1.   On the Love of the Bible.   Now, if we make use of the "Greatest of Doctors" as our guide and teacher we shall derive from so doing not only the gains signalized above, but others too, which cannot be regarded as trifling or few.  What these gains are, Venerable Brethren, we will set out briefly.  At the outset, then, we are deeply impressed by the intense Love of the Bible which St. Jerome exhibits in his whole life and teaching: both are steeped in theSpirit of God.  This intense Love of the Bible he was ever striving to kindle in the hearts of the faithful, and his words on this subject to the maiden Demetrias are really addressed to us all:  "Love the Bible and wisdom will love you; love it and it will preserve you; honor it and it will embrace you; these are the Jewels which you should wear on your breast and in your ears."
    His unceasing reading of the Bible and his painstaking study of each book -- nay, of every phrase and word -- gave him a knowledge of the Text such as no other Ecclesiastical Writer of old possessed.  It is due to this familiarity with the Text and to his own acute judgment that the Vulgate Version Jerome made is, in the judgment of all capable men, preferable to any other Ancient Version, since it appears to give us the sense of the Original more accurately and with greater elegance than they.  The said Vulgate, "approved by so many centuries of use in the Church," was pronounced by the Council of Trent "Authentic," and the same Council insisted that it was to be used in teaching and in the Liturgy.  If God in His Mercy grants us life, we sincerely hope to see an amended and faithfully restored Edition.  We have no doubt that when this arduous task -- entrusted by Our Predecessor, Pius X, to the Benedictine Order -- has been completed it will prove of great assistance in the study of the Bible.
    But to return to St. Jerome's Love of the Bible: this is so conspicuous in his letters that they almost seem woven out of Scripture Texts; and, as St. Bernard found no taste in things which did not echo the most sweet Name of Jesus, so no literature made any appeal to Jerome unless it derived its light from Holy Scripture.  Thus he wrote to Paulinus, formerly Senator and even Counsel, and only recently converted to the Faith:
    If only you had this foundation (knowledge of Scripture); nay, more -- if you would let Scripture give the finishing touches to your work -- I should find nothing more beautiful, more learned, even nothing more Latin than your volumes. . . . . If you could but add to your wisdom and eloquence study of and real acquaintance with Holy Scripture, we should speedily have to acknowledge you a leader amongst us.

2.   Need of Preparation.   How we are to seek for this great treasure, given as it is by Our Father in Heaven for our solace during this earthly pilgrimage, St. Jerome's example shows us.  First, we must be well prepared and must possess a good will.  Thus Jerome himself, immediately on his Baptism, determined to remove whatever might prove a hindrance to his ambitions in this respect.  Like the man who found a treasure and "for joy thereof went and sold all that he had and bought that field," (Mt. 13:44.)  so did Jerome say farewell to the idle pleasures of this passing world; he went into the desert, and since he realized what risks he had run in the past through the allurements of vice, he adopted a most severe style of life.  With all obstacles thus removed he prepared his soul for the "knowledge of Jesus Christ" and for putting on Him Who was "meek and humble of heart."  But he went through what Augustine also experienced when he took up the study of Scripture.  For the latter has told us now, steeped as a youth in Cicero and profane authors, the Bible seemed to him unfit to be compared with Cicero.
    My swelling pride shrank from its modest garb, while my gaze could not pierce to what the latter hid.  Of a truth Scripture was meant to grow up with the childlike; but then I could not be childlike; turgid eloquence appealed mightly to me.
    So, too, St. Jerome; even though withdrawn into the desert he still found such delight in profane literature that at first he failed to discern the lowly Christ in His lowly Scriptures:
    Wretch that I was!  I read Cicero even before I broke my fast!  And after the long night=watches, when memory of my past sins wrung tears from my soul, even then I took up my Plautus!  Then perhaps I would come to my senses and would start reading the Prophets.  But their uncouth language made me shiver, and, since blind eyes do not see the light, I blamed the sun and not my own eyes.
    But in a brief space Jerome became so enamored of the "folly of the Cross" that he himself serves as a proof of the extent to which a humble and devout frame of mind is conducive to the understanding of Holy Scripture.  He realized that "in expounding Scripture we  need God's Holy Ghost"; he saw that one cannot otherwise read or understand it "than the Holy Ghost by Whom it was written demands."  Consequently, he was ever humbly praying for God's assistance and for the light of the Holy Ghost, and asking his friends to do the same for him.  We find him commending to the Divine assistance and to his brethren's prayers his Commentaries on various Books as he began them, and then rendering God due thanks when completed.

