{"id":10699,"date":"2015-08-14T05:00:25","date_gmt":"2015-08-14T04:00:25","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/vultuschristi.org\/?p=10699"},"modified":"2015-08-11T10:33:47","modified_gmt":"2015-08-11T09:33:47","slug":"to-rejoice-in-our-study-and-our-work","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/vultuschristi.org\/index.php\/2015\/08\/to-rejoice-in-our-study-and-our-work\/","title":{"rendered":"To rejoice in our study and our work"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"GHIRLANDAIO_Domenico_St_Jerome_In_His_Study\"Friday in the II Week of August<\/em><\/p>\n

From the Commentary on Ecclesiastes by St Jerome, Priest & Doctor of the Church<\/strong><\/p>\n

\u201cAny man to whom God gives riches and property, and grants power to partake of them, so that he receives his lot and finds joy in the fruits of his toil, has a gift from God.\u00a0 For he will hardly dwell on the shortness of his life, because God lets him busy himself with the joy of his heart.\u201d\u00a0 In comparison with the man who feeds himself on a diet of dark preoccupations and with notable tedium for life brings with him wherever he goes things which will lead to ruin, Ecclesiastes affirms that that man is better who uses the things before him.\u00a0 For the use of the latter will impart a little delight; whereas there is only great anguish in the concern for the former.\u00a0 And he lists the reasons for which it is a gift of God to be able to enjoy riches.\u00a0 \u201cFor he will hardly dwell on the shortness of his life.\u201d<\/p>\n

God will certainly distract him in the joy of his heart: he will not be in sadness, he will not be tormented by apprehension, distracted as he is by present joy and pleasure.\u00a0 But according to the Apostle it is better to understand the spiritual food and drink given by God to discern the good in every work of one\u2019s own, because it is by means of a very great labour and application that we can contemplate the true goods.\u00a0 And our reward is to be able to rejoice in our study and our work.\u00a0 That which can also be good is not completely good, however, until Christ has been manifested in our life.\u00a0 \u201cAll man\u2019s toil is for his mouth, yet his desire is not fulfilled.\u00a0 For what advantage has a wise man over the fool, or what advantage has the poor man in knowing how to conduct himself in life?\u201d\u00a0 Everything that men produce by working in this world is consumed by the mouth and, after being chewed by the teeth, is consigned to the stomach to be digested.\u00a0 And after giving delight to the throat for a while, it appears to give greater pleasure to the extent that it is held in the jaws.<\/p>\n

And after all this, the soul of the person who eats is not satisfied: either because he desires once again what he has eaten, and without food neither the wise man nor the fool can live, and the poor man does not seek anything else but how he can feed his little stomach so that he may not die of starvation; or because the soul receives nothing useful from the restoration of the body, since food is common both to the wise man and to the fool, and the poor man goes wherever he sees resources.\u00a0 It is better instead to take this as the thought of Ecclesiastes, namely, that the person who is learned in the heavenly Scriptures does every work for his mouth, yet his desire is not fulfilled insofar as he continuously seeks to learn.\u00a0 And in this the wise man has an advantage over the fool: because when he discovers that he is poor \u2014 that poor man who is declared blest by the Gospel \u2014 he hastens to acquire those goods that form part of life and to tread the straight and narrow path that leads to life, and he is poor in evil deeds, and knows where Christ, who is life, resides.<\/p>\n

Responsory<\/strong>.\u00a0 My spirit || is sweet above honey, and my inheritance above honey and the honeycomb. * They that eat me, shall yet hunger: and they that drink me, shall yet thirst.\u00a0 V. Blessed are they that hunger and thirst after justice. * They that \u2026 Glory be \u2026 They that \u2026<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Friday in the II Week of August From the Commentary on Ecclesiastes by St Jerome, Priest & Doctor of the Church \u201cAny man to whom God gives riches and property, and grants power to partake of them, so that he receives his lot and finds joy in the fruits of his toil, has a gift <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"advanced_seo_description":"","jetpack_seo_html_title":"","jetpack_seo_noindex":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[178],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-10699","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-florilegium-patristicum"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/paVypq-2Mz","jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/vultuschristi.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10699"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/vultuschristi.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/vultuschristi.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vultuschristi.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vultuschristi.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=10699"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/vultuschristi.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10699\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":10701,"href":"https:\/\/vultuschristi.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10699\/revisions\/10701"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/vultuschristi.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=10699"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vultuschristi.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=10699"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vultuschristi.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=10699"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}