Today is the feast day of Saint Jerome (347-420 AD), priest, desert monk, epic Bible translator, writer, and Doctor of the Church, writes Colleen Vermeulen of the Catholic Biblical School of Michigan, September 30.

Jerome was born in present-day Croatia and learned Latin, Greek, Chaldaic, and Hebrew. In 382, Pope Damascus encouraged Jerome to translate the entire Bible from its original languages into Latin, the language of common people. This had never been done before and would take Jerome over two decades to complete!

This insight from Jerome always motivates me to keep digging deeper into the Scriptures.

Jerome observed that when Jesus says “eat my flesh and drink my blood” (John 6:53) these words refer to both the Eucharist and the words of Scripture. But, when it comes to the Eucharist, “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?” (In Psalmum 147: CCL 78, 337-338).

Wow! What a challenge to be ever-alert to how the Holy Spirit might be speaking to you or I through the Bible.

For me, being part of the Catholic Biblical School ministry is a way to understand the Scriptures with the mind of the Church, inspired by the Holy Spirit – just as Saint Jerome encouraged.

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