3.   Need of Lively Catholic Faith.   As he trusted to God's Grace, so too did he rely upon the Authority of his Predecessors:  "What I have learned I did not teach myself -- a wretchedly presumptuous teacher! -- but I learned it from illustrious men in the Church."  Again:  "In studying Scripture I never trusted to myself."  To Theophilus, Bishop of Alexandria, he imparted the Rule he had laid down for his own student life:  "It has always been my custom to fight for the prerogatives of a Christian, not to overpass the limits set by the Fathers, always to bear in mind that Roman Faith praised by the Apostle."
    He ever paid submissive homage to the Church, our Supreme Teacher through the Roman Pontiffs.  Thus, with a view to putting an end to the controversy raging in the East concerning the Mystery of the Holy Trinity, he submmitted the question to the Roman See for settlement, and wrote from the Syrian desert to Pope Damasus as follows:
    I decided, therefore, to consult the Chair of Peter and that Roman Faith which the Apostle praised; I ask for my soul's food from that City wherein I first put on the garment of Christ. . . . I, who follow no other leader save Christ, associate myself with Your Blessedness, in communion, that is, with the Chair of Peter.  For I know the Church was built upon that Rock. . . . I beg you to settle this dispute.  If you desire it I shall not be afraid to say there are Three Hypostases.  If it is your wish let them draw up a Symbol of Faith, subsequent to that of Nicaea, and let us Orthodox praise God in the same form of words as the Arians employ.
    And in his next letter:  "Meanwhile I keep crying out,  'Any man who is joined to Peter's Chair, he is my man.' "  Since he had learned this "Rule of Faith" from his study of the Bible, he was able to refute a false interpretation of a Biblical Text with the simple remark:  "Yes, but the Church of God does not admit that."  When, again, Vigilantius quoted an Apocryphal book, Jerome was content to reply:  "  A book I have never so much as read:  For what is the good of soiling one's hands with a book the Church does not receive?"  With his strong insistence on adhering to the integrity of the Faith, it is not to be wondered at that he attacked vehemently those who left the Church; he promptly regarded them as his own personal enemies.  "To put it briefly," he says, "I have never spared heretics, and have always striven to regard the Church's enemies as my own."  To Rufinus he writes:  "There is one point in which I cannot agree with you: you ask me to spare heretics -- or, in other words -- not to prove myself a Catholic."  Yet at the same time Jerome deplored the lamentable state of heretics, and adjured them to return to their sorrowing Mother, the one source of salvation; he prayed, too, with all earnestness for the conversion of those "who had quitted the Church and put away the Holy Ghost's teaching to follow their own notions."
    Was there ever a time, Venerable Brehtren, when there was a greater call than now for us all, lay and Cleric alike, to imbibe the spirit of this "Greatest of Doctors"?  for there are many contumacious folk now who sneer at the Authority and Government of God, Who has revealed Himself, and of the Church which teaches.  You know, for Leo XIII warned us, "how insistently men fight against us; you know the arms and arts they rely upon."  It is your duty, then, to train as many really fit defenders of this Holiest of Causes as you can.  They must be ready to combat not only those who deny the existence of the Supernatural Order althgether, and are thus led to deny the existence of any Divine Revelation or Inspiration, but those, too, who -- through an itching desire for novelty -- venture to interpret the Sacred Books as though they were of purely human origin; those, too, who scoff at opinions held of old in the Church, or who, through contempt of its Teaching Office, either reck little of, or silently disregard, or at least obstinately endeavor to adapt to their own views, the Constitutions of the Apostolic See or the decisions of the Pontifical Biblical Commission.
    Would that all Catholics would cling to St. Jerome's Golden Rule and obediently listen to their Mother's words, so as modestly to keep within the bounds marked out by the Fathers and ratified by the Church.

4.   Piety and Humility.   To return, however, to the question of the formation of Biblical students.  We must lay the foundations in piety and humility of mind; only when we have done that does St. Jerome invite us to study the Bible.  In the first place, he insists, in season and out, on daily reading of the text.  "Provided," he says, "our bodies are not the slaves of sin, wisdom will come to us; but exercise your mind, feed it daily with Holy Scripture."  And again: "We have got, then, to read Holy Scripture assiduously; we have got to meditate on the Law of God day and night so that, as expert money-changers, we may be able to detect false coin from true."
    For matrons and maidens alike he lays down the same rule.  Thus, writing to the Roman matron Laeta about her daughter's training, he says:
    Every day she should give you a definite account of her Bible-reading. . . . For her the Bible must take the place of silks and jewels. . . . Let her learn the Psalter first, and find her recreation in its songs; let her learn from Solomon's Proverbs the way of life, from Ecclesiastes how to trample on the world.  In Job she will find an example of patient virtue.  Thence let her pass to the Gospels; they should always be in her hands.  She should steep herself in the Acts and the Epistles.  And when she has enriched her Soul with these Treasures she herself commit to memory the Prophets, the Heptateuch, Kings and Chronicles, Esdras and Esther; then she can learn the Canticle of Canticles withut any fear."
    He says the same to Eustochium:  "Read assiduously and learn as much as you can.  Let sleep find you holding your Bible, and when your head nods let it be resting on the Sacred Page."
    When he sent Eustochium the epitaph he had composed for her mother Paula, he especially praised that holy woman for having so whole-heartedly devoted herself and her daughter to Bible Study that she knew the Bible through and through, and had committed it to memory.  He continues:
    I will tell you another thing about her, though evil-disposed people may cavil at it: she determined to learn Hebrew, a language which I myself, with immense labor and toil from my youth upwards, have only partly learned, and which I even now dare not cease studying lest it should quit me.  But Paula learned it, and so well that she could chant the Psalms in Hebrew, and could speak it, too, without any trace of a Latin accent.  We can see the same thing even now in her daughter Eustochium.
    He tells us much the same of Marcella, who also knew the Bible exceedingly well.  And none can fail to see what profit and sweet tranquillity must result in well-disposed souls from such devout reading of the Bible.  Whosoever comes to it in piety, faith and humility, and with a determination to make progress in it, will assuredly find therein and will eat the "Bread that cometh down from Heaven"; he will, in his own person, experience the truth of David's words:  "The hidden and uncertain things of Thy Wisdom thou hast made manifest to me"!  For this table of the "Divine Word" does really "contain Holy Teaching, teach the True Faith, and lead us unfalteringly beyond the veil into the Holy of Holies."
    Hence, as far as in us lies, we, Venerable Brethren, shall, with St. Jerome as our guide, never desist from urging the faithful to read daily the Gospels, the Acts and the Epistles, so as to gather thence food for their souls.

5.   Society of St. Jerome.   Our thoughts naturally turn just now to the Society of St. Jerome, which we ourselves were instrumental in founding; its success has gladdened us, and we trust that the future will see a great impulse given to it.
    The object of this Society is to put into the hands of as many people as possible the Gospels and Acts, so that every Christian family may have them and become accustomed to reading them.  This we have much at heart, for we have seen how useful it is.  We earnestly hope, then, that similar Societies will be founded in your Dioceses and affiliated to the parent Society here.
    Commmendation, too, is due to Catholics in other countries who have published the entire New Testament, as well as selected portions of the Old, in neat and simple form so as to popularize their use.  Much again must accrue to the Church of God when numbers of people thus approach this table of Heavenly Instruction which the Lord provided through the Ministry of His Prophets, Apostles and Doctors, for the entire Christian world.

V.   THE BIBLE AND PRIESTLY EDUCATION
1.    Need of Biblical Learning.   If, then, St. Jerome begs for assiduous reading of the Bible by the faithful in general, he insists on it for those who are called to "bear the Yoke of Christ" and preach His Word.  His Words to Rusticus the Monk apply to all Clerics:
    So long as you are in your own country regard your cell as your orchard; there you can gather Scripture's various fruits and enjoy the pleasures it affords you.  Always have a book in your hands -- and read it; learn the Psalter by heart; pray unceasingly; watch over your senses lest idle thoughts creep in.
    When reminding Paulinus of the lessons St. Paul gave to Timothy and Titus, and which he himself had derived from the Bible.  Jerome says:
    A mere holy rusticity only avails the man himself; but however much a life so meritorious may serve to build up the Church of God, it does as much harm to the Church if it fails to "resist the gainsayer."  Malachias the Prophet says, or rather the Lord says it by Malachias: "Ask for the Law from the Priests."  For it is the Priests's duty to give an answer when asked about the Law.  In Deuteronomy we read:  "Ask thy father and he will tell thee; ask the Priests and they will tell thee. . . "  Daniel, too, at the close of his glorious Vision, declares that "the just shall shine like stars and they that are learned as the brightness of the firmament."  What a vast difference, then, between a righteous rusticity and a learned righteousness!  The former likened to the stars; the latter to the Heavens themselves!
    He writes ironically to Marcella about the "self-righteous lack of education" noticeable in some Clerics, who "think that to be without culture and to be holy are the same thing, and who dub themselves 'disciples of the fisherman'; as though they were holy simply because ignorant!"
    Nor is it only the "uncultured" whom Jerome condemns.  Learned Clerics sin through ignorance of the Bible; therefore he demands of them an assiduous reading of the Text.

2.   Pontifical Biblical Institute.   Strive, then, Venerable Brethren, to bring home to your Clerics and Priests these Teachings of the Sainted Commentator.  You have to remind them constantly of the demands made by their Divine Vocation if they would be worthy of it: "the lips of the Priest shall keep knowledge, and men shall ask the Law at his mouth, for he is the Angel of the Lord of Hosts." (Mal. 2:7.)   They must realize, then, that they cannot neglect study of the Bible, and that this can only be undertaken along the lines laid down by Leo XIII in his Encyclical Providentissumus Deus.   They cannnot do this better than by frequenting the Biblical Institute established by Our Predecessor, Pius X, in accordance with the wishes of Leo XIII.  As the experience of the past ten years has shown, it has proved a great gain to the Church.  Not all, however, can avail themselves of this.  It will be well, then, Venerable Brethren, that picked men, both of the Secular and Regular Clergy, should come to Rome for Biblical Study.  All will not come with the same object.  Some, in accordance with the real purpose of the Institute, will so devote themselves to Biblical Study that "afterwards, both in private and in public, whether by writing or by teaching, whether as Professors in Catholic Schools or by writing in defense of Catholic Truth, they may be able worthily to uphold the cause of Biblical Study."  Others, however, already Priests, will obtain here a wider knowledge of the Bible than they were able to acquire during their Theological Course; they will gain, too, an acquaintance with the great Commentators and with Biblical History and Geography.  Such knowledge will avail them much to their Ministry; they will be "instructed to every good work."

