{"id":29,"date":"2009-09-30T06:23:39","date_gmt":"2009-09-30T06:23:39","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/deaconsbench\/2009\/09\/my-pal-st-jerome.html"},"modified":"2009-09-30T06:23:39","modified_gmt":"2009-09-30T06:23:39","slug":"my-pal-st-jerome","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/deaconsbench\/2009\/09\/my-pal-st-jerome.html","title":{"rendered":"My pal, St. Jerome"},"content":{"rendered":"

Today marks the feast of St. Jerome<\/a>.  <\/p>\n

I have some special affection for this old saint– and an unusual connection to him.  In the 1930s, my father kissed his Slovak mother on the cheek and walked out the door of their ramshackle house near the coal mines of Pennsylvania and joined the Christian Brothers, where he ended up taking the name Brother Jerome.  <\/p>\n

Nearly 70 years later, his son took a pilgrimage to the Holy Land, and I whispered a grateful prayer on my father’s behalf at the rocky tomb of St. Jerome.  <\/p>\n

Two years after that, in a moment that I could never have anticipated, I found myself in a cathedral in Brooklyn, receiving a bible from the hands of a bishop as he welcomed me and dozens of other men beginning aspirancy for the diaconate at Evening Prayer.  It was September 30th, 2002 — the feast of St. Jerome.  <\/p>\n

For some reason, Jerome has figured in my life.   So I’ll just mark this day with a quiet prayer of thanksgiving for whatever role he has played, and ask him to keep me from making too much of a fool of myself as I muddle through my own work with the scriptures and strive in my own way to make others know the Christ.  <\/p>\n

This comes from today’s Office of Readings, and a commentary by St. Jerome: <\/p>\n

I interpret as I should, following the command of Christ: Search the Scriptures,<\/i> and Seek and you shall find.<\/i> Christ will not say to me what he said to the Jews: You erred, not knowing the Scriptures and not knowing the power of God.<\/i>
\nFor if, as Paul says, Christ is the power of God and the wisdom of God,
\nand if the man who does not know Scripture does not know the power and
\nwisdom of God, then ignorance of Scripture is ignorance of Christ.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

You can find out more on St. Jerome here<\/a> and here<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Today marks the feast of St. Jerome.  I have some special affection for this old saint– and an unusual connection to him.  In the 1930s, my father kissed his Slovak mother on the cheek and walked out the door of their ramshackle house near the coal mines of Pennsylvania and joined the Christian Brothers, where…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":204,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-29","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-my-world"],"yoast_head":"\nMy pal, St. Jerome - The Deacon's Bench<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/deaconsbench\/2009\/09\/my-pal-st-jerome.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"My pal, St. Jerome - 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Prior to that, Deacon Greg worked for 26 years as a writer and producer for CBS News, where he contributed to \"The CBS Evening News with Katie Couric,\" \"60 Minutes II,\" \"48 Hours,\" (Emmy Award, Writers Guild of America Award) and \"Sunday Morning.\" He was co-writer for the acclaimed documentary \"9\/11,\" hosted by Robert DeNiro. (Emmy Award, Christopher Award, Peabody Award, Writers Guild of America Award.) His radio essays were featured in the bestselling book \"Deadlines and Datelines\" by Dan Rather. He's also a two-time winner of the Catholic Press Association Award. Other places you may find him: AMERICA, U.S. CATHOLIC, CATHOLIC DIGEST, REALITY (Redemptorist Communications) and THE BROOKLYN TABLET. He also contributes homiletic reflections to the parish resource CONNECT!, published by Liturgical Publications. In November 2009, he began serving a three-year term as a consultant to the Communications Committee of the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB). Deacon Greg grew up in Maryland (Go Terps!) but he and his wife today live in the beautiful borough of Queens, New York. You can contact Deacon Greg at dcngreg@gmail.com.","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/deaconsbench\/author\/gkandra"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/deaconsbench\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/deaconsbench\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/deaconsbench\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/deaconsbench\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/204"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/deaconsbench\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=29"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/deaconsbench\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/deaconsbench\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=29"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/deaconsbench\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=29"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/deaconsbench\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=29"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}