Personal relationship with Jesus

[Adamski]

I am catholic because it is true, all of it I have researched it from every angle and it makes me love god that he did die on the cross for our salvation so I follow all the commandents through love of him.

I constantly here Protestants, essapesally baptist telling me I don’t have a personal relationship with god so I’m not saved. I I don’t believe them. But would say I don’t have a personal relationship I feel a lot closer to Mary who assists me be closer to god.

Any comments would be helpful

 

[JRKH]

I am catholic because it is true, all of it I have researched it from every angle and it makes me love god that he did die on the cross for our salvation so I follow all the commandments through love of him.

I constantly here Protestants, essapesally baptist telling me I don’t have a personal relationship with god so I’m not saved.

1. In written discussions, It might help if you spell our God with a capital “G”…a small g gives the impression of speaking of a false god…
2. Why let someone else tell you what you do or don’t have. My response to such a comment was that a) they obviously do not know me very well and b) My relationship to Christ ( the usual comment) is so intimate that I receive Him, body, blood, soul and divinity, into my very body each week at mass.

I don’t believe them. But would say I don’t have a personal relationship I feel a lot closer to Mary who assists me be closer to god.

Having a close relationship with Mary is good…But if you feel closer to Mary than to Jesus, you have some work to do. As you say, Mary’s intent is to lead us closer to her Son. It is not her desire that we should be closer to her than to him.

Any comments would be helpful

Hope these comments are useful

Peace
James

 

[po18guy]

I am catholic because it is true, all of it I have researched it from every angle and it makes me love god that he did die on the cross for our salvation so I follow all the commandents through love of him.

I constantly here Protestants, essapesally baptist telling me I don’t have a personal relationship with god so I’m not saved. I I don’t believe them. But would say I don’t have a personal relationship I feel a lot closer to Mary who assists me be closer to god.

Any comments would be helpful

The Eucharist. There is no more personal relationship with Christ than to eat His Body and drink His Blood. He remains in you and you in Him. As a Catholic, you may also go and spend time in Jesus’ true presence at adoration. This can be so intensely personal that it takes your breath away.

To me, this insistence upon a “personal relationship” comes from the fact that they are compensating for the lack of the Eucharist in their communities. In much the same way, the bible may have become their “true presence” since they reject the Eucharist.

Sadly, they have no idea what they are missing, and so, do not know whereof they speak.

 

[MaryT777]

How it came about that “some say” that Catholics don’t have a personal relationship with Jesus is beyond me but I have heard it before.

The answers on the board were fabulous. They know not of what they speak.
It’s easy to say words.
Mary.

 

[Abrigham]

People who make blanket statements like that are simply showing off their ignorance. It’s like how some people think Catholics are cannibals, there are verses missing from our Bible, we don’t read the Bible, we don’t pray, we worship idols, we’re not Christian… I’ve heard all these things before and just have to laugh. No matter how much you explain, they probably aren’t going to change their thoughts on the matter unless they WANT to.

 

[po18guy]

People who make blanket statements like that are simply showing off their ignorance. It’s like how some people think Catholics are cannibals, there are verses missing from our Bible, we don’t read the Bible, we don’t pray, we worship idols, we’re not Christian… I’ve heard all these things before and just have to laugh. No matter how much you explain, they probably aren’t going to change their thoughts on the matter unless they WANT to.

If the truth convinced the human heart, it would only need to be said once. As it is, the Holy Spirit does all of the converting.

 

[LegoGE1947]

1. In written discussions, It might help if you spell our God with a capital “G”…a small g gives the impression of speaking of a false god…
2. Why let someone else tell you what you do or don’t have. My response to such a comment was that a) they obviously do not know me very well and b) My relationship to Christ ( the usual comment) is so intimate that I receive Him, body, blood, soul and divinity, into my very body each week at mass.

Having a close relationship with Mary is good…But if you feel closer to Mary than to Jesus, you have some work to do. As you say, Mary’s intent is to lead us closer to her Son. It is not her desire that we should be closer to her than to him.

