Tangible Friendship With God

[KindredSoul]

Does anyone here on the forums have a friendship (let’s allow that one simple term to indicate “sonship” with the Father, “brotherhood” with the Son, and relationship with the Holy Spirit) with God that is so intense, so tangible, so “real” to both your emotions and brain that you feel, act, and think toward Him with just as much (or, preferrably, notably more) “tangible” affection and intention as you would toward a best friend or close loved on on earth?

In other words, is your friendship with God as real to you, emotionally and otherwise, as your friendship with mortal creatures?

Do you miss God’s physical presence in the Eucharist when you’re not in a Church, like you might miss a best friend or spouse when you’re not physically around them?

Do you feel inclined and able to talk to God at length in prayer just as you might ramble on for hours with a dear friend, without this being “boring”?

If you had planned some time with God one-on-one, and a mortal loved one asked if you’d like to hang out, would your heart be just as resolute in honoring your one-on-one time with God as it would if you’d set that time aside for one-on-one time with a relative or friend? On this one, I’m not merely asking if you’d honor your prior commitment, but would you look forward to it, as with a tangible friend, rather than perhaps honoring it but feeling like you were missing out on something by not going with the mortal loved one?

When you sin against God, does your guilt spring from true sorrow at having offended Him, as it might with a beloved fellow mortal, rather than from fear of Hell or even simply fear that perhaps God will love you less (the latter which, while focused on desiring a relationship with God and thus possibly being a sort of True Contrition, is still more concerned in a practical sense with the state of your relationship than with sorrow over having offended Him).

Basically, do you manage to interact with God as you would if He walked the Earth in fully human form and not merely in Sacramental form? If any of you do, I am deeply interested in knowing how you cultivated this level of faith and devotion. What sorts of prayers, practices, thoughts and other actions were successful–by God’s Grace, of course–in making God more tangible to you?

Many thanks in advance!

Blessings in Christ,
KindredSoul

P.S. Don’t get me wrong: I love God, I firmly believe in His Existence, and I try to practice my Faith as well as I can. My problem isn’t that I’m “losing faith” or in fear that I have a “hellbound” complacency–I do struggle with scrupulosity about such things at times, but that’s simply not relevant to my concern here. I would merely like to have a certain added depth in my relationship with God and I think that it could be served by the kind of “tangible” relationship I describe above, based on how intense I can feel about my earthly relationships due to their having said “tangibility”. I am one of those people who wishes God would speak to him audibly and appear to him visibly (as He did, say, to St. Faustina), merely because of how much more “tangible” that could possibly make our relationship, and since that is not the case, I hope there are other ways besides that…

 

[Dorothy]

Our prayer life is a journey, and there are many good books that give advice about it.

We don’t have to rely on feelings to measure our friendship with God. Our commitment to prayer, the practice of virtue, and a focused attention on the sacraments is available to us daily to assist us in drawing closer to the Lord.

Saint Faustina had a special mission, and so she was given the grace of a deep interior life that included visions and other phenomena.

St. Therese of Lisieux’s journey was not like that at all, and was quite ordinary. Yet, she had a holy and childlike friendship with the Lord. If you haven’t yet read her autobiography “The Story of a Soul”, I highly recommend it.

 

[InLight247]

Replying to your multiple questions, my answer is a general yes and yes. Daily Mass, devotions, prayers, Eucharistic Adoration, Scripture and spiritual readings are my regular routine. I often pray for God’s continuous attraction, asking God keep my love of Him intense. God always answers my prayer. It is not I chose Him but He chose me.

 

[KindredSoul]

Our prayer life is a journey, and there are many good books that give advice about it.

We don’t have to rely on feelings to measure our friendship with God. Our commitment to prayer, the practice of virtue, and a focused attention on the sacraments is available to us daily to assist us in drawing closer to the Lord.

I agree. Mother Teresa, for example, seems to have had quite a lack of any tangible experience of God during much of her life, yet she was undoubtedly one of the holiest people of modern times. If I am never able to have the kind of “tangible” friendship I envision, I hope to have the courage, strength, and determination to be like Mother Teresa, who was a friend to God even when she felt–in the emotional sense, despite persevering by faith, of course–that God wasn’t there to befriend. My feelings at this particular moment in life aren’t as bleak as hers were (my emotions do mostly affirm that God exists, just not that He is as immanently close as He is, although I believe the latter by faith), but no one could go wrong with her level of heroic faith and devotion.

Saint Faustina had a special mission, and so she was given the grace of a deep interior life that included visions and other phenomena.

St. Therese of Lisieux’s journey was not like that at all, and was quite ordinary. Yet, she had a holy and childlike friendship with the Lord. If you haven’t yet read her autobiography “The Story of a Soul”, I highly recommend it.

