Welcome to our daily rosary meditation. Let's begin in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit.

Amen. Let's call to mind all those we've promised to pray for. Today is the feast of St. Jerome.

Now Jerome did not start out as saint. None of them ever do. Now he lived from 347 to 420. and he was baptized and became a Christian at the age of 19.

And as a young man, he had a hunger for knowledge, and he dedicated himself to learning languages, Latin, Greek, and then Hebrew.

But most of all, he loved reading the Roman and Greek philosophers,

such as Cicero, to which he devoted all his leisure time. One time, however, on his way to Jerusalem

to study Hebrew, Jerome became gravely ill and fell into a coma. In this state, God gave him a vision

of what his judgment would be like at the moment of his death. Of this, Jerome writes,

suddenly I was caught up in the spirit and dragged before the judgment seat of God,

and here the light was so bright, and those who stood around were so radiant that I cast myself upon the ground and did not dare to move.

Then the judge asked who I was, and I replied,

I am a Christian. But the judge presiding over me said, you lie. You are a follower of Cicero and not of

Christ.

At that moment, his soul came back to his body, and when he arose, he shared with those

around him the vision.

And from that day forward, he read the Gospels more than he read anything else.

Now, I think we're kind of like Jerome.

Think how much time and energy and attention we give to reading and watching news, social media, sports, political and sports analysts, and how little time in comparison

to reading and thinking about the life of Jesus in the gospel.

At our particular judgment, will Christ declare that we follow him based on how we use our leisure time?

That's a tough question.

Our Father who art in heaven, hallow it be your name.

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