Hope these comments are useful

Peace
James

When I was a protestant I tried to have a personal relationship with Jesus but somehow it never “took” I can now say I have a closer relationship with him through taking the eucharist every day at Mass. It is still not as close as I would prefer it to be because I’m still trying to unlearn all the evangelical garbage I had picked up in 25 years. (I’ve been Catholic for only the past 10 years)

 

[JRKH]

In truth…I don’t really mind it when people say we need a “personal relationship with Jesus”…In fact I wholeheartedly agree. It needs to be very personal and profound. It needs to effect everything we do and say.

I ask myself…Why do these people say this? Where did it come from? What is it they are trying to convey? Is it that they see and sense and hear too many people treating Jesus, and the Father too, as some distant “Sunday” thing…If they even have a faith at all?

Even as Catholics we bemoan the “C&E” Catholics…the “Cafeteria Catholics”…The ones who come to Church and then cut you off in traffic trying to get out of the parking lot…
We can’t help but wonder about the relationship between such people and the God they are suppose to Love with everything they have…

So - when a person says - or asks if I have a personal relationship with Jesus Christ…Or if I’ve accepted Him as my Savior…I don’t get upset…I just say, "You bet I have!!! .

BUT -

If someone starts making blanket accusations like Catholics, “don’t have a personal relationship with God”…then my dander gets up a bit…such people need correction, and quickly…

Peace
James

 

[AlanFromWichita]

Try reading the gospels with your name substituted for some of the characters, and see what it feels like to read the story with you in it.

Or engage in contemplative prayer. CCC 2709-2724

You just might develop a relationship more personal than most of those people saying it, actually know themselves.

Alan

 

[JRKH]

Try reading the gospels with your name substituted for some of the characters, and see what it feels like to read the story with you in it.

Or engage in contemplative prayer. CCC 2709-2724

You just might develop a relationship more personal than most of those people saying it, actually know themselves.

Alan

Great Ideas…

Peace
James

 

[LegoGE1947]

Great Ideas…

Peace
James

At a retreat My wife and I went to Saturday a speaker read us the story of Zacheus the short tax collector who climbed into a tree to see Jesus. Then he had us read the story again and insert our own name in place of Zacheus. Was an interesting exercise.

 

[De_Montfort]

Having a close relationship with Mary is good…**But if you feel closer to Mary than to Jesus, you have some work to do. ** As you say, Mary’s intent is to lead us closer to her Son. It is not her desire that we should be closer to her than to him.
Peace
James

So are you saying Mary is a rival of Christ? Is loving Her depriving Christ of love? Please explain!

OP you will come to understand and know that Mary lives only for Christ, anything you give Her be it love, or honor She unfailingly gives it to Jesus. She will enflame your heart with love of Her Son. Stay close to Her She holds the keys of God’s very heart.

It always starts with Christ, we come to know Him which usually leads to knowing His Mother. Just as it doesn’t start with Mary nor does it end with Her, it ends with Christ. Because She only leads to Him.

You cannot render a greater service to Jesus Christ or do anything more pleasing to Him than to serve and honor His mosty Holy Mother. (St. John Eudes)

 

[AlanFromWichita]

So are you saying Mary is a rival of Christ? Is loving Her depriving Christ of love? Please explain!

OP you will come to understand and know that Mary lives only for Christ, anything you give Her be it love, or honor She unfailingly gives it to Jesus. She will enflame your heart with love of Her Son. Stay close to Her She holds the keys of God’s very heart.

Mary isn’t the rival of Christ. She leads us to Christ, a guide and helper to get to her Son. If we have a better relationship with Mary than with Jesus, it isn’t because we prefer Mary, it is because we are lacking with our relationship with Jesus. If our relationship with Jesus falls secondary to any other, that’s what I believe the poster meant by there is more work to do. When the proper relationship is established with Jesus, then our love for Jesus, Mary, and for that matter any of the least of Jesus’s brothers, overflows beyond measure and comparison.
:kiss4you: :harp: :dancing: :grouphug: :heaven:

JRKH, please correct me if I’m taking this the wrong way.