VI.   PURPOSE OF BIBLICAL KNOWLEDGE
1.   Spiritial Perfection.   We learn, then, from St. Jerome's example and teaching the qualities required in one who would devote himself to Biblical study.  But what, in his view, is the goal of such study?  First, that from the Bible's pages we learn spiritual perfection.  Meditating as he did day and night on the Law of the Lord and on His Scriptures, Jerome himself found there the "Bread that cometh down from Heaven," the Manna containing all delights.  And we certainly cannot do without that Bread.  How can a Cleric teach others the way of salvation if through neglect of meditation on God's Word he fails to teach himself?  What confidence can he have that, when Ministering to others, he is really "a leader of the blind, a light to them that are in darkness, an instructor of the foolish, having the form of knowledge and of Truth in the Law," if he is unwilling to study the said Law and thus shuts the door of any Divine Illumination on it?
    Alas!  Many of God's Ministers, through never looking at their Bible, perish themselves and allow many others to perish also.   "The children have asked for bread, and there was none to break it to them; (Lam. 4:4.)  and "With desolation is all the land made desolate, for there is none that meditateth in the heart." (Jer. 12:11.)

2.   Defense of Catholic Truth.   Secondly, it is from the Bible that we gather confirmations and illustrations of any particular Doctrine we wish to defend.  In this Jerome was marvelously expert.  When disputing with the heretics of his day he refuted them by singularly apt and weighty arguments drawn from the Bible.  If men of the present age would but imitate him in this we should see realized what Our Predessor.  Leo XIII, in his Encyclical, Providentissimus Deus, said was so eminently desirable:  "The Bible influencing our Theological Teaching and indeed becoming its very soul."
    Lastly, the real value of the Bible is for our preaching -- if the latter is to be fruitful.  On this point it is a pleasure to illustrate from Jerome what we ourselves said in our Encyclical on "preaching the Word of God,"  entitled Humani Generis.   How insistently Jerome urges on Priests assiduous reading of the Bible if they would worthily teach and preach!  Their words will have neither value nor weight nor any power to touch men's souls save in proportion as they are "informed" by Holy Scripture: "Let a Priest's speech be seasoned with the Bible," for "the Scriptures are a trumpet that stirs us with a mighty voice and penetrates to the soul of them that believe," and "nothing so strikes home as an example taken from the Bible."

3.   Rules of Interpretation.   These mainly concern the Exegetes, yet Preachers, too, must always bear them in mind.  Jerome's first Rule is careful study of the actual Words so that we may be perfectly certain what the writer really does say.  He was most careful to consult the Original Text, to compare various Versions, and, if he discovered any mistake in them, to explain it and thus make the Text perfectly clear.  The precise meaning, too, that attaches to particular words has to be worked out, for "when discussing Holy Scripture it is not words we want so much as the meaning of words."  We do not for a moment deny that Jerome, in imitation of Latin and Greek Doctors before him, leaned too much, especially at the outset, towards allegorical interpretations.  But his love of the Bible, his unceasing toil in reading and re-reading it and weighing its meaning, compelled him to an ever-growing appreciation of its literal sense and to the formulation of sound Principles regarding it.  These we set down here, for they mark out a safe path for us if we would discover the Bible's meaning.
    In the first place, then, we must study the literal or historical meaning:
    I earnestly warn the prudent reader not to pay attention to superstitious interpretations such as are given cut and dried according to some interpreter's fancy.  He should study the beginning, middle, and end, and so form a connected idea of the whole of what he finds written.
    Jerome then goes on to say that all interpretation rests on the literal sense, and that we are not to think that there is no literal sense merely because a thing is said metaphorically, for "the history itself is often presented in metaphorical dress and described figuratively."  Indeed, he himself affords the best refutation of those who maintain that he says that certain passages have no historical meaning:  "We are not rejecting the history, we are merely giving a spiritual interpretation of it."  Once, however, he has firmly established the literal or historical meaning, Jerome goes on to seek out deeper and hidden meanings, so as to nourish his mind with more delicate food.  Thus he says of the Book of Proverbs -- and he makes the same remark about other parts of the Bible -- that we must not stop at the simple literal sense:  "Just as we have to seek gold in the earth, for the kernel in the shell, for the chestnut's hidden fruit beneath its hairy coverings, so in Holy Scripture we have to dig deep for its Divine Meaning."
    When teaching Paulinus "how to make true progress in the Bible," he says: "Everything we read in the Sacred Books shines and glitters even in its outer shell; but the marrow if it is sweeter.  If you want the kernel you must break the shell."
    At the same time, he insists that in searching for this deeper meaning we must proceed in due order, "lest in our search for spiritual riches we seem to despise the history as poverty-stricken."  Consequently he repudiates many mystical interpretations alleged by Ancient Writers; for he feels that they are not sufficiently based on the literal meaning:
    When all these promises of which the Prophets sang are regarded not merely as empty sounds or idle tropological expressions, but as established on earth and having solid historical foundations, then, can we put on them the coping-stone of a spiritual interpretation.
    On this point he makes the wise remark that we ought not to desert the path mapped out by Christ and His Apostles, who, while regarding the Old Testament as preparing for and foreshadowing the New Covenant, and whilst consequently explaining various passages in the former as figurative, yet do not give a figurative interpretation of all alike.  In confirmation of this he often refers us to St. Paul, who, when "explaining the mystery of Adam and Eve, did not deny that they were formed, but on that historical basis erected a spiritual interpretation, and said: 'Therefore shall a man leave,' etc."

