Daily Gospel Reflection
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September 30, 2023
While they were all amazed at his every deed,
Jesus said to his disciples,
“Pay attention to what I am telling you.
The Son of Man is to be handed over to men.”
But they did not understand this saying;
its meaning was hidden from them
so that they should not understand it,
and they were afraid to ask him about this saying.
The passage immediately before today’s gospel describes Jesus healing a boy possessed by a demon whom the disciples could not heal. The first half of Luke 9:43 reads, “And all were astonished by the majesty of God.”
So, their confusion is understandable when Jesus foretells his suffering at the hands of men right after putting his divine majesty on full display. However, it is not the disciples’ perfect understanding that Jesus desires but their full attention. The seed of faith is planted within that attention, which can only be understood in time.
In high school, I was deeply attracted to the Christian ethical life and marveled at the joy and friendships of those around me who were filled with faith. I began going to Mass more often, attending youth group, and paying attention in religion class. But I lacked a personal relationship with God, an interior life of faith, and a daily prayer habit.
I felt a lot like the disciples in the gospel, trying desperately to pay attention but really missing the point. It was not until this past Lent and Easter that I fully realized that the wellspring of joy, friendship, and the beauty of the Christian life is a daily act of faith. I finally embraced my lack of understanding and made a leap of faith like Peter in Matthew 16:16, “‘You are the Messiah, the Son of the living God,’ and I love you.”
Prayer
Lord, many of your teachings and acts of love are hidden from us. Nevertheless, we believe that with the aid of the Holy Spirit, our eyes and hearts will be open to the truth of your person and your salvific mission. Send your Spirit upon us that we may see with the eyes of children and thereby see your kingdom as it takes hold here on earth. Enkindle in our hearts a desire for you and your kingdom, and we shall be made new. Amen.
Saint of the Day

A doctor of the church, Jerome was born 342 in what is now northeastern Italy. His father provided him with a good education, sending him to Rome to learn from the best teachers. His teachers were not Christian, however, and Jerome began to fall into habits of decadence that were the order of the day in Rome.
With friends, however, he would visit the tombs of the martyrs and apostles in church crypts or catacombs. Soon, Jerome was moved to devote his life to God.
In 374, Jerome settled in Antioch, the premier Christian city of Asia Minor. Jerome fell ill and had a delirious vision in which he stood before Christ in judgment and fell short because he had put rhetoric and study before faithfulness.
The experience touched him deeply, and he decided to retreat to live in the desert to seek holiness—he spent four years alone, focusing on prayer and fighting temptation with fasting, all the while suffering from poor health. His time in the desert focused his will and fired his passion for faithfulness, inspiring his eventual return to the city.
To distract his fiery will from temptation, Jerome dedicated himself to learning Hebrew from a fellow monk who had converted from Judaism. He found the Semitic language challenging, but he set his sharp mind to the task and persevered.
When he returned to Antioch, Jerome was ordained a priest, but felt drawn to the monastic life. He went to Constantinople to study Scripture under the great St. Gregory of Nazianzen. Later, he journeyed to Rome to attend a church council and was retained there by Pope Damasus I to be his secretary. At the pope’s request, Jerome retranslated and corrected the Latin version of the Greek Gospels, which had a number of errors in their transcription through the years.
Jerome possessed razor-sharp wits and often used pointed sarcasm to direct criticism at non-believers and other Christians with slack faith. “I never spared heretics and have always done my utmost that the enemies of the Church should also be my enemies,” he wrote.
Those who disliked him gossiped about him profusely, so Jerome decided to depart Rome for Palestine. He lived in a stone cave and opened a free school and hospice outside Jerusalem, near Bethlehem.
He continued to correspond with Church leaders, including St. Augustine, about certain heresies or distortions of the faith, quick to point out where error was present. Jerome's quick temper and salty tongue were only matched by his quickly converted heart. He is often depicted striking his breast with a stone (as in the statue below, from Dillon Hall) because he was as quick to repent as he was to convict.

He is known best for his work translating Scripture—the Church recognizes him as a great doctor of the church for his work translating not only the Gospels, but the entire Greek New Testament into Latin. Jerome translated both the Christian Scriptures and the Septuagint—the Greek translation of the Hebrew Scriptures—into what was the vernacular language of his day—Latin—thus his translation became known as the Latin Vulgate.
When Rome fell in 410, the wealthy elite that had slandered him were scattered. Many wandered through the Holy Land as beggars. Jerome interrupted his study and translation work to attend to their needs. “Today we must translate the words of the Scriptures into deeds,” he wrote. “Instead of speaking saintly words we must act them.”
Jerome died on this date in 420, and some of his relics rest in the reliquary chapel in the Basilica. He is depicted in stained glass windows in the Basilica as well, including one pane that shows him with a lion that represents his time as a desert hermit, as well as his fierce defense of the faith.

Jerome argued forcefully in support of the intercession of the saints who have died: “If the apostles and martyrs while still living upon earth can pray for other men, how much more may they do so after their victories?” he wrote. “Have they less power now that they are with Jesus Christ?”
In that spirit:
St. Jerome, the sarcastic holy hermit who defended the faith and diligently translated the words of Scripture—pray for us!