Mother's MilkIf our faith is young, the Word is as sufficient for us as mother’s milk is for an infant; if our faith is mature, the Word is as sufficient for us as meat for a grown man or woman.
Scripture Reading1 Peter 1:22-2:3Since you have purified your souls by obedience to the truth so that you have a genuine love for your brothers, love one another deeply, from a pure heart. For you have been born again, not of perishable seed, but of imperishable, through the living and enduring word of God. For, “All flesh is like grass, and all its glory like the flowers of the field; the grass withers and the flowers fall, but the word of the Lord stands forever.” And this is the word that was proclaimed to you. Therefore, rid yourselves of all malice and all deceit, hypocrisy, envy, and slander of every kind. Like newborn infants, long for the pure, spiritual milk, so that by it you may grow into salvation— if indeed you have tasted that the Lord is good.Scripture ReflectionThroughout scripture, the Word of God is depicted as something to be eaten: the Psalmist sings that the Word of God is sweeter than honey (Ps. 19:10; 119:103); Jeremiah finds God’s words and eat them (Jer. 15:16); Ezekiel and John eat the scroll of the Word of God, and it is sweet like honey but bitter in the belly (Exz. 3:1-2; Rev. 10:8-11); John depicts Jesus as the Word of God made flesh who exhorts us to eat his flesh and drink his lifeblood poured out for the world; Jesus himself speaks of the will of God as his own meat (Jn. 4:34). And here, Peter says that newborn Christians have tasted the Lord, the Word of God made flesh, and he is like mother’s milk. Indeed, the Word of God is like food and more: “Man does not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceeds from the mouth of God.” The manna of Moses was great, but the manna of the Word is greater (Jn. 6 quote). Paul says elsewhere that mature Christians move on from mother’s milk to meat (1 Cor. 3:2; Heb. 5:12). Here, Peter is making a similar statement, with his grand exhortation to the mightiest virtue of love — but first the Christian must rid himself of vice: malice, deceit, envy, and slander. As the washing of baptism is the first step of the Christian life, so we are first called to be cleansed of all these stains — “not the removal of dirt from the body, but the appeal of a clear conscience toward God through the resurrection of Jesus Christ” (1 Pt. 3:21). As guests invited to the Divine Wedding Supper of the Lamb, we must be clothed in the proper “attire” (Mt. 22:1-14), robes of resurrection washed clean in the blood of the Lamb (Rev. 7:14). In short, we ought to “put on Christ” (Gal. 3:26-27), clothed in the garments of salvation (Is. 61:10). Again, this is just the first baby step, the first words of God to us, the mother’s milk which sustains us while we grow out of vice and up into the highest virtue, “genuine love…deeply, from a pure heart.” The newborn in Christ has “Jerusalem who is above” for a mother (Gal. 4:26) — if the Jerusalem below was a sensual “land of milk and honey,” how much more so is the heavenly Jerusalem a land of spiritual milk and honey — the nourishing word of God. How profound a thing, how high an honor, it is that we may “eat” the word of God, like Jeremiah and Ezekiel. These men were great prophets. They were Levite priests, initiated into the hidden mysteries of the temple. Theirs was a high and holy knowledge to which most in Israel did not have access. In our day, we might not fully grasp how significant it is that from the time of Christ, we now live in an era when the mystery of God — which was rare for even priests to glimpse in pre-Christian times — has been, as St. Paul confidently wrote in several of his epistles, fully revealed through the Gospel (Rom. 3:25-26; Eph. 1:9, 3:3-6; 1 Cor. 2:7-10; Col. 1:25-27, 2:2), by which “the earth [is] filled with the knowledge of the glory of the LORD as the waters cover the sea.” (Hab. 2:14). The priestly prophets of the Old Testament era longed to see the Kingdom, and glimpsed intimations of it in their visions. Since the advent of Christ, however, anyone who longs to see the Kingdom may see it — by being reborn from above (Jn. 3:3), through a baptism of repentance which cleanses the conscience rather than the body. Indeed, when the human being is reborn by repentance, turning toward the divine voice of the Gospel, his mouth is filled with the words “Jesus is Lord” even as his heart is filled with faith in our Lord’s glorious resurrection. This testimony of Jesus is the very spirit of prophecy (Rev. 19:10); to live by and proclaim the word of God is a prophetic calling, whereby the Christian, like the prophets, “eats” the life-giving word of God. The prophets were men and women of virtue; they didn’t break the supersubstantial bread (Mt. 6:11; Lk. 11:3) of the Word only once, but continually. As newborns cannot survive without their mother’s milk and the grown cannot live without food, so the Christian cannot live his spiritual life without continually feasting on the Word of God — his spiritual body would wilt and die even as the natural body starves to death without food. An infant cannot mature into childhood, let alone adulthood, without nourishment — nor may the Christian outgrow his spiritual infancy if he is content merely to shed vice, and not also to cultivate the virtue of divine love, as the wisdom of God decrees for the spiritually mature. And all this, by God’s grace. The Word of God speaks to us in all phases of life. If our faith is young, the Word is as sufficient for us as mother’s milk is for an infant; if our faith is mature, the Word is as sufficient for us as meat is for a grown man or woman. The Word of God, our heavenly sustenance from heaven, is always abundant for us, exceeding our needs. The Word of God “ages” us by transformative degrees, from glory to glory, into the full stature and image of Christ (1 Cor. 3:18, Eph. 4:13) — if we hear, believe, and obey. Amen.
Song Meditation: “Table of Grace”
Table of grace
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All Hail King Jesus Christ, by Seán McMahon Seán McMahon |
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