4.   True Pulpit Oratory.   If only Biblical Students and Preachers would but follow this example of Christ and His Apostles; if they would but obey the directions of Leo XIII, and not neglect "those allegorical or similar explanations which the Fathers have given, especially when these are based on the literal sense, and are supported by weighty Authority"; if they would pass from the literal to the more profound meaning in temperate fashion, and thus lift themselves to a higher plane, they would, with St. Jerome, realize how true are St. Paul's words:  "All Scripture is inspired by God and useful for teaching, for reproving, for correcting, for instructing in justice." (2 Tim. 3:16.)
    They would, too, derive abundant help from the Infinite Treasure of facts and ideas in the Bible, and would thence be able to mold firmly but gently the lives and characters of the faithful.
    As for methods of expounding Holy Scripture -- "for amongst the dispensers of the Mysteries of God it is required that a  man be found faithful" -- St. Jerome lays down that we have got to keep to the "True interpretation, and that the real function of a Commentartor is to set forth not what he himself would like his Author to mean, but what he really does mean."
    And he continues:  "It is dangerous to speak in the Church, lest through some faulty interpretation we make Christ's Gospel into man's Gospel."  And again: "In explaining the Bible we need no florid oratorical composition, but that learned simplicity which is Truth."
    This ideal he ever kept before him; he acknowledges that in his Commentaries he "seeks no praise, but so to set out what another has well said that it may be understood in the sense in which it was said."  He further demands of an Expositor of Scripture a style which, "while leaving no impression of haziness. . . . yet explains things, sets out the meaning, clears up obscurities, and is not mere verbiage."
    And here we may set down some passages from his writings which will serve to show to what an extent he shrank from that declamatory kind of eloquence which simply aims at winning empty applause by an equally empty and noisy flow of words.  He says to Nepotian:
    I do not want you to be a declaimer or a garrulous brawler; rather be skilled in the Mysteries, learned in the Sacraments of God.  To make the populace gape by spinning words and speaking like a whirlwind is only worthy of empty-headed men.
    And once more:
    Students Ordained at this time seem not to think how they may get at the real marrow of Holy Scripture, but how best they may make people's ears tingle by their flowerly declamations!
    Again:
    I prefer to say nothing of men who, like myself, have passed from profane literature to Biblical Study, but who, if they happen once to have caught men's ears by their ornate sermons, straightway begin to fancy that whatsoever they say is God's Law.  Apparently they do not think it worth while to discover what the Prophets and Apostles really meant; they are content to string together texts made to fit the meaning they want.  One would almost fancy that instead of being a degraded species of oratory, it must be a fine thing to pervert the meaning of the Text and compel the reluctant Scripture to yield the meaning one wants!
    "As a matter of fact, mere loquacity would not win any credit unless backed by Scriptural Authority, that is, when men see that the speaker is trying to give his false doctrine Biblical support." (Tit. 1:10.)   Moreover, this garrulous eloquence and wordy rusticity "lacks biting power, has nothing vivid or life-giving in it; it is flaccid, languid and enervated; it is like boiled herbs and grass, which speedily dry up and wither away."
    On the contrary the Gospel teaching is straight forward, it is like that "least of all seeds" -- the mustard seed -- "no mere vegetable, but something that 'grows into a tree so that the birds of the air come and dwell in its branches."  The consequence is that everybody hears gladly this simple and holy fashion of speech, for it is clear and has real beauty without artificiality:
    There are certain eloquent folk who puff out their cheeks and produce a foaming torrent of words; may they win all the eulogiums they crave for!  For myself, I prefer so to speak that I may be intelligible; when I discuss the Bible I prefer the Bible's simplicity. . . . A Cleric's exposition of the Bible should, of course, have a certain becoming eloquence; but he must keep this in the background, for he must have in view the human race and not the leisurely philosophical schools with their choice coterie of disciples.
    If the younger Clergy would but strive to reduce Principles like these to practice, and if their elders would keep such Principles before their eyes, we are well assured that they would prove of very real assistance to those to whom they Minister.