Alan

 

[JRKH]

Mary isn’t the rival of Christ. She leads us to Christ, a guide and helper to get to her Son. If we have a better relationship with Mary than with Jesus, it isn’t because we prefer Mary, it is because we are lacking with our relationship with Jesus. If our relationship with Jesus falls secondary to any other, that’s what I believe the poster meant by there is more work to do. When the proper relationship is established with Jesus, then our love for Jesus, Mary, and for that matter any of the least of Jesus’s brothers, overflows beyond measure and comparison.
:kiss4you: :harp: :dancing: :grouphug: :heaven:

JRKH, please correct me if I’m taking this the wrong way.

Alan

Alan…nothing to correct my friend…You expressed it quite well. Thanks…

Peace
James

 

[JRKH]

So are you saying Mary is a rival of Christ? Is loving Her depriving Christ of love? Please explain!

My dear friend…Why would you draw this conclusion from what I wrote?
You are creating a problem where none exists.
Mary cannot rival Christ for Christ is God and Mary is not.

Our Goal is to reach to God. To Love Him with all our heart, mind and strength. This is the first and greatest commandment - as you well know - and more than that, we are called to perfection in Love…(Mt 5:48)

When a person feels closer to the creature, (even as perfect a creature as our Blessed Mother), than they feel to the creator…then they obviously still have work to do. Work that our Blessed Mother applauds, encourages and aids us in. For, as you have eloquently stated on more than one occasion, it is Mary’s greatest desire to lead us to Her Son.

In closing I will just note that I am one who needs to a great deal of work in this area for I know that I am a poor, inconstant and unprofitable servant of my God…I say this in all humility lest anyone think I am boasting in anything I have said above.

Peace
James

 

[mh2007]

Everyone rows their boat a little different. As you seek and search for Him, you will surely find spiritual treasure. How wonderful is our quest to know Him, and how lucky we are. One thing is for sure…He accepts everyone of us, with all of our failings and shortcomings. How magnificent.

 

[De_Montfort]

My dear friend…Why would you draw this conclusion from what I wrote?
You are creating a problem where none exists.
Mary cannot rival Christ for Christ is God and Mary is not.

Our Goal is to reach to God. To Love Him with all our heart, mind and strength. This is the first and greatest commandment - as you well know - and more than that, we are called to perfection in Love…(Mt 5:48)

When a person feels closer to the creature, (even as perfect a creature as our Blessed Mother), than they feel to the creator…then they obviously still have work to do. Work that our Blessed Mother applauds, encourages and aids us in. For, as you have eloquently stated on more than one occasion, it is Mary’s greatest desire to lead us to Her Son.

In closing I will just note that I am one who needs to a great deal of work in this area for I know that I am a poor, inconstant and unprofitable servant of my God…I say this in all humility lest anyone think I am boasting in anything I have said above.

Peace
James

I wasn’t trying to create a problem, I was just trying to understand your post, which are always with charity and I like that about you.

I believe that feeling close to Mary or drawn to Her is a contuiation of Christ’s devotion to Her and his love of Her.

Say for example I go to Church and greet Christ in the tabernacle kneel and make the sign of the Cross. Then I go to the back of the Church to an altar for Mary and pray. This in no way hinders my love or devotion to Jesus. Everything I give to Mary is given to Christ.

I took your post as if you love Mary to much you can be in error. I don’t believe that because OP or anyone else for that matter will discover Mary lives only for Christ, and Jesus Christ is our final end. And I believe a great love for Mary and closeness to Her is a gift given by Christ himself.

No one will ever call on her without being heard or without being finally led to her Divine Son, Jesus Christ, for Whose sake she alone exists. (Fulton Sheen)

So to me any love of Mary we have comes from Christ, it starts with Christ and ends with Him, going to Him through Mary is a way of loving Him tenderly, a direct, smooth path.

St. Maximilian Kolbe said not to worry of loving Mary too much, for we will never love Her as much as Jesus does.

Sorry if my post implied I was being mean, I was just confused on what you are saying.
God Bless You

 

[JRKH]

I wasn’t trying to create a problem, I was just trying to understand your post, which are always with charity and I like that about you.

No problem…I just wondered how you could get “rival” from anything I said in my post…

Say for example I go to Church and greet Christ in the tabernacle kneel and make the sign of the Cross. Then I go to the back of the Church to an altar for Mary and pray. This in no way hinders my love or devotion to Jesus. Everything I give to Mary is given to Christ.

