Personal Relationship with Jesus Christ

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It seems that to understand Jesus from a personal level what we need is an intimate knowledge of the person of Jesus. The question arises then as to where such knowledge of Jesus, could be gained?
One answer is that this relationship can be found in interior prayer, which some agree is the path where we open ourselves up to Christ, and it happens when we place ourselves into the loving embrace of Jesus to the utmost, relinquishing our own free will over to Jesus to do with what He desires.
In so doing our desire is what Christ wills for us, nothing more. How Christ feeds us is up to Him and for many, it’s through the dark night of the soul (quote JimR-OCDS 2007).

Given the possibility of dangers of demonic and self- deception, interior prayer does not seem to be a sufficient answer, unless there is some independent and exterior source which offers such personal information in sufficient detail to be a check on likely deception (quote JimR-OCDS, 2007).

Even open psychology relates to internalizing thought patterns. Psychology relates to a phrase; internal attribution biasing, where the person turns into themselves thinking and relating as though they have some form of knowledge, ability or foresight that is higher than others with the assumption that they are right in most if not all points of thought and decision over how they relate to the issue at hand, what ever that might be.

The opposit to an internal atribution biase is to externalize, where the person has an external attribution biase. Both are very dangerious, with the high possibility of the person in either situation faulting and or leading others astray.

God bless
littleone
 
littleone
Given the possibility of dangers of demonic and self- deception, interior prayer does not seem to be a sufficient answer, unless there is some independent and exterior source which offers such personal information in sufficient detail to be a check on likely deception (quote JimR-OCDS, 2007).
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Uhmm, not my quote.

The answer to the question is found in the question, how do you best come to know about a person, read about them, or be with them?

So it is with Christ. Being with Him in prayer is how you will come to know Him. St. John of the Cross goes so far as to say that as one spends more and more time with his beloved, he eventually becomes like the beloved. This means we will learn to love as he loves.

It is one of the greatest distinctions Christianity has from other religions in that we are able to have a personal relationship with God, through Jesus Christ. You won’t find this in any other religion that I know of.

Jim
 
JimR-OCDS said:
. . . The bottom line here with regards to the topic of this thread, is that it is very much possible to have a personal relationship with Jesus. I say “personal” on a spiritual level, not on a level as what we would have with a friend or a spouse here on earth. If you hear people talking about there relationship with Jesus as if he were their good buddy, you know something isn’t correct.

Jesus is God and as such, the relationship that is developed is with the divine, and is much different than any other.

Jim
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Dear Jim:

I can appreciate the special circumstances that you describe for the novice nuns in St. Teresa’s time. I also think that we are very close if not in agreement regarding our sense of the nature of the “personal relationship” which one can have with God in Christ. Certainly I agree with your statement “If you hear people talking about their relationship with Jesus as if he were their good buddy, you know something isn’t correct.”

However, I do not think that we have reached an entirely clear understanding.

Perhaps the term “spiritual” is a block for me. I often do not understand what people mean by it in a given context. For example, something that is inherent in mass or bodies, I would call “physical.” Things that are tied to physiology I would call “corporal.” Mathematical objects and connections that are only detected by memory or understanding, such as fatherhood, I would call “spiritual.” However, I would not draw sharp separations among these categories. They interpenetrate each other in various ways.

Is this different from your usage? Do you distinguish between “psychological” and “spiritual”? If so, how?

I think this issue is important because it affects one’s understanding of the necessity of the Church. As the social embodiment of Christ in the world, the Church is a significant physical, corporal, and moral influence, which I believe is, among other things, a broad-spectrum means of communication between God and man. In my understanding, this is a very “practical” understanding of how we know Christ and how He communicates with us.

However, discussions of “spiritual relationships” often – but not in all cases – seem to be attempts to accomplish communication with God, without the Church Militant. Certain Protestant theories seem to me to be unrealistic in this sense. Rather than understanding the “ambassadorial” nature of Jesus’ communications with us, these theories seem to want to posit a more or less “magical” direct line of communication. This, I suspect, under-values the reality of the Church and its role in the continuing incarnation of Jesus and of the action of the Holy Spirit. This sort of thinking tends to create a sort of severing of the day-to-day world from the realm of religion and God. It severs the physical from the “spiritual,” science from “religion,” and what is real from what is “True.” To me this seems contrary to the Catholic Faith.

