from "St. Jerome's Letter to his friend Paula's daughter Eustochium"

.... Avoid with special care the traps set for you by a desire for vainglory. Jesus says, "How can ye believe, who receive glory one from another?"

....When you are giving alms, let God alone see you. When you are fasting keep a cheerful face. Let your dress be neither elegant nor slovenly, nor conspicuous by any strangeness that might attract the notice of passerby and make people point their fingers at you

... Do not try to seem very devout or more humble than necessary. It is possible to seek glory by despising it.

.... When you come into a gathering of brethren and sisters, do not sit in too lowly a place or pretend that you are unworthy of a footstool

.... If any of your handmaids have taken the vow with you, do not lift yourself up against them or pride yourself on being their mistress. From now on you all have one Bridegroom; you sing psalms together; together you receive the body of Christ. Why then should you sit apart at meals?

....Avoid too the sin of avarice. Not merely must you refuse to claim what belongs to another, for that is an offense punished by the laws of the State; you must also give up clinging to your own property, which is no longer yours

.... But you say, "I am a delicate girl and I cannot work with my hands. If I live to old age and then fall sick, who will take pity on me?" Hear Jesus saying to the Apostles, "Take no thought what ye shall eat; nor yet for your body what ye shall put on." Let the words be ever on your lips, "Naked I came out of my mother's womb and naked I shall return thither," and "we brought nothing into this world, and certainly we can carry nothing out."

Yet today you see many women packing their wardrobes with dresses, changing their tunics (blouses, bras, petticoats, saries, etc.) every day, and even so unable to keep ahead of the moth. The more scrupulous wear one dress until it is threadbare, but yet have their boxes full of clothes. Their parchments are dyed purple, gold is melted for the lettering, their books are decorated with jewels, and Christ lies naked and dying at their door.

When they stretch out their hands to give anything, they blow a trumpet. Only lately I saw the greatest lady in Rome -- I will not tell her name, for this is not a satire -- in the church of the Blessed Peter with her eunuchs (servants) in front of her, dispensing money to the poor with her own hands so as to be thought the more pious. To each one she gave a penny, and then, as you might easily know by experience would happen, an old woman full of years and rags, ran forward suddenly to get a second penny, but when her turn came, she got not a penny but a blow from the lady's fist and for her terrible crime paid with her blood!

The Apostle bids us pray without ceasing and to saints their very slumber is a prayer. Yet we should have fixed hours for praying, so that if we happen to be engaged in some business, the time itself will remind us of our duty. Everyone knows that the third, sixth, and ninth hours, dawn, too, and evening, are the right times. And no food should be taken until after a prayer, nor should we leave the table without rendering thanks to the Creator. Twice or three times in the night we should rise from the bed and say over passages of Scripture which we know by heart

.... Speak evil of no one and slander not your mother's son. "Who are thou who judgest another's servant? To his own lord he standeth or falleth."

.... If you have fasted for two days, do not think yourself better than one who has not fasted. You fast and are peevish; the other eats and is pleasant. You work off your irritability and hunger by quarreling; the other eats moderately and gives thanks to God.

.... For our salvation the Son of God became the Son of Man. He held the world in his little hand but he was contained in a narrow manger. I say nothing of the thirty years. He lived obscure and content with his parent's poverty. He is scourged and says not a word. He is crucified and prays for his crucifiers.

.... But we are annoyed if our food lacks flavor and imagine we are doing God service when we drink water with our wine.

Step out, I beg you, a little from your body and picture above your eyes the reward which "eye hath not seen, nor ear heard, neither hath it entered into the heart of man."  What will be the splendor of that day when Mary, the Lord's mother, shall come to meet you, attended by her virgin bands?

Then shall be the hundred and forty and four thousand hold their harps before the throne and before the elders and sing a new song. And no man will know that song but the company appointed, "These are they which follow the Lamb whitherever he goeth."

.... Whenever the world's vain display allures you, whenever you see in the world something glorious, pass over in mind to Paradise. Begin to be now what you will be hereafter ....