crosses.
Our Lady - "My child, you are observing many who shall wear the white robes in
Heaven. Many martyrs shall be made, My child, in the days ahead. Many shall
gain their crowns through suffering. It is truly the way of the cross, My
child, to Heaven. Do not let a moment go by, My child, without using, without
putting your suffering to good cause." - September 14, 1976
Directives
D33
-
The Holy
Bible, Part 1
PDF
D87
-
Divinity of Jesus Christ
PDF
D88
- Martyrdom
PDF
D123
-
Catholic Church, Part 1
PDF
D124
-
Catholic Church, Part 2
PDF
D182
-
Bible
Rewritten
PDF
D204
-
The
Saints
PDF
D415
-
The Holy
Bible, Part 2
PDF
D416
-
The Holy
Bible, Part 3
September 30th
Vatican
II
World
Monetary Crash
Deception
of the Century
Third
Secret Fabrication
The
Miraculous Story of Bayside
A
Pilgrimage to Our Lady of the Roses Shrine
Jacinta's
Third Secret vision: She saw Pope Paul VI