There are many restaurants that use the all-you-can-eat or bottomless dish promotions to entice people to come and eat there. They do it because it works. But there is another sort of all-you-can in faith, yet it seems that many people pass it by.

Even among those who consider themselves faithful, belief often remains very superficial.  But for those who are hungry for more, there is an endless banquet available in the Catholic Church.  The Trinity is a mystery that we can try to explain, but our language is too limited to easily express the relationship between the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. There are many simplistic ways we try to convey it, like the three-leaf clover analogy, but the mystery is so deep, we could spend not only our current lifetime, but all of eternity probing its  depths. Yet this all-you-can-seek opportunity is lost on many people. Complete unbelievers want to use science to explain away God, suggesting that He’s no longer necessary. Believers, on the other hand, often focus all their attention on Jesus, clinging to him because He had a human nature just like ours. Thoughts like those can lead us to think of Jesus as just a powerful and wise man instead of as transcendent and divine. But God cannot be limited or boiled down to just one aspect of Himself.

The endless all-you-can-eat food events are offered because there is a known limit to the amount of food patrons can eat. They will be sated when they leave. Thinking, praying, and talking to God about the mystery of God, we can never reach that point where everything is known due to our human limitations. We can, however, feel satisfied as the mystery unfolds for us. We can be sated with the knowledge, relationship, and awe we experience when we reach out to God for more. And just like consuming all we can of the bottomless fries offer does not mean we will never eat fries again after we are finished, in the same way the offer to explore more of the mystery is always there and we can return again and again to go deeper. Yes, there may be times when we cry out that we can’t take any more or that we feel more confused than when we first started, but God will never give us more than we can handle.

God calls us to a relationship to get to know Him better, through the gift of wisdom. In Proverbs we hear that Wisdom has “…dressed her meat, mixed her wine, yes, she has spread her table.” (Prv 9:2) It is truly the never-ending feast that we have all been invited. It takes place here on earth at Mass, and also for eternity. Are you ready to dig in?