Saint Jerome, priest and doctor of the Church, translator of the Scriptures into Latin, is remembered on this Wednesday of the twenty-sixth week in Ordinary Time. We want to follow Christ, and yet something in us keeps turning round from the furrow, asking first for a roof, a delay and a farewell. The readings take us through that hesitation: from Job in the dark to three short conversations on the road.
And it happened that, while they were walking along the way, someone said to him, "I will follow you wherever you will go." Jesus said to him, "Foxes have dens, and birds of the air have nests. But the Son of man has nowhere to lay his head." Then he said to another, "Follow me." But he said, "Lord, permit me first to go and bury my father." And Jesus said to him: "Let the dead bury their dead. But you go and announce the kingdom of God." And another said: "I will follow you, Lord. But first permit me to take leave of those who are at my house." Jesus said to him, "No one who puts his hand to the plow and then looks back is fit for the kingdom of God." (Lk 9:57-62)
The first reading gives the word to Job, the just man of the land of Uz. His friends have just explained his suffering a little too well, and he does not answer them with a quarrel. He does not contest the greatness of God; rather, he accepts it so completely that it becomes the source of his distress: "man, compared to God, is not justified" (Jb 9:2). The admission is not resignation, but the opening of the question the whole book will carry. How can a man speak before his Maker?
Job then describes a God who passes close by without being seen. That nearness brings him no light, and he says plainly, "If he comes to me, I will not see him". This is the night of the believer who has not stopped believing and still waits when nothing answers. But Job does not turn away from that night; rather than plead his innocence, he resolves, "I will petition my judge" (Jb 9:15). The furrow of his faith runs on in the dark.
The psalm of the day is among the darkest prayers of the Psalter. It ends without a single word of relief, and its voice comes from a man already counted among the dead. He is numbered with those who go down to the pit, and his friends have forgotten him. But from the depth of that place the prayer keeps rising, "Let my prayer enter into your sight". Where every support has given way, that turning toward God is already faith.
Saint Luke, the evangelist of the journey, places this scene just after Jesus has set his face toward Jerusalem. On the road a man comes forward with a generous promise to follow him wherever he goes. Jesus does not send him away, but tells him plainly where that road leads. The answer names the cost: "the Son of man has nowhere to lay his head" (Lk 9:58). The foxes and the birds have shelter, and the one who follows Christ has none.
To a second man Jesus says "Follow me", and the man asks first to bury his father. The request is the most legitimate of all, and the answer sounds severe, "Let the dead bury their dead". Jesus is not despising the love of a son for his father, but he is placing the kingdom first. The announcement of life takes precedence over the care of what is already finished. The one who is called is sent to proclaim it.
A third man asks first to take leave of those at his house. It is to him that Jesus gives the image of the day, the hand set on the plow. "No one who puts his hand to the plow and then looks back is fit for the kingdom of God" (Lk 9:62). A plowman who turns his head draws a crooked line, because the hand always follows the eyes. Following Christ is not a single decision, but a furrow kept straight to the end of the field.
Nothing in Bethlehem was arranged for the birth of a king. There was no place at the inn, and the Child was laid in a stable that belonged to someone else. The Son of man with nowhere to lay his head is that same Child, grown and on the road. God begins where there is no room, and he asks his own to follow him on those terms. Saint Jerome, translator of the Scriptures into Latin, kept his hand on the sacred text in Bethlehem for more than thirty years.
So the Gospel asks us to follow without guaranteed shelter. It asks us to stop setting conditions before we answer the call. It invites us to look at what we keep turning back to, in our families, in our work and in our prayer. But it also asks us to let the Lord straighten the line himself. What he asks is not a heroic gesture, but an inward fidelity renewed each morning.
Like Job in the dark, we will not always see the one who walks beside us. Some days the field will seem endless. But the furrow is not ours to measure; it is ours to keep straight. Let us put our hand to the plow again this morning. Let us fix our eyes on the one who goes ahead of us towards Jerusalem.
Scripture text: Catholic Public Domain Version (CPDV), public domain.
Prayer of the Day
Lord Jesus, at Bethlehem there was no room for you, and on the road to Jerusalem you had nowhere to lay your head. Give us the courage to follow you without first asking for a roof. When we are tempted to look back, fix our eyes on the furrow ahead. With Saint Jerome, keep our hands on your word, in darkness and in light, until the field is finished. Amen.
For Meditation
- What are we still asking to settle first before we follow the Lord?
- Towards what do we keep turning our heads while our hand is on the plow?
- Can we, like Job, keep praying when God passes by and we do not see him?
