Jerome and Therese: the Vocation to Holiness

I'm a big fan of fall. The trees change color, the weather gets cooler and crisper, and football season returns, albeit with sometimes unhappy results. (Am I right, Hog fans?)

In the liturgical year, I find that fall also brings the feast days of many of my favorite saints, including St. Francis of Assisi (October 4), the North American Martyrs (October 19), St. Albert the Great (November 15), and St. Andrew the Apostle (November 30). Two of the most interesting saints of this season have their feast days back to back: St. Jerome on September 30 and St. Therese of the Child Jesus on October 1. I always find it fascinating that these two saints are found next to each other on the calendar, because you probably could not find two saints who were more different.

 Caravaggio, St. Jerome Writing (c. 1605)

St. Jerome was a 4th century scholar and priest, known principally to the wider world for his masterful translation of the Septuagint and the Greek New Testament into Latin, which we call the Vulgate. He's the patron saint of archaeologists, Biblical scholars and students. Disillusioned by the opulence and temptations of Rome, he became a hermit and lived in a cave in Bethlehem near where Christ was born. He was also a bit of a curmudgeon, know for his brusque temperament and famous arguments with leading contemporaries of his day, including other saints. His wrote extensively, commenting on the Scriptures and warning of the dangers of the modern world (i.e. in the 4th century), and is honored as both a Church Father and a Doctor of the Church.

St. Therese, in contrast, was a young woman from rural France who lived, to eyes of the world, a fairly unremarkable life. At 15, she entered the Carmelite convent in Lisieux and served her community in various capacities. At 24, she died of tuberculosis. However, the plainness of Therese's external life concealed the amazing richness of a deep interior spirituality. Her desire to love profoundly, especially through sacrifice and simplicity of life, gave rise to "the little way" of holiness, which has inspired millions. She is arguably the most popular saint of the last two centuries, and in 1997, was named only the 33rd Doctor of the Church.

Photograph of Therese in the summer of 1896

What can we learn from these two great saints? They were very different in nearly every way, except one: they chose to prefer the love of Christ to everything else. The proximity of the feast days of Jerome and Therese on the Church's calendar reminds us that there is not just one way to holiness. Whether scholarly or simplistic, passionate or mystical, curmudgeonly or compassionate, all of us without exception are called to holiness. This necessarily entails suffering, because through suffering, we are able to be purified of what keeps us far from God, and so grow closer to him. Jerome and Therese both suffered greatly in their lives, in very different ways; but rather shirk from these sufferings, they saw them as the primary way they were being prepared for heaven.

The vastly different lives of Jerome and Therese remind us that the Body of Christ has room for every kind of background, personality, and talent, if we use them for a singular purpose: to glorify God and love our fellow man. I have had the fortune to visit both the small town in France where Therese is interred and the cave in Bethlehem where Jerome wrote. I continue to draw great inspiration from both of them, and I ask them for their intercession to help me to live a life of holiness. We are all called to holiness: something that is never outdated, never impossible, and -- true enough -- never easy. But it is what our Lord calls us to, and it is very much worth it.