Memorial of St. Jerome, priest and doctor of the Church

Today's Mass Readings

It is so hard for us to relate to this story in the Book of Nehemiah. The Judahites return from their Babylonian Captivity to Jerusalem. The Governor Nehemiah and the priest-scribe Ezra are tasked with repopulating the land and, most importantly, rebuilding the Temple. We come upon them without a temple yet, but from morning until noon Ezra reads from the five books of Moses to every man, woman, and child. It does not sound like an earth-shattering event. However, the people wept.

Again, we have to put ourselves in the Judahites’ shoes. Imagine we had no access to the Eucharist. Imagine that every copy of the Bible in our midst was destroyed and we could only go off our imperfect memory of what God’s Word commanded. Imagine that we lived in a country where the language was not translated into the language of our scriptures or liturgy. All that we knew came to us in fragments and the stories of a glorious past. How would we react to be in the place of worship to hear God’s Word for the first time?

We are not that far from that experience now. Sometimes older generations look condescendingly on young Catholics who sport chapel veils and scapulars, kneel to receive communion, and adopt sundry old-timey customs. It is often a bricolage and contradictory. Yet they too grew up in the rubble of a Catholic culture clinging to what is helping them become moored to a reality bigger than themselves. They are actually a sign that the Church – despite other evidence – is in a perpetual springtime if we too set ourselves to building up rather than tearing down.

St. Jerome who translated the Bible into the ordinary Latin of his time famously said: “Ignorance of the Scriptures is ignorance of Christ.” We must know, love, and serve Christ in this world in order to be with Him forever in heaven. Let us purify our hearts for building the kingdom, even if it means moving from sadness to joy by first rebuilding.

Reflection by Fr. Pachomius Meade, OSB