Christian maturity is the goal of all Christian formation. It is therefore important for us to discuss and know what is Christian maturity. A person who is mature is one whose potentialities - physical, psychological, spiritual - have reached their full development. These have no doubt a great influence on the development of the psychological powers. The psychological powers are the intellectual, volitional, and emotional (imaginative).

Intellectual Maturity is the ability to make judgments consistent with one's convictions. Christian Intellectual Maturity is the capacity to make judgments consistently with one's Christian convictions. This requires that a Christian deepen his personal understanding of and conviction about his Faith. Children live on borrowed convictions; they believe what their parents tell them and do what they are told is good for them. Adults go by their own convictions. They do those things which they personally believe to be good. A Christian is intellectually mature when he knows his and her faith, understands the reasons for it, is personally gripped by its value, and consequently lives it out of personal conviction. He and she does not go merely by what books say. His and her religious convictions are the fruit of his and her faith, his and her judgments are consistent with them. Consequently he and she will not be clannish and will be open to whatever is good and true in other peoples, in other communities, other faiths. He and she will respect the truth and the good that there is in others - in the other people, in other religions.

Volitional maturity is the ability to keep an elected goal steadily in view and make straight for it. A Christian who is volitionally mature will keep his and her Christian goal - the Law of Christ, the Love of Christ, the values of Christ, the Spirit of Christ - steadily in view and try consistently to be faithful to it without deviation or deflection, notwithstanding contrary attractions and pressures. With the ups and downs, of course.

Emotional maturity is the ability to make effective use of the feelings without being ruled by them. Christian emotional maturity can be said to consist in the ability to handle our emotions as Christ handle them, using them to express His love for His Father and His Father's love for His children. Hear Him speak to His Father."Abba". He addresses Him affectionately; He feels love for Mary and Martha to the point of weeping with them for their brother Lazarus. Christian emotional maturity will show itself in the ability to feel love and to show it, and in general, to respond as Christ responded to the whole scale of human emotions, being master of them, not their victim.

BY REV. FR. J. B. FERNANDES  S.J.

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Sunday, May 24, 2009

I have through years of reading, pondering, reflecting and contemplating, the 3 things that last; FAITH . HOPE . LOVE and I would like to made available my sharing from the many thinkers, authors, scholars and theologians whose ideas and thoughts I have borrowed. God be with them always. Amen!

I STILL HAVE MANY THINGS TO SAY TO YOU BUT THEY WOULD BE TOO MUCH FOR YOU NOW. BUT WHEN THE SPIRIT OF TRUTH COMES, HE WILL LEAD YOU TO THE COMPLETE TRUTH, SINCE HE WILL NOT BE SPEAKING AS FROM HIMSELF, BUT WILL SAY ONLY WHAT HE HAS LEARNT; AND HE WILL TELL YOU OF THE THINGS TO COME.

HE WILL GLORIFY ME, SINCE ALL HE TELLS YOU WILL BE TAKEN FROM WHAT IS MINE. EVERYTHING THE FATHER HAS IS MINE; THAT IS WHY I SAID: ALL HE TELLS YOU WILL BE TAKEN FROM WHAT IS MINE. - JOHN 16:12-15 -