VII.   FRUITS OF BIBLICAL STUDY
1.   The Soul's True Delight.   It only remains for  us, Venerable Brethren, to refer to those "sweet fruits" which Jerome gathered from "the bitter seed" of literature.  For we confidently hope that his example will fire both Clergy and laity with enthusiasm for the Study of the Bible.  It will be better, however, for you to gather from the lips of the Saintly Hermit rather than from Our words what real spiritual delight he found in the Bible and its study.  Notice, then, in what strain he writes to Paulinus, "my companion, friend, and fellow-mystic":  "I beseech you to live amidst these things.  To meditate on them, to know nought else, to have no other interests, this is really a foretaste of the joys of Heaven."
    He says much the same to his pupil Paula:
    Tell me whether you know of anything more Sacred than this Sacred Mystery, anything more delightful than the pleasure found herein?   What food, what honey could be sweeter than to learn of God's Providence, to enter into His Shrine and look into the mind of the Creator, to listen to the Lord's Words at which the wise of this world laugh, but which really are full of spiritual teaching?  Others may have their wealth, may drink out of jeweled cups, be clad in silks, enjoy popular applause, find it impossible to exhaust their wealth by dissipating it in pleasures of all kinds; but our delight is to meditate on the Law of the Lord day and night, to knock at His door when shut, to receive our food from theTrinity of Persons, and, under the guidance of the Lord, trample under foot the swelling tumults of this world.
    And in his Commentary on the Epistle to the Ephesians, which he dedicated to paula and her daughter Eustochium, he says: "If aught could sustain and support a wise man in this life or help him to preserve his equanimity amid the conflicts of the world, it is, I reckon meditation on and knowledge of the Bible."

2.   Zeal for the Cause of Christ.   And so it was with Jerome himself: afflicted with many mental anxieties and bodily pains, he yet ever enjoyed an interior peace.  Nor was this due simply to some idle pleasure he found in such studies: It sprang from love of God and it worked itself out in an earnest love of God's Church -- the Divinely appointed Guardian of God's Word.  For in the Books of both Testaments Jerome saw the Church of God foretold.  Did not practically every one of the illustrious and Sainted women who hold a place of Honor in the Old Testament prefigure the Church, God's Spouse?  Did not the Priesthood, the Sacrifices, the Solemnities, nay, nearly everything described in the Old Testament shadow forth that same Church?  How many Psalms and Prophecies he saw fulfilled in that Church?  To him it was clear that the Church's greatest privileges were set forth by Christ and His Apostles.  Small wonder, then, that growing familiarity with the Bible meant for Jerome growing love of the Spouse of Christ.  We have seen with what reverent yet enthusiastic love he attached himself to the Roman Church and to the See of Peter, how eagerly he attacked those who assailed her.  So when applauding Augustine, his junior yet his fellow-soldier, and rejoicing in the fact that they were one in their hatred of heresy, he hails him with the words:
    Well done!  You are famous trhoughout the world.  Catholics revere you and point you out as the establisher of the old-time Faith; and -- even great Glory -- all heretics hate you.  And they hate me too; unable to slay us with the sword, they would that wishes could kill.
    Suppicius Severus quotes Postuminanus to the same effect:
    His unceasing conflict with wicked men brings on him their hatred.  Heretics hate him, for he never ceases attacking them; Clerics hate him, for he assails their criminal lives.  But all good men admire him and love him.
    And Jerome had to endure much from heretics and abandoned men, especially when the Palagians laid waste the Monastery at Bethlehem.  Yet all this he bore with equanimity, like a man who would not hesitate to die for the Faith:
    I rejoice when I hear that my children are fighting for Christ.  May He in Whom we believe confirm our zeal so that we may gladly shed our blood for His Faith.  Our very home is -- as far as worldly belongings go -- completely ruined by the heretics; yet through Christ's mercy it is filled with spiritual riches.  It is better to have to be content with dry bread than to lose one's Faith.
    And while he never suffered errors to creep in unnoticed, he likewise never failed to lash with biting tongue any looseness in morals, for he was always anxious "to present," unto Christ "the Church in all her Glory, not having spot or wrinkle or any such things, but that she might be Holy and without Blemish." (Eph. 5:27.)  How terribly he upbraids men who have degraded the dignity of the Priesthood; with what vigor he inveighs against the pagan morals then infecting Rome!  But he rightly felt that nothing could better avail to stem this flood of vice than the spectacle afforded by the real beauty of the Christian life; and that a love of what is really good is the best antidote to evil.  Hence he urged that young people must be piously brought up, the married taught a Holy Integrity of life, pure souls have the beauty of Virginity put before them, that the sweet austerity of an interior life should be extolled, and since the Primal Law of Christian Religion was the combination of toil with Charity, that if this could only be preserved human society would recover from its disturbed state.  Of this Charity he says very beautifully:  "The believing soul is Christ's True Temple.  Adorn it, deck it out, offer your gifts to it, in it receive Christ.  Or what profit to have your walls glittering with Jewels while Christ dies of hunger in poverty?"