I Love this visual aid. It illustrates things simply and perfectly.
In doing as you describe you come to Our Lord and suggest to Him that you would like to spend some time with “mom”…and Being the gracious host that Our Lord is, He does not mind that at all.

But -

Using this same scene, I’m sure that you would agree that if a Catholic were to enter the Church and completely ignore Christ in the Tabernacle and go and pray before Mary’s statue, that would be inappropriate. Such behavior would not please our Lady.

On the other hand…If a Catholic were to enter the Church, greet Christ in the tabernacle kneel and make the sign of the Cross and then enter a pew in front of the tabernacle to pray, our Blessed Mother would not be offended in the least…For this is precisely what she hopes we will do…Go to her son and to His Father.

I believe this illustrates very nicely much of what you and I have tried to say to one another on several occasions…but it always seemed like “words” kept getting in the way. So I thank you - and the Holy Spirit who inspired you - for posting this wonderful “analogy”…

Peace
James

 

[AlanFromWichita]

In closing I will just note that I am one who needs to a great deal of work in this area for I know that I am a poor, inconstant and unprofitable servant of my God…I say this in all humility lest anyone think I am boasting in anything I have said above.

This struck me a “statistically significant” comment, based on my prior impressions of you writing style.

When you say “need to do work,” do you find yourself deficient and have to work and put effort into it, or is it more like you are finding yourself brought into that area for purification? I’m asking because some time back all of a sudden I quit having to push up from the ground to do everything, fighting gravity all the time as it were. (Even “gravity” as in “seriousness.”) It is a struggle of the will, which is complicated because you want to willfully surrender the will and that’s kind of circular chicken-egg sort of thing.

Then I crossed a boundary where things quit being hard. It became easy to make decisions and be motivated to go do things. I started finding my improvements and lessons coming to me easily and naturally, without my having to even look for them. It’s truly like gravity reverses – like reaching critical mass or engaging a singularity like a black hole or something and voila! I’m not struggling anymore; I’m just enjoying where life takes me moment by moment, and I find that the Holy Spirit does little quick surgical touch-ups to me as we go, even without my consciously working on it. It’s like a synergistic, if not optimized, blend of active and contemplative mindset. Or maybe a fusion between my focused consciousness and my “peripheral consciousness” as I call it, which is part of the interface between conscious and subconscious. It’s like peripheral vision, except with thought patterns instead of light patterns.

I understand the humility and how awkward it is to talk about our relationships with God, with other people, recounting the blessings and giving the credit to Him without sounding either self-deprecating or boastful. But we also know that you must have played your role to invite these blessings and these close experiences.

Alan

 

[JRKH]

Alan,
My main problem seems to be spiritual sloth. This can take different forms but primarily it seems that I have difficulty consistently and properly utilizing graces received. Also, I am terribly inconsistent in my prayer life.

I can make no pretense of ignorance in this, for I know all to well that I need the disciplines, that I have squandered many graces over my lifetime and that I can fall rather easily into old patterns of behavior. My present blessing is that in my current situation I am very limited in temptation since, as you know, I am basically housebound. Also, I am blessed with a knowledge that it is not my strength, but God’s allows me to function on a daily basis and care for my dear wife.

But this spiritual sloth…a tendency to just sort of “drift along”…has been a character flaw of mine for a great many years…and of course other things are mixed in…principally pride (of course) and also presumption…

So as you can see, while I am able to give sound advice to others based on what God has shown me…I have a devil of a time getting myself to consistently apply those lessons to my own spiritual life.

Thankfully - My Lord is nothing if not tenacious and often at night, as I say my evening prayers, He will nudge me - reminding me of things I said here on CAF - and asking, “Why aren’t you practicing what you preach?”…
A good question my Lord…one I really don’t have a good answer for…

So my prayer becomes this…
"Heavenly Father, I am a poor, and inconstant servant; lazy and unprofitable. I am unworthy to seek your favor, but look to your mercy and love as a child seeks his parents arms.

Hope this answers your question Alan…

Peace
James