I have read that, and loved it!

I’m currently reading St. Faustina’s diary, and what struck me is this: Notice how utterly similar St. Therese’s experience of God seems to St. Faustina’s. St. Therese’s story and even the nature of her relationship with God seems to be very much like “St. Faustina, but without the visions” (or, if you prefer, since St. Faustina came later, you could say that her story and friendship with God were similar to “St. Therese, but with visions”). Now, I am not at all saying that the two led identical lives (although strikingly similar at points), nor that the two had identical experiences of God.

But St. Therese’s friendship with God somehow seems to have been just as tangible, just as “real” to her as St. Faustina’s, despite that St. Therese was not accustomed to visions and voices. She had scarcely anymore supernatural experiences than you or me, yet somehow her feelings and sentiments toward God seem almost directly parallel to those of St. Faustina, who spoke with and saw God as tangibly as she would one of her fellow nuns. This is precisely my question, reframed: How does one like St. Therese manage to have so tangible a friendship with God, one that rivals that of an outright mystic (St. Faustina), despite that she herself (St. Therese) must rely just as much on Faith and normal human experience like the rest of us?

Replying to your multiple questions, my answer is a general yes and yes. Daily Mass, devotions, prayers, Eucharistic Adoration, Scripture and spiritual readings are my regular routine. I often pray for God’s continuous attraction, asking God keep my love of Him intense. God always answers my prayer. It is not I chose Him but He chose me.

Thanks! I have been going to Daily Mass for a while now, and that definitely makes a difference. Life feels far more like I’m just “going through the motions” when I don’t attend Mass much more frequently than once a week, so I deeply appreciate this difference. It adds a new dimension to my life.

As for your own experience of God, I’m truly happy to know that you have that sort of tangible relationship. Such is my desire. Although I have a “living” and even “healthy” relationship with God (insofar as the average but practicing Catholic does), I sometimes feel that I’m more affectionate in my earthly relationships than with God. I do not think I am more affectionate in the earthly ones than I “should” be, but rather feel that I need to be more affectionate toward God. I don’t merely want to love Him in the basic sense. I want to pine for Him, to ache for Him, to long for His company. I don’t merely want to desire to be with Him, I want to care for Him so deeply that the mere thought of Him quickens my heart and awakens my zeal. I don’t merely want to pray. I want to be so engrossed in conversation with my Best Friend in existence that, despite His lack of audible reply, I am just as interested in talking to Him as I would be in talking with my wife or with my best mortal friends.

…and while I cannot deny that I desire the above partially because it would make things “easier”, that’s only a small part of it. I also want it because it’s what I feel that God deserves of me. If I have these feelings toward my wife/family/friends (and I do), then I feel like I’m somehow not giving God His full due if I do not cultivate the same toward Him. It would be different if I were in general emotionally aloof in my relationships (that would mean that it just “wasn’t my way” of caring), but I am on the contrary typically very affectionate and attached when I care about some one, and so, although I am not altogether lacking in these things toward God, I feel that the intensity of it leaves something to be desired compared with how strongly it manifests itself in my earthly relationships. My loyalty and love for Him are indeed so absolute that I hope/believe that I wouldn’t betray Him even if I had to choose between Him and any of these people…but when it comes to the way I relate to Him, there is an intensity of affection that I have in my mortal relationships that I therefore wish I could have for God too…

I feel that I should say that I do have moments of this…sometimes I am moved to tears with sentiment for God, and it’s rare for me to feel “nothing” of this, but it’s just less stable, less constant and predictable, than it is in my “tangible” earthly relationships, if that makes any sense. Which is why I seek ways to make God’s presence more “tangible” to me…

Thank you for your replies so far. Keep em’ coming!

Blessings in Christ,
KindredSoul

 

[InLight247]

Dear Kindredsoul, I enjoy reading your post very much. I know you must have concrete experiences of tangible relationship with God, otherwise you would not be able to ask the questions you asked. God always honors our desires of being intimate with him. You are on the right track. You said you want to pang for him, thirst for him, and I think you are just doing that. If you have not tried contemplative prayer, you may want to get into it. If you have not read the good book of Father Dubay’s Fire Within, I highly recommend you read it. Another good book is Brother Lawrence’s The Practice the Presence of God, it will also benefit you.