3.   Love of Christ.   As for toil, his whole life and not merely his writings afford the best example.  Postumianus, who spent six months with him at Bethlehem, says: "He is wholly occupied in reading and with books; he rests neither day nor night; he is always either reading or writing something.  Jerome's love of the Church, too, shines out even in his Commentaries wherein he lets slip no opportunity for praising the Spouse of Christ?
    The choicest things of all the nations have come and the Lord's House is filled with Glory: that is, "the Church of the Living God, the Pillar and the ground of Truth. . . . With Jewels like these is the Church richer than ever was the Synagogue; with these Living Stones is the House of God built up and eternal peace bestowed upon her.
    Come, let us go up to the Mount of the Lord; for we must needs go up if we would come to Christ and to the House of the God of Jacob, to the Church which is "the Pillar and ground of Truth."
    By the Lord's Voice is the Church established upon the Rock, and her hath the King brought into His Chamber, to her by secret condescension hath He put forth His Hand through the lattices.
    Again and again, as in the passages just given, does Jerome celebrate the intimate union between Christ and His Church.  For since the Head can never be separated from the Mystical Body, so too, love of Christ is ever associated with zeal of His Church; and this love of Christ must ever be the chiefest and most agreeable result of a knowledge of Holy Scripture.  So convinced indeed was Jerome that familiarity with the Bible was the royal road to the knowledge and love of Christ that he did not hesitate to say: "Ignorance of the Bible means ignorance of Christ."  And "what other life can there be without knowledge of the Bible wherein Christ, the life of them that believe, is set before us?"  Every single page of either Testament seems to center around Christ; hence Jerome, commenting on the words of theApocalypse about the River and the Tree of Life, says:
    One stream flows out from the Throne of God, and that is the Grace of the Holy Ghost, and that Grace of the Holy Ghost is in the Holy Scriptures, that is in the stream of the Scriptures.  Yet has that stream twin banks, the Old Testament and the New, and the Tree planted on either side is Christ.
    Small wonder, then, if in his devout meditations he applied everything he read in the Bible to Christ:
    When i read the Gospel and find there Testimonies from the Law and from the Prophets, I see only Christ; I so see Moses and the Prophets that I understand them of Christ.  Then when I come to the splendor of Christ Himself, and when I gaze at that Glorious Sunlight, I care not to look at the lamplight.  For what light can a lamp give when lit in the daytime?  If the sun shines out, the lamplight does not show.  Not that I would detract from the Law and the Prophets; rather do I praise them in that they show forth Christ.  But I so read the Law and the Prophets as not to abide in them but from them to pass to Christ.
    Hence was Jerome wondrously uplifted to love for and knowledge of Christ through his study of the Bible in which he discovered the Precious Pearl of the Gospel:  "There is one most priceless Pearl; the knowledge of the Savior, the mystery of His Passion, the secret of His Resurrection."  Burning as he did with the love of Christ, we cannot but marvel that, poor and lowly with Christ, with soul freed from earthly cares, he sought Christ alone, by His Spirit was he led, with Him he lived in closest intimacy, by imitating Him he would bear about the image of His sufferings in himself.  For him nought more glorious than to suffer with and for Christ.  Hence it was that when on Damasus' death he left Rome wounded and weary from evil men's assaults, he wrote just before he embarked:
    Though some fancy me a scoundrel and guilty of every crime -- and, indeed, this a small matter when I think of my sins -- yet you do well when from your soul you reckon evil men good.  Thank God I am deemed worthy to be hated by the world. . . . What real sorrows have I to bear -- I who fight for the Cross?  Men heap false accusations on me; yet I know that through ill report and good report we win the Kingdom of Heaven.
    In like fashion does he exhort the maiden Eustochium to courageous and lifelong toil for Christ's sake:
    To become what the Martyrs, the Apostles, what even Christ Himself was, means immense labor -- but what a reward!. . . . What I have been saying to you will sound hard to one who does not love Christ.  But those who consider worldly pomp a mere offscouring and all under the sun mere nothingness if only they may win Christ, those who are dead with Christ, have risen with Him, have crucified the flesh with its vices and concupiscences -- they will echo the words:  "Who shall separate us from the Charity of Christ?"
    Immense, then, was the profit Jerome derived from reading Scripture; hence came those interior illuminations whereby he was ever more and more drawn to knowledge and love of Christ; hence, too, that love of prayer of which he  has written so well; hence his wonderful familiarity with Christ, whose sweetness drew him so that he ran unfalteringly along the arduous way of the Cross to the palm of victory.  Hence, too, his ardent love for the Holy
Eucharist: "Who is wealthier than he who carries the Lord's Body in his wicker basket, the Lord's Blood in his crystal vessel?"  Hence, too, his love for Christ's Mother, whose Perpetual Virginity  he had so keenly defended, whose title as God's Mother and as the greatest example of all the Virtues he constantly set before Christ's spouses for their imitation.  No one, then, can wonder that Jerome should have been so powerfully drawn to those spots in Palestine which had been Consecrated by the Presence of Our Redeemer and His Mother.  It is easy to recognize the hand of Jerome in the words written from Bethlehem to Marcella by his disciples, Paula and Eustochium:
    What words can serve to describe to you the Savior's Cave?  As for the Manger in which He lay -- well, our silence does it more honor than any poor words of ours. . . . Will the day ever dawn where we can enter His Cave to weep at His Tomb with the sister (of Lazarus) and mourn with His Mother: when we can kiss the Wood of His Cross and, with the ascending Lord on Olivet, be uplifted in mind and spirit?
    Filled with memories such as these, Jerome could, while far away from Rome and leading a life hard for the body but inexpressibly sweet to the soul, cry out:  "Would that Rome had what tiny Bethlehem possesses!"

