Just last week we celebrated the Feast of Pope St. Pius X. Even as children, we cradle Catholics learned that Pius X had opened the reception of the eucharist to young people like us. But the day’s liturgy, it turns out, presents us with a dark reading from the Book of Judges (Judges 11:29-39a). One wonders, and worries, what school children might make of it.

The reading recounts a story about Jephthah. The son of a prostitute, he was a warrior chosen to serve as a Judge over Israel. At risk from recalcitrant enemies, he solemnly offered a quid quo pro. But was it wise? “If you deliver the Ammonites into my power,’ Jephthah said, “whoever comes out of the doors of my house to meet me when I return in triumph from the Ammonites shall belong to the LORD. I shall offer him up as a burnt offering.”

As it happened, Jephthah triumphed; he soundly defeated the Ammonites. But when Jephthah returned home to rejoice, his world collapsed. The reading continues, “It was his daughter who came forth, playing the tambourines and dancing. She was an only child: he had neither son nor daughter besides her. When he saw her, he tore his clothes and said, ‘Alas, daughter, you have struck me down and brought calamity upon me. For I have made a vow to the LORD and I cannot retract.’”

Somehow his daughter understands his terrible dilemma. She does not plead with him nor protest his decision. But would he grant her a short reprieve? “Let me have this favor,” she asks. “Spare me two months, that I may go off down the mountains to mourn my virginity with my companions.” To mourn it, indeed. She will never marry, nor will she bear children. This, she knew, would be an enormous loss.

The reading closes with this final sentence: “At the end of the two months she returned to her father, who did to her as he had vowed.” I can well imagine a granddaughter of mine, listening to the reading at a school liturgy, asking herself how this horrific event could have come about. How could this story have any kind of a warrant in Scripture? I can also readily suppose that my pastor would substitute a different reading for the children’s Mass.

The Bible, we know, has its dark and distressing passages. Here’s an example: When the walls of Jericho fall, Joshua insists that nothing be spared, not even the children. Nothing that is, except Rahab the prostitute and those with her. It was she who had risked everything to shelter the spies of Israel sent to reconnoiter the city (Joshua 6). C.S. Lewis argues, rightly I think, that we should not ignore these dark passages. Rather we should think hard about them, and without supposing that we will here and now grasp their full significance.

So what are we to say, then, about Jephthah’s vow? Keeping in mind that Dominicans order their scholarship to preaching the word of God, here’s what St. Thomas Aquinas teaches (ST II-II, q. 88, art. 2). First, he notes that what is a sin itself ought never be the subject of a vow. Second, he points out that even what is ordinarily legitimate can have an evil result. “In which case,” he tells us, “the vow must not be kept.” And so it was in the case of Jephthah. Thomas then cites St. Jerome, a renowned student of Scripture. (As Thomas does some 2,700 times in his works!) Jerome reasons that in vowing, Jephthah “was foolish, through lack of discretion, and in keeping his vow he was wicked.” Nonetheless, it was his faith that “moved him to make the vow” and “it is probable that he repented of his sinful deed.” In light of this, Scripture affords Jephthah a kind of honor. Now St. Jerome was known for, shall we say, his sharp tongue. Ah, well. God’s word is sharper than any two edged sword (Hebrews 4:12)! With regard to the dark passage at issue, it seems to me Jerome’s exegesis is spot-on. I’d be ready to share it with my granddaughters and other inquiring minds.