Cardinal on Masaccio s painting Saints Jerome and John the Baptist

Hello and welcome to the National Gallery located in Trafalgar Square in the heart of London I'm here with this magnificent painting created in the 15th century by the Italian artist Masaccio and it depicts Saint Jerome and John the Baptist and we're here at the time of the Feast of Sa Jerome In fact next year will mark the 1 600th anniversary of his passing which is a significant milestone a memorable moment to cherish And I'm here because I want to introduce and invite you to join a new initiative launched by the Bishops of England and Wales for a special e year in which we come to study reflect on and love the scriptures a bit more We're calling e God who speaks and we begin here with Saint Jerome for he is one of the greatest figures the story of the Catholic Church and the Bible He was born in the fourth century began his work in Rome and mastered Greek so he could translate the New Testament into Latin e Greek original He dedicated his life to this task and people often say his work was Inspired they often portray him with angels as if almost dictating to him He lived an ascetic life life he spent a considerable time living in the Syrian desert and worked in a cave in Bethlehem whic You may still visit if you make a pilgrimage to the Holy Land but let's examine this a bit more closely In this painting first and foremost are the two figures: Jerome and John the Baptist with Jerome emphasizing and pointing to the significance of the scriptures for understanding our faith and the person of Jesus John the Baptist of course the one who proclaimed his arrival when he took on our flesh and entered this world In a sense they form a perfect partnership John the Baptist was the herald of Jesus and Jerome was the clarion voice of the scriptural word which is the word of God made flesh in Jesus But consider First of all notice the light in this painting—observe for instance how it falls across the open Bible that Saint Jerome holds which is open to the beginning of the book of Genesis So to say from the very beginning this light of Christ shines throughout the entire Bible a near-constant watermark in the sacred text And the light jus catches the tips of his fingers—the hand that has written the translation and the commentary on the Bible with such divine assistance And then in his other hand we have this mage of the church with the light falling on the doorway saying come in and understand how the life of Christ is revealed in the Scriptures s unfolded in the life of the church and these two go hand in hand— Scripture and the church Saint Augustine always insisted that we not have a Bible unless the church provides it to us And thus they go hand in hand teaching us to enter into and interpret this great gift of God in the Scriptures through the church And the The light flows across the painting to illuminate the figure of John the Baptist who stands there with an unmistakable gesture pointing to the cross—the symbol of Christ And it's as if all of this only makes sense when it is focused directed and productive our relationship with Jesus the Scriptures the church and the saints all point us to the cross of Christ Here we have Jerome depicted as a cardinal though he was never one I am and so there's a slight similarity in how we're dressed here But as I said He was a hermit yet he was given this title I believe in some of the church' s mythology and the surrounding legends that embellished the story of a saint Perhaps in a similar spirit we have the lion forever linked with Saint Jerome—the tale being that when he first entered the desert the lion was already there its paw pierced by a large thorn and Jerome removed the thorn perhaps from that paw there and the lion then became his companion protecting him and staying by his side always And then another small detail we see in the ground here that it's marked with rich flowers and it's a lovely lovely indication for us that when we stand in the ground opened for us by the Scriptures in the church our lives can truly become fruitful we feel this new life we feel the spring within us we sense that our lives can bloom in beauty and in fruitfulness So here it is—a very beautiful image that helps us begin our reflections during this season this year and onward a little way until next December 2020 in our project of The God Who Speaks who speaks to us through the lives of the saints who speaks to us in the life of the church who speaks to us in the Holy Scriptures and who speaks to us most of all in Jesus his only begotten Son