The fall of Jerusalem and exile into Babylon of all but the poor and seemingly useless is not unlike what happens within our own spiritual lives. We too have to be freed from all arrogance, pride, and self-sufficiency and left poor, spiritually destitute, and needy. In this humbled state, all that we might have prided ourselves with—our gifts, talents, and accomplishments—seem to have gone into exile and can no longer bolster up a stable sense of self and self-worth. Like that house built on sand our spiritual edifice whose foundations were based on what is actually superficial and only peripheral to our true identity, comes tumbling down. Like the humbled inhabitants of Jerusalem we have to rebuild on the one and only true foundation—that Rock who is Christ and in whom we become who we truly are, God’s beloved sons and daughters. Only on this foundation can we become truly ourselves and truly alive and thereby confirm Saint Irenaeus’ maxim that the glory of God is man, fully alive!
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