My lady Eustochium,
how often I have remembered the comfortable life in Rome while I was in the desert, in the wilderness scorched by the heat of the sun, where monks live among wild animals. I often sat alone and felt the bitterness of memories. (…)
Helpless, I lay at the feet of Jesus. I soaked them with my tears and wiped them with my hair. When my body was stirred, I punished it with weeks of fasting. I remember crying and sighing often all night and day, beating my chest until God's forgiveness brought me peace again. Indeed, in moments of temptation, I feared to enter my small cell, I was angry with myself and very disturbed, and I preferred to go alone into the desert. And there, from the deep valley or the rocky cliff, I made a prayer room for myself… I do not shame those ridiculous acts of mine; rather, I regret that I am no longer what I was then…
(St. Jerome /340–420/, letter to Rome, 384 AD)
