Irenaeus of Lyons exhorted Christians to “take refuge in the Church, to drink milk at her breast, to be fed with the Scriptures of the Lord.” Babies can do very little to gain nourishment; they can only cry out in their need. So are we in our need of grace.

The Catholic Church is the “one and only mother,” said St. Cyprian a few years later. “By her bearing are we born, by her milk are we nourished.”