Sep 30 – Memorial for St. Jerome, Priest and Doctor
St. Jerome (347-419) led a misspent youth. He later converted in theory, being baptised in 365, and then had a true conversion when he studied theology. He was a monk, and revised the Latin text of the Bible. The result of his 30 years of work was the Vulgate translation, which is still in use. He is a Doctor of the Church and Father of the Church. Since his own time, he has been associated in the popular mind with scrolls, writing, cataloguing, translating, etc. This led to those who work in such fields taking him as their patron – a man who knew their lives and problems.
- Patron Saint Index
Job 1:6-22
Lk 9:46-50
“Round the earth…roaming about.”
In today’s first reading of Job, we find Satan answering God’s question, “Where have you been?” by saying, “Round the earth, roaming about”. Scary, isn’t it? To visualize the most grotesque of demons roaming around next to us. Our bodies within inches of the invisible beings of evil. So, we close our minds eye to that, don’t we? We dismiss the reality of Satan and his demons among us because it is scary if believed; and in this less than godly world, we religious Catholics and Christians are made to seem foolish for believing in the presence of a real evil being — actually believing in a fairy tale of the fallen angel of God, the red devil with horns and a tail. Many see it as a laughable joke on the unintelligent and the uneducated. And yet, the truth is not made false by the belief or unbelief of man.
We’ve all heard the quote, “The mind is a scary place to live.” Well, upon reading today’s readings for the fourth or fifth time, two things dawned on me. First, that our mind is the place that Satan most wants to roam in, to patrol, to take residency up in. After all, that is where temptation begins — in the mind. We easily fall prey to this trap of the enemy. We leave our minds open for Satan to enter, to roam, to patrol and it becomes easy for him to slowly direct the direction of our thoughts, i.e. C.S. Lewis’ masterpiece of literature, The Screwtape Letters, plays this out for us in a chilling manner.
A second thing that hit me was the fact that after answering God, Satan asks his own question to God. Is Satan really trying to confuse God (in the same way he confused Eve and continues to confuse us — change the topic, change the angle, change the narrative, change the focus – a master politician)? It’s laughable at the least, as we know that God cannot be confused. The created Satan knows that as well, yet still attempts.
Question, confuse, divide, destroy. That is what Satan does when we allow him to roam, patrol and prowl in our minds. This lessens our ability to distinguish up from down, right from wrong, good from evil; and when we stop fighting the enemy, the enemy wins and we are left in a state where we can no longer distinguish good from evil. Just look around and you will see the terrible consequences that have resulted in sitting back, or sitting on the fence, instead of always wearing the armour of God to fight evil.
So our call is to be like Job, a man ‘… blameless and upright, fearing God and avoiding evil…”. How? Well, let’s imitate Job. Acknowledge God, praise God, reverence God by living humbly no matter the state of our life. Mother Cabrini said, “Live abandoned to God and let Him treat you according to His pleasure…What does it matter if it be Golgotha, Tabor, or Gethsemane? It is enough to know that we are with Him.” So let us bless His Holy Name, acknowledging as Job did, that we came forth naked and shall go back that way; never sinning or saying anything disrespectful of God.
This might be a good season to (re)read Job a few times, and (re)read The Screwtape Letters, as Satan is alive and well and prowling – we must be on the look out and we must know what – WHO we are looking out for. It’s critical to fill our minds with the things of God. Having a scheduled daily prayer life, reading about the lives of the saints, reading books and articles to inform, inspire, convict and grow our faith is necessary.
(Today’s OXYGEN by Gina Ulicny)
Prayer: Father God, how scary it can be in this world. Give us the grace of awareness to see you and your ways and to walk by your side.
Thanksgiving: Father God, thank you for never leaving us defenseless. Thank you for the faith to know that the enemy is real, but that You have already conquered the enemy.
OXYGEN 
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