Solemnity of Saint Girolamo
Certosa, Bologna, September 27 2009
1. Dear brothers and sisters, in the first lecture we have heard a big eulogy of Wisdom.
It is compared to all those values for which men have big appreciation: power ('sceptres and thrones'), richness, health. But from this comparison Wisdom turns out as the winner: 'all the gold of the world is a little of sand'.
The Wisdom the Scripture talks about is the same divine light that is communicated to men when they honestly use their reason and when they believe the divine Revelation. God takes care of us, and teaches us both by means of the light of our reason and by means of His Word. This is the divine teaching and the supreme value in front of which any other value 'is a little of sand'.
Dear brothers and sisters, we are celebrating the divine mysterys by keeping solemn memory of Saint Girolamo. He has been a sleepless researcher of the divine Wisdom, abandoning any other research and passion.
Nevertheless about that, Girolamo has a recall and a particular teaching. Where has he looked for Wisdom?
In the second lecture the apostle Paul has told us: 'All the Scripture... is inspired by God and useful for teaching, convincing, correcting and training to justice, so that the man of God is complete and well prepared for every good work.' Girolamo looks for Wisdom in the Holy Scripture: he is the man of Wisdom. His love for it was extraordinary. He has preferred his lecture, his meditation to any other thing. He was deeply convinced that God educates us and gives us His wisdom by means of the Holy Scripture.
As the Apostle has teached us, 'all the Scripture is inspired by God'. It is the Spirit himself who, when we are reading the Scripture with faith, works in our hearts and teaches us.
2. But there is a particular reason for which we are in this place to celebrate the holy Mysterys. We want to glorify the Lord because of the fifty years' presence of the Passionist Fathers in our Church.
Their presence has been at first a precious gift because of their own charisma: to be for the Church a permanent recall to the memory of passion, of the cross of God. And the Church lives on the memory of the death and the resurrection of God.
This reason of our celebration allows us to penetrate more deeply in the Word of God we have listened to by keeping memory of Saint Girolamo. The Apostle Paul helps us again.
While writing to the Christians of Corinto, he asserts that Christ is the Wisdom of God (1Cor 1,26); while writing to the Christians of Colossi, he says that 'all the treasures of wisdom and of science are hidden' in Christ (Col 2,3).
Dear brothers and sisters, this is the main point of our faith: Christ Jesus God who lives in His Church and the meeting with Him by means of faith and Sacraments.
We read the Scripture because we learn to know Jesus through it. By the acquaintance with the Holy Scripture we learn 'the sublime science of Jesus Christ' (Fil 3,8). Saint Girolamo warns us: 'The ignorance of the Scripture is ignorance of Christ'. The book where we learn the divine wisdom is the Holy Scripture, because it talks only about Christ after all.
We thank God for giving us the presence of passionist fathers. They continuously remind us that Christ crucified is 'power and Wisdom of God'.
La traduzione, non rivista dal Cardinale Caffarra, è di Stefania Floridia.
| 
english version 
