I fed you with milk,

THOU: I feel certain you still want me to make my vow on the Feast of the Annunciation, and though I've felt that all along, only today do I feel ready to accept it again. I didn't feel prepared for it, even in December once I'd committed to it, and when Maribel died, I ducked and ran. I expected more sweet consolations, more miracle works around me, more insight from books to feed me, more slow but deliberate healing. I expected that spiritual milk would be a far reach from "any two-edged sword, piercing to the division of soul and spirit, of joints and marrow, and discerning the thoughts and intentions of the heart" (Hebrews 4:12). Or else I thought I would keep walking into the desert looking for you and find only the dry brittle brush of my own thoughts.

But what is milk, if not blood? And what is a vow of chastity if not the giving of my body? Bone, blood, sinew, heart? If in Maribel's wounds (the stabbings that haunt me) you are saying to me: remember what I gave, remember that your own gift is in what I gave, my body for the sake of your body, remember what you are giving--

then, Lord, I think I understand. If I do not see this clearly, then you must help me. I always expect that you know my heart. I never expect that you will have to shake me up good to show it to me. I don't know if Maribel's death is "solid food," but it sure feels like it.

In the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. To God who is, who was, and who is to come, now and forever.

Amen.

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From a letter to Fr, December 17, 2008:

"I want to tell you about a dream I had the night of our meeting on Our Lady of Guadalupe’s Feast Day. I was lying in bed thinking of her and feeling joyful that you’d given the go-ahead on the vow and praying about it, thanking Him and asking Him for help and awareness …

And I felt the cat leap onto the bed beside me, but at the same time, I felt Him, His presence, come to me from above. It was as though my body was wholly enveloped by something (a feeling? a movement?) swift, ecstatic, tender, consoling, and wonderfully utterly uplifting, but also utterly paralyzing. I knew I was still in bed, I could feel my back on the mattress, my legs crossed at my ankles, and both of my hands clenching the comforter, but I was also elsewhere conscious of an image that floated in front of me—two dismembered hands pouring milk from a gallon container—and though I didn’t hear Him aloud, I heard Him say, “I will fill your mouth with milk,” and I opened my mouth, and it filled with milk. But I didn’t know what to do then, so I held my mouth open and held the milk in my mouth, and thought “What now, Lord?” But He withdrew as suddenly as he came, and the sensation in my limbs subsided, and I became aware of my breathing, through my nose, for I still held my throat closed and my mouth open as if it were full of milk, and I unclenched my hands from the comforter and wondered at how sore they were. My body too: sore. I laid awake and restless for a long while after and wished the dream would return, then slept as usual.

In the morning I was able to place the resonance of the dream in context, the words of the small prayer by St Francis I say daily in adoration—I’ve shown it to you before—

May the power of your love, Oh Lord, fiery and sweet as honey, wean my heart from all that is under heaven, so that I may die for love of your love, You who were so good as to die for love of my love.

And from the Psalm of late that moves me, Domine, non est, in Compline of The Little Office of the Blessed Virgin Mary: “As a child that is weaned upon his mother’s breast: so let my reward be in my soul.” The image in the dream must be stemming from these occasions of prayer. I can’t offer any insight into this personal revelation if there is one, only that it seems espousal is for grown-ups, and headlong as I am, I am nowhere near grown. These are still the steps of a milk-drinking toddler who receives nothing but consolations from God and who has yet to know any authentic dark night of soul."

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1 Corinthians 3:1-4
¹But I, brothers, could not address you as spiritual people, but as people of the flesh, as infants in Christ. ² I fed you with milk, not solid food, for you were not ready for it. And even now you are not yet ready, ³ for you are still of the flesh. For while there is jealousy and strife among you, are you not of the flesh and behaving only in a human way? ⁴For when one says, "I follow Paul," and another, "I follow Apollos," are you not being merely human?


Hebrews 5:11-14
11 About this we have much to say, and it is hard to explain, since you have become dull of hearing. 12 For though by this time you ought to be teachers, you need someone to teach you again the basic principles of the oracles of God. You need milk, not solid food, 13 for everyone who lives on milk is unskilled in the word of righteousness, since he is a child. 14 But solid food is for the mature, for those who have their powers of discernment trained by constant practice to distinguish good from evil.


1 Peter 2:1-3
¹ So put away all malice and all deceit and hypocrisy and envy and all slander. ² Like newborn infants, long for the pure spiritual milk, that by it you may grow up into salvation— ³ if indeed you have tasted that the Lord is good.

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