It was a fad at one point for many people of my generation to complain online (or in person) about ‘adulting’. This term was coined to describe the process of growing up, or doing the things that adults would do. Whether getting a job, paying rent or taxes, or organizing a responsible lifestyle, the internet became a socially acceptable space to complain about the growing pains of a generation. For many, ‘adulting is hard’ became a mantra and even a mentality.
The term ‘adulting’ is used less in online forums than it once was, but the sentiment is still present. It can be hard to grow up. It can be hard to change. And the world often takes little pity on those who have been thrown into its system unprepared. If a person is not ready to face responsibility, they are going to fail in some capacity.
But one thing I have noticed is that the term ‘adulting’ does not get to the root of what it means to be an adult. Sure, ‘adulting’ does mean aspiring to a level of virtue in the sense of forming good habits to live a responsible and hopefully a moral life. But life is more than being a good cog in the temporal machine that is worldly society and its economy. If we are to truly enter into adulthood, we need to not only become a physical adult, we also need to be a spiritual adult.
‘Adulting’ within the spiritual life is something that very few people are talking about as a whole, whether it be on the internet or in person. This is because many of the activities that it takes to participate in the secular culture are not conducive with growing spiritually. Our world preaches a hedonistic existence centered on relying on ourselves. This works against the growth of our souls that mature whenever we trust in God and practice sacrificial love. As a result, we are unsure of what it means to be a spiritual adult, and because of the culture and the lack of good catechesis, we have ignorantly named what really is spiritual childhood to spiritual adulthood. Consequently, spiritual adulthood is seen as something attainable only by the most amazing of saints.
St. Paul writes to the Corinthians about the spiritual ‘milk’ or ‘babyfood’ with which he fed them. He does this because they were concerned with things of the flesh and not of the Holy Spirit. They were not ready to go deeper in their faith because they were still fighting the battle of not mortally sinning. However, spiritual adulthood builds upon the life unattached to sin and lives freely in the Spirit where the fight is now in self denial for the sake of loving others. Yes, sin can still be committed by the spiritual adult, but the focus is less on our own actions and more on how we can participate in God’s divine plan of love.
If we examine the present state of Catholicism today, we find that much of the conversations found in parishes and Catholic cultures online are about not sinning, which is good and necessary, but are not the end goal. In any relationship, if you have to work on not offending or hurting the other person, that relationship needs more work. The same goes for God. If we are so focused on not sinning, then we have stunted our spiritual growth. That’s why Jesus comes to fulfill the Law by building on the Ten Commandments with the Beatitudes. Love of God is found when we love Him and our neighbors as He loves them.
Because many people are not focused on spiritual adulthood, we do not often hear complaints of spiritual ‘adulting’ (Although if you read the lives of the saints, you will hear their complaints). And generally, this is okay. We have to crawl before we can walk, so it is essential to consume the ‘spiritual baby’ food first. But we also must not stay in our spiritual immaturity. We must answer the call of Jesus to take up our cross and follow Him through the power of the Holy Spirit. Then we will hear many more spiritual adults echoing the words attributed to St. Teresa speaking to God if this is how you treat your friends, no wonder you have so few. But despite these laments of spiritual ‘adulting’, we will also see great saints rise up in our time who inspire others to go deeper in their faith, just as St. Teresa did.
