Tuesday, June 16 : Saint Jerome

“So then, while we have the opportunity, let us do good to all, but especially to those who belong to the family of the faith” (Gal 6:10). This present time, the time during which the course of our life runs, is the time of sowing. During this life we can sow whatever we wish. When this life has run its course the time of activity will be taken away. That is why our Savior says: “Work while it is day. Night is coming when no one can work” (Jn 9:4). Whether we are sick or well, of low or high degree, poor or rich, starving or well fed, let us do everything patiently in the name of the Lord with equanimity of soul. Then the words of Scripture will be accomplished in us: “All things work for good for those who love God” (Rom 8:28). Even anger, passion, insults that cry out for revenge, become so many occasions of victory for me if I master myself, if I maintain silence for God’s sake, if, through each wounding sting and under the pressure of vice, I think of God looking at me from on high. When we distribute gifts don’t let us say: this one is a friend, that one I don’t know, this one deserves to receive, that one should be overlooked. Let us imitate our Father “who makes his sun rise on the bad and the good and causes rain to fall on the just and the unjust” (Mt 5:45). The source of his bounty is open to all. Slave and free, commoner and king, rich and poor, all drink freely from it. The lighted lamp in the house gives light to all without distinction. At the end of his life, when he could no longer express his thoughts in an extended narrative, Saint John the Evangelist only had this word to offer: “My little children, love one another” (cf. Jn 13:34). In the end his disciples said to him: “Master, why are you always telling us this?” John replied with this statement worthy of himself: “Because this is the teaching of the Lord; only fulfil it and that is enough.”

Roman Catholic Ordinary Calendar – rosary,team