Thursday of the Eighth Week in Ordinary Time

 Evening comes to Lake Mount Saint Francis 

Lectionary: 350

Like newborn infants, long for pure spiritual milk
so that through it you may grow into salvation,
for you have tasted that the Lord is good.

The first missionaries of the Gospel soon discovered the immaturity of new Christians who were eager for the Lord, eager to be accepted as adult members of the community, and eager to promote this new religion; even when their grasp of faith's demands and the new Law of the Spirit was rudimentary at best. Alcoholics Anonymous knows the problem of "two-steppers."  People take Step One (accepting they are powerless in their addiction) and then jump directly to Step Twelve (promoting AA) without the in-between steps where the hard work lies. They try to pass along something they themselves have not yet received.

The missionaries said these new Christians cannot consume the solid meat of our religion; they need spiritual milk to bring them along. Saint Paul warned his Corinthian congregation,

Brothers, I could not talk to you as spiritual people, but as fleshly people, as infants in Christ. I fed you milk, not solid food, because you were unable to take it. Indeed, you are still not able, even now,for you are still of the flesh. While there is jealousy and rivalry among you, are you not of the flesh, and behaving in an ordinary human way? 

The Author of the Letter to the Hebrews also complained:

About this we have much to say, and it is difficult to explain, for you have become sluggish in hearing. Although you should be teachers by this time, you need to have someone teach you again the basic elements of the utterances of God. You need milk, [and] not solid food. Everyone who lives on milk lacks experience of the word of righteousness, for he is a child. But solid food is for the mature, for those whose faculties are trained by practice to discern good and evil.

In our time, the problem is compounded when spiritually illiterate "former" Catholics take what little they know and scold the Church with their own bizarre notions of our beliefs, prayers, and traditions. Their ignorance is most flagrant when they suppose they can renounce their Baptism. 

Catholics continually seek deeper understanding of our faith. Unlike other denominations, we do not pick and choose our beliefs. If we think we disagree with a certain teaching, we owe it to ourselves and those around us to do the work and discover the truth that God has revealed to his Church.  

Hearing, "Unless you eat my flesh and drink my blood you do not have life within me" we search for its meaning and its challenge. We ask more than, "What does this mean to me?" for the standard of my understanding is pathetically narrow. Rather, we dive into it like a scuba diver exploring a bottomless pool in a cave deep underground. The Lord's words become palatable food for us as we let it alter our spiritual metabolism until we can say, I live no longer but Christ lives in me. 

Recently I have been fascinated by the life and writings of Edith Stein, Jewish convert, Holocaust victim, Carmelite nun, and canonized as Saint Teresa Benedicta of the Cross, Raised in a devout Jewish household, she was affectionate to her friends and family but intensely devoted to her philosophical studies. As the Nazi ideology systematically curtailed her teaching career, the Lord first led her into Catholicism and then into a Carmelite cloister. There she relentlessly continued her search of the divine mysteries God has revealed through the writings of Saints Theresa of Avila, Saint John of the Cross, and Saint Therese Lisieux. She found the truth endlessly fascinating, beautiful, and delightful even as the Nazis drove her from her homeland to Belgium. They arrested her there; she died at Auschwitz. 

Catholics study the lives of saints because they have outgrown the pap of popular religion and eaten the solid meat revealed through the life, teachings, death and resurrection of Our Lord Jesus Christ. Our hunger for more and deeper understanding is never satisfied.