In the Faith, we do not ordinarily learn of God because He has directly appeared to us. Rather we know of Him because those who have been sent have told us the truth about Him. This telling of the truth is not merely a matter of words written or spoken, though it includes them as an important aspect. It also involves the entire living of the Faith: the smells, the sounds, tastes, stories, feelings, examples, challenges, actions, gestures, languages, meanings, etc. which are interwoven into the single message which we call the Gospel. If this communication (or better yet “formation”) is successful, one of its fruits is “the eyes and ears of faith” which allow us to detect the realities of grace and especially the Real Presence, which then greatly expand and deepen our ability to experience and know God. In this view, the Church Militant is crucial. In fact, the words of St. Joan of Arc make perfect sense: “About Jesus Christ and the Church, I simply know they’re just one thing, and we shouldn’t complicate the matter."

Spirtus Sapientiae nobiscum.

John Hiner
 
John Hiner
Do you distinguish between “psychological” and “spiritual”? If so, how?
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Well first off, this is some real deep stuff to talk on, which is not easy to explain, and I’m not nearly qualified, but not being very bright, I’ll try anyway. 🙂

I distinguish between psychological and spiritual. The psychological part of our self, is influenced by physical chemistry in our brains as well as events in our developmental years.

Our spiritual part is our soul, our being. It is the essence of who we are. Here is where God communicates with us and has this relationship with us.

You mention the Church being the body of Christ, but the Church consist of its members. As St. Teresa’s prayer says, “Christ has no body on earth, but yours.” We are the body of Christ, and we are the Church. The Pope and Bishops are no more members of the body of Christ than we are. They in fact are servants to the body of Christ.

The Church teaches us about Christ and when we chose to believe what the Church teaches, this is religion, not faith. Faith comes from God, it is His gift. Faith is the revelation of God in some way, however that happens, to the individual. It can be through Scripture, prayer, or the witness given by individuals. It can be through the teachings of the Church. It can be through locutions or apparitions. However, when God gives faith to the individual, it is from within that He communicates. It’s not a loud booming voice ala Cecil B. Demille’s type movies, but it is the voice of silence. God’s language is silence. It is within our heart that he reveals and communicates with us.

I don’t know if I’ve explained this clearly or not, but it is my experience of faith and my understanding of what the Church teaches about faith.

In Christ Jesus
Jim
 
JimR-OCDS said:
littleone

Uhmm, not my quote.

Sorry I found who it was , Fr …cant remember, I know I sholdn’t do this,but, but sorry again.

The answer to the question is found in the question, how do you best come to know about a person, read about them, or be with them? Jim
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**I agree that I could read many books about a person but unless I have some contact personally with the person I have only head knowledge about but not heart knowledge through a heart felt relationship. I may gain some depth but unless I am able to give my whole self over to that person ( Christ Jesus) in this case then I am very limited in imitating anything He may wish of me. Hence the inner depth. This is I believe the reason why a key to inner the saints relationships spiritually are built on self denial. To deny the flesh allows more groth spiritually and lessens the strength the flesh has in thinking inwardly of self ( internal atribution biase). **

So it is with Christ. Being with Him in prayer is how you will come to know Him. St. John of the Cross goes so far as to say that as one spends more and more time with his beloved, he eventually becomes like the beloved. This means we will learn to love as he loves Jim
.

I agree with this and would add "there must also be that inner letting go of self. So how did John of the cross do this was it in self denial if so what were his actions. I know of ^Therese the little flower and Terese of Avila but I am not acquanted with John of the cross, can you enlighten me plse.

It is one of the greatest distinctions Christianity has from other religions in that we are able to have a personal relationship with God, through Jesus Christ. You won’t find this in any other religion that I know of Jim
.

Of corse this is true because our God is the only God who is proven to be a living God in all fascets of life, since it is through and by our God that life was firstly and is today given breath…
 
JimR-OCDS said:
The Church teaches us about Christ and when we chose to believe what the Church teaches, this is religion, not faith. Faith comes from God, it is His gift. Faith is the revelation of God in some way, however that happens, to the individual. It can be through Scripture, prayer, or the witness given by individuals. It can be through the teachings of the Church. It can be through locutions or apparitions. However, when God gives faith to the individual, it is from within that He communicates. It’s not a loud booming voice ala Cecil B. Demille’s type movies, but it is the voice of silence. God’s language is silence. It is within our heart that he reveals and communicates with us.

I don’t know if I’ve explained this clearly or not, but it is my experience of faith and my understanding of what the Church teaches about faith.

In Christ Jesus
Jim
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Dear Jim:

Caveat. How do these ideas conform with Pope Pius X’s comments in Pascendi Dominici Gregis (on the Doctrines of the Modernists) 6?

Modernists place the foundation of religious philosophy in that doctrine which is usually called Agnosticism. According to this teaching human reason is confined entirely within the field of phenomena, that is to say, to things that are perceptible to the senses, and in the manner in which they are perceptible; it has no right and no power to transgress these limits. Hence it is incapable of lifting itself up to God, and of recognising His existence, even by means of visible things. From this it is inferred that God can never be the direct object of science, and that, as regards history, He must not be considered as an historical subject. Given these premises, all will readily perceive what becomes of Natural Theology, of the motives of credibility, of external revelation. The Modernists simply make away with them altogether; they include them in Intellectualism, which they call a ridiculous and long ago defunct system. Nor does the fact that the Church has formally condemned these portentous errors exercise the slightest restraint upon them. Yet the Vatican Council has defined, “If anyone says that the one true God, our Creator and Lord, cannot be known with certainty by the natural light of human reason by means of the things that are made, let him be anathema” (De Revel., can. I); and also: “If anyone says that it is not possible or not expedient that man be taught, through the medium of divine revelation, about God and the worship to be paid Him, let him be anathema” (Ibid., can. 2); and finally, “If anyone says that divine revelation cannot be made credible by external signs, and that therefore men should be drawn to the faith only by their personal internal experience or by private inspiration, let him be anathema” (De Fide, can. 3).

Spiritus Sapientiae nobiscum.

John Hiner
 
John,
let’s first get a basic understanding of what “modernism” is, so that you can understand what Pius X was speaking about.

From the Catholic Encyclopedia at newadvent.org;
The general idea of modernism may be best expressed in the words of Abbate Cavallanti, though even here there is a little vagueness: “Modernism is modern in a false sense of the word; it is a morbid state of conscience among Catholics, and especially young Catholics, that professes manifold ideals, opinions, and tendencies. From time to time these tendencies work out into systems, that are to renew the basis and superstructure of society, politics, philosophy, theology, of the Church herself and of the Christian religion”. A remodelling, a renewal according to the ideas of the twentieth century – such is the longing that possesses the modernists. “The avowed modernists”, says M. Loisy, “form a fairly definite group of thinking men united in the common desire to adapt Catholicism to the intellectual, moral and social needs of today” (op. cit., p. 13). “Our religious attitude”, as “Il programma dei modernisti” states (p. 5, note l), “is ruled by the single wish to be one with Christians and Catholics who live in harmony with the spirit of the age”. The spirit of this plan of reform may be summarized under the following heads:
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A spirit of complete emancipation, tending to weaken ecclesiastical authority; the emancipation of science, which must traverse every field of investigation without fear of conflict with the Church; the emancipation of the State, which should never be hampered by religious authority; the emancipation of the private conscience whose inspirations must not be overridden by papal definitions or anathemas; the emancipation of the universal conscience, with which the Church should be ever in agreement;
A spirit of movement and change, with an inclination to a sweeping form of evolution such as abhors anything fixed and stationary;
A spirit of reconciliation among all men through the feelings of the heart. Many and varied also are the modernist dreams of an understanding between the different Christian religions, nay, even between religion and a species of atheism, and all on a basis of agreement that must be superior to mere doctrinal differences.
Such are the fundamental tendencies. As such, they seek to explain, justify, and strengthen themselves in an error, to which therefore one might give the name of “essential” modernism. What is this error? It is nothing less than the perversion of dogma. Manifold are the degrees and shades of modernist doctrine on the question of our relations with God. But no real modernist keeps the Catholic notions of dogma intact. Are you doubtful as to whether a writer or a book is modernist in the formal sense of the word? Verify every statement about dogma; examine his treatment of its origin, its nature, its sense, its authority. You will know whether you are dealing with a veritable modernist or not, according to the way in which the Catholic conception of dogma is travestied or respected. Dogma and supernatural knowledge are correlative terms; one implies the other as the action implies its object. In this way then we may define modernism as “the critique of our supernatural knowledge according to the false postulates of contemporary philosophy”.
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From the modernist philosophy, all experiences of the supernatural are left to the individual.

