The Feast of St Jerome | Friday 30 September 2022

Today is Friday the 30th of September, the feast of St Jerome, in the 26th week of Ordinary time.


Salt of the Sound sings, ‘Your Ways’. As you enter into prayer today, you might like to take a moment to pause, and enter into the deep mystery of God, whose ways are higher than ours.

And after all I lay me down
My broken pieces at the mercy of your hand
And still my soul waits for you
Longing, hoping, just to go deeper still
When your ways
Your ways
Your ways
Your ways are higher
Your ways are higher


Today’s reading is from the book of Job.

Job 38:1;12-21; 40:3-5

Then the LORD answered Job out of the whirlwind:
‘Have you commanded the morning since your days began,
and caused the dawn to know its place,
so that it might take hold of the skirts of the earth,
and the wicked be shaken out of it?
It is changed like clay under the seal,
and it is dyed like a garment.
Light is withheld from the wicked,
and their uplifted arm is broken.
‘Have you entered into the springs of the sea,
or walked in the recesses of the deep?
Have the gates of death been revealed to you,
or have you seen the gates of deep darkness?
Have you comprehended the expanse of the earth?
Declare, if you know all this.
‘Where is the way to the dwelling of light,
and where is the place of darkness,
that you may take it to its territory
and that you may discern the paths to its home?
Surely you know, for you were born then,
and the number of your days is great!

Then Job answered the LORD:
‘See, I am of small account; what shall I answer you?
I lay my hand on my mouth.
I have spoken once, and I will not answer;
twice, but will proceed no further.’

Today is the feast day of St Jerome, a learned man, quick to anger and equally quick to remorse, a man who, himself, walked a very crooked path to faith. A very human, human being. Take a moment to consider your own human-ness and to come before the Lord with an open heart.

Our passage today is quite a way into the Book of Job and just about everyone has had an opinion on the reason for the tragedy that has entered Job’s life. Does it help to listen to the advice of others, when peace of mind can only come from God?

At last, God arrives to remind Job that he has no way of knowing the mind of God. Everything that is revealed to him is beyond his understanding.

As you listen to the passage again, sense the true awe and wonder of all that the Lord calls into being.

“See, I am of small account; what shall I answer you?” Job responds with humility and desire to wait on the Lord. In a time of prayer, offer this same willingness to be guided by a God full of love and compassion.


Glory be to the Father and to the Son and to the Holy Spirit. As it was in the beginning, is now and ever shall be, world without end. Amen.