St. Jerome was one of the Patristic “Fathers of the Church.” He centered his life on the Bible: he translated it in its entirety into Latin, commented on it in his works, and above all, strove to live it in practice. His dedication to the Bible and his desire to live God’s Word with integrity filled his long earthly life, despite his well-known difficult (and hot-tempered) character.
Pope Benedict XVI wrote: “What can we learn from St Jerome? It seems to me, this above all; to love the Word of God in Sacred Scripture. St Jerome said: ‘Ignorance of the Scriptures is ignorance of Christ.’ It is therefore important that every Christian live in contact and in personal dialogue with the Word of God given to us in Sacred Scripture. This dialogue with Scripture must always have two dimensions: on the one hand, it must be a truly personal dialogue because God speaks with each one of us through Sacred Scripture and it has a message for each one. We must not read the Word as a word of the past but as the Word of God that is also addressed to us, and we must try to understand what it is that the Lord wants to tell us. However, there is a second dimension: to avoid falling into individualism, we must bear in mind that the Word of God has been given to us precisely in order to build communion and to join forces in the truth on our journey towards God. Thus, although it is always a personal Word, it is also a Word that builds community, that builds the Church. We must therefore read it in communion with the living Church.”
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Much more on St. Jerome: https://www.stjeromeonline.org/history-of-st-jerome.html
