All Scripture is inspired by God and useful for refuting error, for guiding people’s lives, and for teaching them to be upright. St. Jerome whose memory the Church honors today was a devoted monk and ascetic who is most famous for writing numerous commentaries on the Scripture, and for authoring the Latin (Vulgate) translation of the Bible. The Vulgate was adopted by the Church as the official version. St. Jerome is one of the four great doctors of the Latin Church and is the patron of Scripture scholars.
When Pope Damasus commissioned St. Jerome to revise the Latin texts of the books of the Bible, he (Pope) must have been impressed by Jerome’s love and devotion to the Scriptures. To Jerome, the Scriptures were more than a collection of stories of God’s interaction with creation. The Scriptures are indispensable for anyone who wants to remain in a relationship with God. He regarded the Scriptures as the pathway to the knowledge of Christ:  “Ignorance of Scripture is ignorance of Christ,” asserted Jerome. As a disciple, he saw the Scriptures as the only means of intimately knowing Christ. Without an intimate knowledge of Christ, a disciple’s efforts to become united with him becomes futile.
In the First Reading, St. Paul offers the Scriptures to Timothy as one of the two sources (the other being St. Paul’s own example) from which Timothy can draw to help him remain steadfast in his fidelity to the Gospel in spite of opposition and suffering. As the living Word of God, sacred Scripture is indispensable for a disciple who intends to remain faithful in his/her relationship with Jesus Christ. As the “story” of God’s relational journey with creation, Sacred Scripture contains “all the solutions” to the issues that a disciple might have to grapple with in the course of his/her discipleship. Through the intercession of St. Jerome, may we too find in the Scriptures our means of not only coming to the knowledge of God but also remaining in a relationship with God.