"When I found your words, I devoured them: they became my joy and the happiness of my heart". Jeremiah may seem a little confused. He laments his birth because his mission has attracted such opposition and yet the foundation of his mission, God's word, is his "joy and the happiness of his heart". There is no contradiction, but there is a challenge to understand and to imitate. There is a challenge to understand how powerfully God's word brings joy and happiness and the courage and strength to face all kinds of suffering. Jeremiah uses the word "devour". Like a ravenously hungry man faced with food, he devoured the word of God. When food is "devoured" and then digested, it becomes our nourishment and the source of our strength and wellbeing.

So, then, Jeremiah's words challenge us to accept the word of God the way we accept food. We may say the image of "devouring" represents what we would in modern terms call "assimilation" or "appropriation": we are invited to make the word of God truly our own and to derive nourishment and strength from it