Thank you, Tom, for this honest, very insightful expression.

Why must understanding oneself (and reaching a spiritual maturity) lead so often to dissonance with the institutional Church? But it does, and, in my experience too, it must.

Just as every loving relationship is unique, so too each person's loving relationship with God is unique. The institutional Church's refusal not only to acknowledge that but to rejoice in that uniqueness is, in my view, a big part of the problem. There is pressure to conform understanding, interpretations, and personal revelations into a matrix of orthodoxy that remains, as you said, immature. Eventually, we experience this as some kind of violence, some kind of disrespect and refusal to perceive.

There are, as you say, spiritual resources (and traditions and explorations) beyond Catholicism. But these are often demonized by the institutional Church—one more piece of evidence of the refusal to acknowledge each person's unique path to God.