We know from the history of Israel that God’s chosen people betrayed their faith and were consequently humiliated and thrown into a crisis about God’s love and concern for them. But in the midst of our failures, we are given the opportunity to grow. Fr. Raymond Brown points out that this seeming disaster for Israel ended up being a positive experience: “Israel learned more about God in the ashes of the Temple destroyed by the Babylonians than in the elegant period of the Temple under Solomon.” Fr. Rolheiser writes that the pain of being exiled and the doubts of faith that were triggered by the destruction of her temple were ultimately offset by what Israel learned through this humiliation and crisis, namely, that God is faithful even when we aren’t, that our failures open our eyes to us our own complacency and blindness, and that what looks like success is often its opposite, just as what looks like failure is often its opposite. Almost without exception, our major successes in life, our grander achievements, and the boost in status and adulation that come with that generally don’t deepen us in any way. Success usually doesn’t bring a shred of depth into our lives. If we reflect with courage and honesty on all the things that have brought depth and character into our lives, we will have to admit that, in virtually every case, it would be something that has an element of shame to it, a feeling of inadequacy about our own body, some humiliating element, some shameful moral failure in our life, or something in our character about which we feel some shame. Humiliation makes for depth; it drives us into the deeper parts of our soul. Like Israel on the shores of Babylon, when our temple is damaged or destroyed, in the ashes of that exile, we will have a chance to see some deeper things to which we are normally blind. And in this moment, we will have the opportunity to grow or become bitter. Life is always about choices.