This is not interior prayer that St. Teresa or St. John of the Cross are talking about, nor what I’ve been trying to explain.

Also, the encyclical does not exclude a relationship with Jesus, but denounces experiences that are in conflict with Church dogma.

For instance, I know a woman at another web-sight, who would fit the definition of a modernist. She claimed to have visions of Jesus, Buddha and Mary and she said they are all equal. In other words, Jesus is no more divine than any of us is. This of course is opposed to the dogma of the Church. When I opposed what this woman was stating, I was attacked by others in this forum, as being intolerant and “who am I to say what she is experiencing is real or not?” This is pure modernism as addressed in the encylcical. Well, to make a long story short, after a couple years, the woman entered into mental treatment for schizophrenia.

So to be clear, in no way am I advocating a relationship with God, that is not checked with the dogmas of the Church. Also, as John of the Cross teaches, when you become aware of such experiences, let them go, for if they are from God, you’ve already received the fullness of grace the moment you receive them. Hanging on to them will only result in distorting them anyway.

Jim
 
I’d like to point out that the Apostles really had a personal relation with our Lord. But they didn’t really “get it” until after Pentecost ie: birth of the Church.

How are we suppose to get to “know” an omnipotent all knowing God? Well in the Old testament it was through the Prophets, and a burning bush or the like here and there. For my money the best way of getting to know him is through Sacred Tradition along with Sacred Scripture.
 
I got a really good tape on this subject called, "The Truth, by Father Larry Richards. This is produced by The Reason for Our Hope Foundation.

The Reason For Our Hope Foundation

I found this tape to really, really good! Father Larry Richards is an amazing and inspirational speaker.

How do you develop a personal relationship with Jesus Christ? (Answer is influenced by above cd)

My answer would be:
  1. Pray and receive God in the Eucharist.
  2. Allow God to love you by embracing your true identity. You are truly child of God, and God is your Father.
  3. Love others as God loves you. Go out and proclaim the Good News and live out the Gospel message in a life of charity and love.
    4). Allow Christ to grow within you, that is, allow Christ to use you as an instrument of doing the Will of the Father.
  4. Salvation is through embracing the cross.
That would be my answer.

God Bless!
 
BryanW said:
I’d like to point out that the Apostles really had a personal relation with our Lord. But they didn’t really “get it” until after Pentecost ie: birth of the Church.

How are we suppose to get to “know” an omnipotent all knowing God? Well in the Old testament it was through the Prophets, and a burning bush or the like here and there. For my money the best way of getting to know him is through Sacred Tradition along with Sacred Scripture.
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Actually, the Apostles got it after seeing the resurrected Jesus, but they did not have the Holy Spirit, who gave the relationship with God that was necessary for them to go out and preach to a hostile world.

We on the other hand, received the Holy Spirit at Baptism. We have the Holy Spirit dwelling within us here and now, who draws us toward a relationship with him. The relationship is one of love and has been defined as a spiritual marriage, by prophets and saints.

Jim
 
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