Jerome (347-420) had a really bad temper. I don’t normally focus on people’s flaws in this prayer exercise but I’m making an exception here. Each of us has a particular sin pattern based on temperament, family background, and cultural influences. One writer calls it our “signature sin.” Jerome’s signature sin was anger. He didn’t mince words and lashed out at people with his vitriolic pen. He mocked fellow clergy for their lack of charity in mock adaptation of Acts 3.6, “I have not faith and mercy, but such as I have, silver and gold–that I don’t give to you either.”
Jerome recognized anger as a lethal problem in his life and spent two years in the desert trying to bring it under control. He carried a stone around with him to hit himself whenever he lost his temper. He prayed all his life to be released from the grip of anger, which he called “the door by which all vices enter the soul.”
I mention Jerome’s struggle with anger to remind us that God uses flawed people to fulfill the mission. Jerome’s enduring contribution was translating the Hebrew Old Testament and the Greek New Testament into everyday Latin. We call it Vulgate, a word meaning common. It served as the church’s standard Bible for a thousand years until the 16th century King James Bible came into existence.
Jerome’s prayer is a fitting way to ask God’s mercy in combating our signature sins: