Share your personal relationship with Christ

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Blessedwithfive said:
You know we are not unique with martyrs…Thousands have died in the name of Allah too…lots of people have died for “unworthy” causes…
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Can’t argue with that. I put martyrdom in context with what I tend to believe. The teaching of my Church and Holy Scripture. In an accepting tollerant world, I’ll never fit in. Not all religions are equal. All sinners are not Saints. IMHO.
 
Thanks DebCWil, I do like gifts and I believe I have opened all of them…and I really desire a personal relationship. I can’t figure out why I don’t have one…and the scariest possibility is that God doesn’t interact with us and the people who say they have a relationship with God really just have great imaginations…
 
Truer words have not been spoken…as I am raising the “last of the teenagers”. Actually they are often fuzzy, just not warm…today as I was taking my daughter to ballet i asked her to put away her shoes when we got home and she flipped out that i was putting “too much pressure” on her…like where did that come from…very fuzzy…not warm…
 
I do like the line “all sinners are not saints”. I am going to use that in CCD.
Thanks! your post did make me smile…
 
Blessedwithfive said:
do like the line “all sinners are not saints”. I am going to use that in CCD.

Thanks! your post did make me smile…
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As I am sitting here re reading my post, I remember the Rolling Stones actually used the phrase as well in one of their songs. “all Siinners are saints”. Something like that. Although Mick Jagger was raised Catholic. Yes he was… I don’t think I would be consulting him any time soon for spiritual advice.😀
 
I have a deeper relation w/ Christ when I recall that he is human like us.

Most striking to me is this: He probably found out that Yahweh was his Father from his Mother. This is b/c the angel at the Annunciation revealed so to his Mother. Twelve years and about nine months later, we read in Bible about him asking the learned men questions.

So, he learned a lot like us. Also, he had emotions like us. He was authoritative, yet calm.

How about when he read Isaiah to the Jews at the Synagogue in Capernum? Wasn’t that a fascinating story? “Today, this has been fulfilled”. Gotta love that.
 
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😂 Some of my best spiritual advice has come from Meatloaf and Billy Joel, both have religious overtones. Meatloaf was a choir boy and Joel was raised jewish…
I will add Jagger! My third concert I attended, pregnant with my first…
 
Spiritual reading and mental prayer will help you develop a personal relationship with God. At least that’s what the saints say.

Mental prayer often starts with acknowledging God’s presence. Then, meditation on a certain part of Jesus’s life as though you’re there (St. Ignatius prayer style). After that, one begins to actually pray (talking to God or requesting something). Mental prayer is so important it has been said we can’t be saved without it. Meditation on the Passion is the best meditation because it helps us develop more compassion toward Our Lord.

Spiritual reading can also be a way for God to speak to you. Sometimes He desires to transmit certain information to you and He will do it at times through what you read.

Speaking with God throughout your day as a friend will also help you to develop a more personal relationship.
 
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Blessedwithfive said:
I am an active Catholic already. EMHC, Catechist, I take Communion to the sick weekly, Biblical school student, Attend bible study, on various committees at church…It is actually really embarrassing not to have had an encounter with Christ.
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You haven’t seen him? Then you have something in common with these guys!
“‘Lord, when did we see you hungry and feed you, or thirsty and give you drink? When did we see you a stranger and welcome you, or naked and clothe you? When did we see you ill or in prison, and visit you?’ And the king will say to them in reply, ‘Amen, I say to you, whatever you did for one of these least brothers of mine, you did for me.’”
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But I totally understand how even that might not feel like a personal friendship with Jesus. Same here. Maybe it has to do with personality types, or upbringing. People are not all the same, and it comes easier to some. This year, my New Year Resolution was to learn more about Jesus, pray a little more, and perhaps cultivate a more personal relationship. Still working on it. But no worries. With God, all things are possible.
 
Blessedwithfive said:
Could someone PLEASE tell me what a “personal relationship with Christ” is. Do you have one? And how did you get one?
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Like you pray a lot. That you are committed to prayer life. In the Catholic Church that invariably include the Sacrament, where you meet and in communion with Jesus.

You cannot, if you do (have a good prayer life), do not have a relationship with Jesus. It is knowing what Jesus wants you to do and don’t. It is faithfully following His will. It is being a friend with him. It is having him as Brother, Lord and Savior, in a tangible way.

Like the saints, when they were deep in prayers, they could hear and know Jesus tangibly, like talking and hearing his voice. In our relationship with Jesus we try to reach the higher level as much as possible.

I think every Catholic, one way or the other, has a personal reltionship with Jesus. It is just sometimes we do not call it in that term. When they receive the Sacraments, they have a relationship with Jesus.
 
Ouch.
It’s a sore point. I haven’t been praying much recently. It’s all my fault. Obviously cant blame Him, can I. 🙂
 
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Do you have a quiet place to pray and a regular time of day in which to pray? Since you have children perhaps early in the morning would be a good time to pray?

You could try spending more time with the daily Mass readings, particularly the Gospel. After you have read it imagine yourself in the scene, either as a participant of a bystander. What do you see? How would you react if you were the person in the scene and Jesus spoke directly to you. How do you think the people in the scene felt?

For example: One of the best meditations I ever had was on the Gospel reading about the hemmorhaging woman who believed if she could just touch the tassel on Jesus’ cloak she would be healed.

I put myself in the woman’s place and asked myself what I wanted Jesus to heal me from. I imagined touching the tassel on his cloak and feeling his love enveloping me. I heard him ask the apostles who had touched him and I wondered if he was angry with me because I had touched him. But when he found me and looked at me I saw only love in his eyes. It was a very powerful experience.

I then had a conversation with him and told him about my joys and sorrows and thanked him for listening to me.

If you like to write then by all means start a spiritual journal and record your experiences.
 
Actually, we are nowhere called to a ‘personal relationship’ as ‘neo’ and ‘quasi-Christians’ claim. Neo and quasi being those who have no sacraments and, not being baptized, are not true Christians. That particular phrase is man-made, and an adaptation of the faith to worldly standards.

Rather, we are called to a corporate (bodily) relationship with Him. We eat His Flesh and drink His Blood, thereby becoming actual incorporated members - integral parts - of His divine Body. As much as evangelical and fundamentalist types rely on Saint Paul, one would think that they would understand Saint Paul’s consistent exhortation to a corporate relationship with Christ.

Holy Communion with Christ is more intensely personal than the thin-as-a-razor bible Christian theology can conceive of. It is not a mere expression, not a buzz phrase, and certainly not a mere thought process - it is material consumption of sacramental matter whose substance is Christ. For this reason, I declare that I would have to renounce Christ to enter any bible Christian community.

How could anyone depart from bodily communion with our Lord, only to associate with others who merely use His name?
 
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Blessedwithfive said:
I am an active Catholic already. EMHC, Catechist, I take Communion to the sick weekly, Biblical school student, Attend bible study, on various committees at church…It is actually really embarrassing not to have had an encounter with Christ. And something I just can’t ask others about…
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Wow! You are amazing. But I wonder if you are soooo busy, that you can’t feel Our Lord when He is tapping you on the shoulder! 🤣 Perhaps you should slow down and still your mind and listen…Maybe you’ll hear something.

I look at this “personal relationship with Christ” thing as I would when trying to make friends. It’s not easy to make close friends. You have to talk to them, often. You have to open yourself up and tell them about yourself. Always talk, talk and listen. That’s how you cultivate a relationship.

It’s like that with Jesus. Talk to Him often. Little things, like “Good morning, Lord!” “What should I make for dinner tonight, Lord?” “Thank you Lord, for letting me go grocery shopping!” “What a beautiful day you made today, Lord!” “Goodnight, Lord. See you tomorrow”. Make small talk with Him, and He will become more real, fleshed-out and not so distant. And who knows, maybe one day He’ll answer back. 😃 Then come back here on the forum and let us know what He said!
 
They tell me. Actually lots of people tell me about these incredible personal experiences they have had with Christ. Feelings of the calm or flooding feelings of the Holy Spirit. Some have said they have “heard” him, most say they feel a presence of Him when they pray…things like that.
 
I have thought of attending an Ignatius prayer retreat…but it would be incredibly sad to attend one and not have anything happen…
 
Reuben_J said:
You cannot, if you do (have a good prayer life), do not have a relationship with Jesus. It is knowing what Jesus wants you to do and don’t. It is faithfully following His will. It is being a friend with him. It is having him as Brother, Lord and Savior, in a tangible way.
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Yea, that is the $100,000 question. What does he want from me? It just seems like I pray and follow the “rules” but, for the life of me, I can’t figure out what he wants and I NEVER feel a presence or hear anything…

I do receive communion regular, and confession as well but I just don’t feel His presence which so many of my friends tell me they feel. I shouldn’t compare my life to others but it just feels like I am missing something.
 
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