One Minute Reflection – 20 July – “The Memorial of St Jerome Emiliani (1486–1537) Confessor – Isaias 58:7-11, Matthew 19:13-21
“If you would be perfect, go, sell what you possess and give to the poor and you will have treasure in heaven.” – Matthew 19:21
REFLECTION – “After his parents’ death … when Anthony was about eighteen or even twenty years old …) he went into the Church when it happened that the Gospel was being read,and he heard the Lord saying to the rich man: “If you would be perfect, go, sell what you possess and give to the poor and you will have treasure in heaven.” It was as if the passage were read on his account. Immediately Antony went out from the Lord’s house and gave to the townspeople the possessions he had from his forebears. And selling all the rest that was portable, when he collected sufficient money, he donated it to the poor, keeping a few things for his sister.
But when, entering the Lord’s house once more, he heard in the Gospel the Lord saying, “Do not be anxious about tomorrow” (Mt 6:34), he could not remain any longer but going out he gave those remaining possessions also to the needy. Placing his sister in the charge of respected and trusted virgins, and giving her over to the convent for rearing, he devoted himself from then on to the discipline rather than the household, giving heed to himself and patiently training himself ….
He worked with his hands, though, having heard that “he who is idle, let him not eat” (2 Thess 3:10). And he spent what he made partly for bread and partly on those in need. He prayed constantly, since he learned that it is necessary to “pray unceasingly” (Lk 21:36) in private. For he paid such close attention to what was read that nothing from Scripture did he fail to take in, rather, he grasped everything and in him the memory took the place of books. … All those then, who were from his village and those good people with whom he associated, seeing him living thus, used to call him ‘God-loved‘, and some hailed him as ‘son‘, some as ‘brother‘.” – St Athanasius (297-373) Bishop of Alexandria, Father and Doctor of the Church – Life of Saint Anthony, the Father of Monks, 2-4
PRAYER – O God, the Father of mercies, by the merits and intercession of St Jerome, whom Thou willed to be the helper and father of orphans, grant that we may faithfully guard the spirit of adoption which makes us Thy sons both in name and reality.Through Jesus Christ, Thy Son our Lord, Who lives and reigns with Thee, in the unity of the Holy Ghost, God, world without end. Amen (Collect).
AnaStpaul 