The Call of the Society
Our Holy Father Jerome dedicated his life to prayer, the sacraments, the study of scripture, theological exposition, and spiritual formation in the hermitic tradition. The Society of St. Jerome is informed and inspired by the life and witness of this great saint as we seek to live this Hieronymitic charism in our contemporary age. Like St. Jerome, we strive to “translate” the Good News in ways that speak to our communities and our culture. It is our hope that following in St. Jerome’s footsteps, we too will build up the Kingdom of God and further the mission of the Church through personal and communal prayer, immersion in the sacramental life of the Church, the prayerful study of sacred scripture, sound theological dialogue and exposition, and engaged contemplation in the desert places within and all round us.
A Life of Prayer
To be a member of the Society of St. Jerome is to be devoted to developing a life of constant prayer built upon an intentional recitation of the Liturgy of the Hours. Members of the Society strive to pray Lauds, the Office of Readings, Midday prayer, Vespers, and Compline daily. Whenever possible, we gather to say Lauds and Vespers in community. We also invite others to join us on this journey of prayer.
If the fivefold recitation of the Liturgy of the Hours is a burden due to one’s work and family commitments, a member of the Society may pray Lauds, Vespers, and a bedtime rosary to fulfill their obligation for daily prayer. Additionally, members of the Society may abstain from reciting the Liturgy of the Hours while on vacation and one day per week as a “Prayer Sabbath” to allow for a time of rest, renewal, and recreation.
Finally, opening our minds and hearts to God need not be limited to the schedules and schemas of liturgical prayer. Members of the Society should also pray extemporaneously throughout the day and engage in Lectio Divina at least weekly. Members are also encouraged to develop a contemplative prayer practice focused on listening for the still small voice that speaks within us that we might discern the movement of the Holy Spirit in our lives and in the world around us.
A Sacramental Life
The sacraments are the source and summit of Catholic life and the beating heart of the Society of St. Jerome. The grace that flows through these sacraments animates the Body of Christ and enables the members of the Society to share in the ministry of the Church Catholic as it is flows from the person, work, and teachings of Jesus. The sacraments are also a means by which we are filled with the life-giving power of the Holy Spirit who draws us into ever greater union with the divine life of the Holy Trinity in whom we live and move and have our being.
All members of the Society of St. Jerome are baptized and confirmed Catholics who are active and intentional in practicing their faith. Members of the Society are expected to attend mass on all Sundays and Holy Days of Obligation, and other major feasts and fasts as specified in our Ordo. Additionally, members should partake in the Sacrament of Reconciliation a minimum of four times per year. The Society of St. Jerome also engages in a time of communal penance and reconciliation during the seasons of Advent and Lent.
The Society of St. Jerome is also an ordaining body that raises its members up for ordination to the minor and major orders through the laying on of hands by our Bishop Protector. Our Bishop Protector has verifiable lines of Apostolic Succession and remains faithful to the Apostolic Tradition as articulated by the seven Ecumenical Councils of the undivided Church. Members of the Society may discern for Holy Orders with the Parish Church of St. Jerome according to its established policies and procedures. The Society of St. Jerome unapologetically and enthusiastically raises single and married women, men, non-binary, gender nonconforming, and trans persons up for commissioned and ordained ministry in Christ’s One, Holy, Catholic, and Apostolic Church.
A Faithful Life Seeking Understanding
Members of the Society of St. Jerome engage in ministry in a variety of parochial and non-parochial contexts in the church and in the world. We are pastors, teachers, administrators, and chaplains. We work in social services, banking and finance, information technology, and the arts. Our varied professions are unique expressions of a shared Hieronymitic vocation that seeks to translate the Good News into the language of the people we serve in our kinship circles, our parishes, our classrooms, our workplaces, and our wider culture.
This vocational charism finds particular expression in the teaching ministry of the Society of St. Jerome. Not only do we require lifelong theological and spiritual formation for all of our members, our educational outreach initiatives strive to inspire individuals to live their Catholic faith while empowering inclusive Catholic communities with affordable “well-rounded and well-grounded" ministerial formation programs focused on life and ministry within our varied contexts.
The Society of St. Jerome strives to enrich the Independent and Old Catholic movements through exemplary scholarship and praxis-based pedagogy focused on spiritual formation, theological fidelity, scriptural conversance, sacramental and liturgical competency, ministerial ethics, pastoral care, administrative leadership, and congregational development. While there is no substitute for a seminary education in a residential community, the Society of St. Jerome endeavors to provide stellar educational programs and resources for those who cannot pursue traditional avenues for theological education and vocational formation.
Life in the Desert
Our Holy Father Jerome embraced a scholarly monastic life following his conversion to Christianity. His monastic vocation was to be short-lived, however. A great plague swept through St. Jerome’s monastic community taking the lives of many of his closest companions. After a prolonged time of grief and illness, St. Jerome left the monastery and entered the Chalcis desert southwest of Antioch where he embraced the solitary life of a hermit, spending his days in prayer and study.
At the persistent prompting of the community that formed around him and the insistence of the ecclesial authorities that ruled the region, St. Jerome reluctantly emerged from the desert several years later and was ordained to the priesthood. While St. Jerome left the desert and embraced a far-reaching apostolate in the influential urban centers across Christendom, the solitary asceticism of the desert dominated his theo-spiritual landscape until his death. Though he left the desert, the desert never left him. St. Jerome took the desert with him wherever he went.
The Society of St. Jerome hears the call of the desert. We heed the call to enter the desert places deep within us and all around us. We do not live in community as some religious communities do, but rather have embraced an adapted hermitic life in our solitary dwellings and in our family homes. Like St. Jerome, we take our cell with us wherever we go making a hermitage of our varied contexts and circumstances. We follow St. Jerome into the desert daily - in times of prayerful silence - in seasons of spiritual dryness and isolation - in the sufferings and sacrifices small and great that bring us face to face with the Christ who died for us so that we may be raised to new and abundant life in him.
Members of the Society of St. Jerome also seek out the desert places that exist all around us. We are drawn to families and peoples that lay beyond the reaches of other communities and communions. We charge headlong into places that have gone arid due to decades, even centuries of neglect. We seek out those who have fled to the dry margins of our culture for safety from abuse and oppression. We journey ceaselessly to and with all those who cry out in thirst for the Water of Life. We follow St. Jerome into the desert just as we follow Christ to the margins, trusting that it is He who bids us “Come and follow me.”
