Day 195 - Jeremiah 35

The sons of Jonadab, we are told, drank neither wine nor strong drink and dwelled in tents pitched wherever night overtook them. According to the Psalter, they were the first to undergo captivity; for, when the Chaldaeans began to ravage Judah, they were compelled to take refuge in cities.

Others may think what they like and follow each his own bent. But to me a town is a prison and solitude paradise. Why do we long for the bustle of cities, we whose very name speaks of loneliness? To fit him for the leadership of the Jewish people, Moses was trained for forty years in the wilderness. And it was not until after these that the shepherd of sheep became a shepherd of people. The apostles were fishers on Gennesaret before they became “fishers of people.” [Mat 4:19.] But at the Lord’s call they forsook all that they had, father, net and ship, and bore their cross daily without so much as a rod in their hands—St Jerome