Time to Eat!

Hebrews 5:14

But solid food is for the mature, for those who have their faculties trained by practice to distinguish good from evil.

Today’s verse, like yesterday’s, is again about food.  One of the odd facts about the way in which God has created the world is that very few things happen once and are then finished and complete. In other words, most things are not like birth, most things are like eating.  We’re born once and that is sufficient (physically speaking, that is). But if we only eat once and try to say it is “enough” we will soon find a problem with that scenario.  As growing children, we pretty much have to eat three times a day, seven days a week, 52 weeks a year, for our entire childhood. We’re never “done” with that project.  At the same time, our repetitiveness in the eating department is not a sign of futility.  It is a sign rather of slow maturation. “Instant” Christianity demands that a new believer immediately have the right to declare himself a Bible scholar, an apostle, and a preacher to the nations.  Biblical Christianity recognizes that these things take time and that daily meals of discipleship, humility, and obedience come before grandiose visions of maturity, leadership and Saving the World.  Let us each take time to be disciples before we try to be the apostles.

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Mark P. Shea is a popular Catholic writer and speaker. The author of numerous books, his most recent work is The Work of Mercy (Servant) and The Heart of Catholic Prayer (Our Sunday Visitor). Mark contributes numerous articles to many magazines, including his popular column “Connecting the Dots” for the National Catholic Register. Mark is known nationally for his one minute “Words of Encouragement” on Catholic radio. He also maintains the Catholic and Enjoying It blog and regularly blogs for National Catholic Register. He lives in Washington state with his wife, Janet, and their four sons.

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