Spiritual maturity?
Am I ready for this…spiritual maturity? And, what does that really mean anyway?
“Brothers and sisters,” writes Saint Paul, “I could not talk to you as people with any serious degree of spirituality maturity…indeed I still cannot. You are still not spiritually mature…” Paraphrase of 1 Corinthians 3:1ff.
Spiritual maturity? What is this? And, how may I become spiritually mature?
It is living your life with an awareness of your inseparable connection to God.
How do I know this?
Saint Paul provides the clue in this same passage when he says, “…you are God’s temple and God dwells in you” (v. 16).
You cannot find God in a book of religion. You cannot find God in a church, temple or synagogue. You cannot find God…period.
God cannot be found. God is and where God is…is within you…already. Spiritual maturity is knowing this. And, you know this by simply accepting this. This is what “believing” means…trusting this is so. Letting go of the need to add anything to it.
The mystery of the Gospel is this eternal truth of who you are…God’s child, a member of God’s family, a participant in the very life of God…and that God is not outside of you but in you and in everyone you meet. Every person you see today is a unique version of God’s temple. Everyone who meets you today is entering the sanctuary of God’s presence.
This, then, is the awareness that defines and describes spiritual maturity.
2. So, then, how may spiritual maturity be achieved?
Wrong question.
This maturity cannot be achieved. You don’t get more of God because you are spiritual. You are spiritual already and, as a consequence, have all of God there is. God is not dispensed
