Sixth Sunday in Ordinary Time—1 Corinthians 2:6-10

Just how mature are you really? I don’t mean maturity in the sense of how well you handle conflict or difficulties. In today’s second reading, the Holy Spirit is making a very important point about our spiritual maturity.

Saint Paul says that he speaks a particular wisdom to the mature. In Greek, he actually says that he speaks this wisdom to “the perfect,” the teleiois, those who are complete. A plant that has fully grown and produces fruit is also perfect (teleiois). It’s not necessarily a flawless plant, but it is fully grown and doing what it is intended to do. In a similar way, we have become spiritually perfect, complete, mature in order to understand the wisdom of God. We have to be fully grown disciples who are doing what disciples of the Lord are intended to do, or else we can’t possibly understand the wisdom of God. So how mature are you?

The wisdom of God that Saint Paul is talking about is a wisdom that is hidden and mysterious. It’s the wisdom of the cross, the wisdom of love. Without this wisdom, we can’t see, hear, or even imagine what God is up to. Today, the Holy Spirit is calling each of us to deeper level of spiritual maturity. If we want to understand what the Lord is up to, we have to be mature enough to believe what he has revealed, mature enough to live the way Jesus lived, and mature enough to keep talking with him even when we don’t understand. That’s what it means to be mature in Christ.