My portion and cup

“You are my portion and cup.”

Letter LII, To Nepotian

In this letter, St. Jerome writes that the role of the clergy is to serve the Lord. What does that look like? Hospitality to strangers. He pleads and admonishes: understand the difference between the military and the wealthy on one hand, and the clergy on the other hand. Specifically, welcome strangers as Christ. (In our time, of course, Catholics pay much more attention to the “priesthood of the laity.” All of us, not just the clergy, are called to share to some degree in this precious portion and cup.)

In 394, Jerome wrote to a man who had left a military life and become a priest. He begins with a brief meditation on what is means: “You are my portion and lot.” After Moses led the Israelites out of Egypt, the House of Israel was divided into 13 tribes, the descendants of the 12 sons of Israel with Joseph getting a double portion. The tribes of Ephraim and Manasseh are the descendants of Joseph’s two sons. But then the portions of the land and goods to be divided were split up 12 ways. The descendants of Levi were not to be landowners, because their lot and portion was the Lord himself. The Levites were to serve the Lord, and when the other Israelites presented offerings to God – an ox or sheep, grain or wine – a portion of the offering went to the Levites. (See Dt 10:9, Nm 18:20). Psalm 16 celebrates the portion given to the Levites, or priests: “LORD, my allotted portion and my cup, you have made my destiny secure. Pleasant places were measured out for me; fair to me indeed is my inheritance.” There’s a startling and beautiful flip side of these allotments: the Lord too get an allotment, and his share of the world’s wealth is his people, the people of Israel.

In his letter to Nepotian, Jerome starts with the portion allotted to the priests (of the Old and now the Testament), and offers a treatise on the duties and life of the clergy. “The Lord Himself is their lot and portion. Now, he who in his own person is the Lord's portion, or has the Lord for his portion, must so bear himself as to possess the Lord and to be possessed by Him. He who possesses the Lord, and who says with the prophet, “The Lord is my portion,” can hold to nothing beside the Lord. For if he hold to something beside the Lord, the Lord will not be his portion. Suppose, for instance, that he holds to gold or silver, or possessions or inlaid furniture; with such portions as these, the Lord will not deign to be his portion. I, if I am the portion of the Lord, and the line of his heritage, receive no portion among the remaining tribes; but, like the Priest and the Levite, I live on the tithe. Serving the altar, I am supported by its offerings. Having food and raiment, I shall be content with these, and as a disciple of the Cross shall share its poverty.”

Jerome continues, pleading pointedly to distinguish between a military life and the life of the clergy: “I beseech you, therefore, and again and yet again admonish you: do not look to your military experience for a standard of clerical obligation. Under Christ's banner seek for no worldly gain, lest having more than when you first became a clergyman, you hear men say, to your shame, ‘Their portion shall not profit them.’ Welcome poor men and strangers to your homely board, that with them Christ may be your guest.”

Jerome adds a caution about mixing wealth with your service. “A clergyman who engages in business, and who rises from poverty to wealth, and from obscurity to a high position – avoid him as you would the plague. For ‘evil communications corrupt good manners.’ You despise gold; he loves it. You spurn wealth; he eagerly pursues it. You love silence, meekness, privacy; he takes delight in talking and effrontery, in squares, and streets, and apothecaries' shops. What unity of feeling can there be where there is so wide a divergence of manners?”

So what does it look like if God himself is your portion? Your guests are the poor and strangers, and with them Christ is your guest.

(The letter to Nepotian is from the Philip Schaff’s compilation in A Select Library of the Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers of the Christian Church.)