The spiritual quest for wholeness and integration—also known as holiness—seems inevitably to be preceded by an experience of disintegration and fragmentation. For, just as the walls of Jerusalem, whose rebuilding Pope Leo invokes as an image of our cooperative labor in a fractured world, first had to be breached and demolished—so too must our own proud defenses collapse before true restoration can begin. For the serious Christian, this painful disintegration leads to a deep awareness of our utter helplessness apart from God. Thus the Lord, speaking through the Prophet Hosea, declares that we have collapsed through our guilt. It is precisely at this point of collapse that we finally cease our futile attempts to save ourselves or to manufacture meaning and purpose on our own. This “giving up” becomes the doorway to a trusting surrender to God’s loving and saving mercy. Yet this surrender must be carefully distinguished from the despairing kind of giving up that imprisons us within ourselves and closes our hearts to God. In contrast, loving surrender opens us to the healing the Prophet promises—the healing of our defection—and allows us to blossom like the lily and strike root like the Lebanon cedar. For as the Lord explains: I have humbled him, but I will prosper him, and because of me you bear fruit. Therefore, let us not fear our collapse, but allow it to open us to God’s mercy. For, he humbles only to heal and make whole, and allows us to collapse, only so that he may raise us up in glory.