VIII.    ST. JEROME'S INFLUENCE CONTINUES
    But We rejoice -- and Rome with Us -- that the Saint's desire has been fulfilled, though far otherwise than he hoped for.  For whereas David's Royal City once glorified in the possession of the Relics of "the Greatest Doctor" reposing in the Cave where he dwelt so long, Rome now possesses them, for they lie in St. Mary Major's beside the Lord's Crib.  His voice is now still, though at one time the whole Catholic world listened to it when it echoed from the desert; yet Jerome still speaks in his writings, which "shine like lamps throughout the world."  Jerome still calls to us.  His voice rings out, telling us of the super-excellence of Holy Scripture, of its integral character and historical trustworthiness, telling us, too, of the pleasant fruits resulting from reading and meditating upon it.  His voice summons all the Church's children to return to a truly Christian standard of life, to shake themselves free from a pagan type of morality which seems to have sprung to life again in these days.  His voice calls upon us, and especially on Italian piety and zeal, to restore to the See of Peter Divinely established here that honor and liberty which its Apostolic dignity and duty demand.  The voice of Jerome summons those Christian nations which have unhappily fallen away from Mother Church to turn once more to her in whom lies all hope of eternal salvation.  Would, too, that the Eastern Churches, so long in opposition to the See of Peter, would listen to Jerome's voice.  When he lived in the East and sat at the feet of Gregory and Didymus, he said only what the Christians of the East thought in his time when he declared that "If anyone is outside the Ark of Noe he will perish in the overwheloming flood."  Today this flood seems on the verge of sweeping away all human institutions -- unless God steps in to prevent it.  And surely this calamity must come if men persist in sweeping on one side God the Creator and conserver of all things!  Surely whatever cuts itself off from Christ must perish!  Yet He Who at His Disciples' prayer calmed the raging sea can restore peace to the tottering fabric of society.  May Jerome, who so loved God's Church and so strenuously defended it against its enemies, win for us the removal of every element of discord, in accordance with Christ's prayer, so that there may be "one fold and one Shepherd."
    Delay not, Venerable Brethren, to impart to your people and Clergy what on the Fifteenth Centenary of the death of "the Greatest Doctor" We have here set before you.  Urge upon all not merely to embrace under Jerone's guidance Catholic Doctrine touching the Inspiration of Scripture, but to hold fast to the Principles laid down in the Encyclical Providentissimus Deus, and in this present Encyclical.  Our one desire for all the Church's children is that, being saturated with the Bible, they may arrive at the all surpassing knowledge of Jesus Christ.  In testimony of which desire and of Our Fatherly feeling for you We impart to you and all your flocks the Apostolic Blessing.
    Given at St. Peter's, Rome, September 15, 1920, the seventh year of Our Pontificate.

                                                                                          POPE BENEDICTUS XV

    As Peter was given a new name so does the new Supreme Pontiff become known by another.  After the election he extends his first blessing to the people -- a Benediction which was not given in the open for years until Pope Pius XI established the custom.
    The Coronation, one of the most magnificent of Vatican Ceremonies, takes place shortly after the election.  With the Pope carried high in a golden chair and attended by brilliantly attired chamberlains and soldiers, the Coronation Mass is an unrivaled spectacle of beauty, dignity, and ancient pageantry.  At the Coronation, in the midst of the pomp and splendor, a master of ceremonies recites in Latin:  "Holy Father, thus does the glory of the world pass away."  As the first Cardinal Deacon places the three-crowned Tiara on the head of the Pope, he says:  "Receive the three-crowned Tiara, and know that thou art the Father of Princes and Kings, the Pastor of the earth, and Vicar of Jesus Christ, to Whom be honor and glory forever.  Amen."
    The CORONATION of Pope Pius XII took place on the balcony of St. Peter's in March, 1939.  (From the book "The Vatican and Holy Year" by Stephen S. Fenichell & Phillip Andrews. -- 1950 edition.)

    (Tradition is an equal part [along with the Bible]  of the Authoritative Teaching of the Church -- From the book "The Immaculate Way" by Brian Farrely, S.S.M. -- 1963 edition.)

 The True Answer To World Peace -- qwest site
 Triumph Of Church -- qwest site

 The True Answer To World Peace -- reagan site
 Triumph Of Mary -- reagan site