Is it possible to have a real personal relationship with Jesus, Mary, the Saints… God?
I’ve never met them. I can’t see or hear them…
And how can I really *love *Jesus? I can say I love my *idea *of Him. But can one actually love an idea, and is that the same as loving the Person?
If we’ve never actually met Christ face to face-- do we really know him personally?
This is related to a question that has caught my attention several times over the last few years.
It is not clear to me what this phrase, “personal relationship with Jesus,” is supposed to mean. I hear it used, but its meaning is always taken for granted and I cannot discern what people mean from the other things they say.
It does not seem to me to be a customary Catholic phrase. I searched the Councils of the Church and, at least in the translations that I have, this phrase does not appear even once. The closest is “This conversion must be taken as an initial one, yet sufficient to make a man realize that he has been snatched away from sin and led into the mystery of God’s love, who called him to enter into
a personal relationship with Him in Christ.” Ad Gentes, 13, Second Vatican Council.
This refers to a personal relationship with God in Christ. This seems less ambiguous than the phrase “personal relationship with Jesus.” In the Council’s phrase, it seems clear that the “personal” side of the relationship is ours. The Trinity is not accessible to be personally known. So, the Council’s phrase seems to refer to realizing that one’s relationship with God is personal to the human being. We are called to a personal commitment and dedication to God, as opposed to a merely formal relationship without personal commitment. Further, we are called to live “in Christ” that is to conform our thoughts, feelings, outlooks, judgments, passions, interests, and goals to Christ. In this sense, our entire person is called to conversion.
When people use the phrase “personal relationship with Jesus,” however, it seems more ambiguous. It is possible that the intended meaning is the same as that described above. However, as the opening post suggests, the phrase could also have a second meaning: because Jesus is an individual human person, the personal relationship could refer to His side of the relationship rather than ours.
If what is meant is an intimate knowing of the person of Jesus, then there seem to be great difficulties. Though Jesus can be known to some extent, through the Church especially, this is hardly what one would call “personal” in the usual sense that one uses that word when referring to knowing another human being.
The original poster seemed correct, there is a great danger of confusing one’s ideas or theories about Jesus for the actual Jesus. It is an open door to mistaking one’s feelings for communication with Jesus, when they may be no more than fantasy. Without the Church as an objective source and standard for judgment, there is no check on personal wishful thinking which constructs an idol in the place of the true Jesus.
Further, these two meanings seem to militate against each other. If one is called to personal commitment and full personal conversion, then focusing one’s efforts on a fantasy of the person Jesus might distract from this work of conversion and perfection. The fantasy of a “personal Jesus” might completely divert one from the reality of the call to repentance and conversion. This mistake seems like a wide open door for elements of Modernism and a fundamental frustration of the call to live Christ.
What do people think of this phrase and these questions about it? Where does this phrase come from? What do people understand it to mean? Is it part of Modernism, Protestantism, or another heresy?
Spiritus Sapientiae nobiscum.
John Hiner
