Exile

God made us for himself, as St. Augustine said, and our hearts are restless until they rest in Him.

Like the Israelites of old, we are in exile.

Why? Because of sin. Because, as our Lord says in today’s Gospel (John 3:14-21), we have preferred darkness.

We are in exile: languishing in sin like the children of Israel in Babylon, yearning to worship the Lord unencumbered on the everlasting Mount Zion in a heavenly Jerusalem.

By the rivers of Babylon, there we sat down,
yea, we wept, when we remembered Zion.

We hanged our harps upon the willows in the midst thereof.

For there they that carried us away captive
required of us a song;
and they that wasted us
required of us mirth, saying,
Sing us one of the songs of Zion.

How shall we sing the LORD's song in a strange land?

But God does not wish us to languish in sin.

For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son,
so that everyone who believes in him might not perish
but might have eternal life.