 

[mh2007]

Since God is everywhere, I believe He is accessible always. My interaction is primarily through prayer, meditation, and peaceful silence, which I make a point to do at least twice each day. Early morning and early evening are my best times. This interaction is not seeking a human experience, because He is eternal, the Divine Creator of our universe, and is forever after the physical universe. I pray for guidance, providence, help, and to worship, praise, and thank Him for all of life’s blessings. I believe seeking first the kingdom of God, everything else is added. Staying on this kind of daily ‘routine’ allows us to cope with, get through, and look beyond the ‘false’ world of consumerism and excess embedded in modern times. I seek God by the way, and the truth, and the life - namely Jesus, who I believe was truly human and devine, and the greatest friend we can go to, and rely upon. People will let you down. Jesus will never let you down. He is the friend who will always be there, accept you, forgive you, and rejoice upon your return. And it is really true that he who believes in Jesus, as the Scripture says, ‘From his innermost being will flow rivers of living water.’

 

[KindredSoul]

Dear Kindredsoul, I enjoy reading your post very much. I know you must have concrete experiences of tangible relationship with God, otherwise you would not be able to ask the questions you asked. God always honors our desires of being intimate with him. You are on the right track. You said you want to pang for him, thirst for him, and I think you are just doing that. If you have not tried contemplative prayer, you may want to get into it. If you have not read the good book of Father Dubay’s Fire Within, I highly recommend you read it. Another good book is Brother Lawrence’s The Practice the Presence of God, it will also benefit you.

Thank you for your encouraging and uplifting words. I should indeed look into contemplative prayer more than I have in the past. Such prayer seems to have been of great benefit to several saints, after all. Mainly, I have to make this a priority. That’s where I can have trouble, I think. It’s so easy to get caught up in the stress of daily concerns and life struggles (i.e. “What am I going to do with my life?” etc.) that, like Martha from the Gospels, I can become “troubled about many things” and not spend as much time as I should on the “one good thing, that will not be taken away…” I have much room for improvement. I have the desire for intense friendship with God, which is in itself probably a treasure, but I must make my friendship with Him more a priority if I am ever to have the relationship with Him that I want, which is described even more below…

Since God is everywhere, I believe He is accessible always. My interaction is primarily through prayer, meditation, and peaceful silence, which I make a point to do at least twice each day. Early morning and early evening are my best times. This interaction is not seeking a human experience, because He is eternal, the Divine Creator of our universe, and is forever after the physical universe. I pray for guidance, providence, help, and to worship, praise, and thank Him for all of life’s blessings. I believe seeking first the kingdom of God, everything else is added. Staying on this kind of daily ‘routine’ allows us to cope with, get through, and look beyond the ‘false’ world of consumerism and excess embedded in modern times. I seek God by the way, and the truth, and the life - namely Jesus, who I believe was truly human and devine, and the greatest friend we can go to, and rely upon. People will let you down. Jesus will never let you down. He is the friend who will always be there, accept you, forgive you, and rejoice upon your return. And it is really true that he who believes in Jesus, as the Scripture says, ‘From his innermost being will flow rivers of living water.’

You have some beautiful thoughts!

You are right in that our experience with God will, by nature, be different from our experience with fellow human beings. Our relationship with Jesus, of course, would logically have an element of human relationship, given His humanity which was just as full as His Divinity. It would be different than our other human relationships, to be sure, but it seems there would be room for dynamics we could actually recognize. For example, the friendship of St. John the Evangelist and Jesus–so tender and loving–is one that is quite human.

I believe that this is one beautiful aspect of the Incarnation: That we can relate to God the Son in His humanity, that it is not far-fetched to think that He can feel what we feel, can have the same emotions (such as sentimentality, the “feeling” of love, etc.) that we do. Without the incarnation, we would have no conception of what God “feels” or how it “feels” to God when He loves, etc., because our only concept of feelings are the bodily sensations generated by our brains, while God is pure spirit… But for God to have taken Human form! How wonderful it is to know that in the Person of Jesus Christ, God can feel emotions just like us! That God could mutually enjoy the physically affectionate friendship that seems to have existed between Himself and St. John the Evangelist, that God actually experienced firsthand the brain-sensations of sorrow when mourning His friend Lazarus. Basically, the Incarnation made it appropriate to think of God (in the Person of the Son) as feeling toward us in a way that we are capable of mutually feeling. I can think of Jesus waxing sentimental about me and, although I can’t say for sure that He does, it’s a real possibility as opposed to thinking “Well, He’s God, so such feelings might be beneath Him”…and that such mutual feelings could potentially exist between me and the Creator of the entire Universe, that I can actually empathize with God (the Son) because He took on a nature like mine and so adopted feelings and sensations that my human brain can actually comprehend, that’s extremely comforting…

That mutually loving relationship, that friendship where I could gaze into the Eyes of my Lord, adoring Him, loving Him, being overwhelmed with sentiment and affection for Him and knowing that He feels similar sentiment and affection for me! Oh, that’s what I long for! That God should be my best friend, closer to me than friend, parent, sibling, spouse or even child, this is my wish. I envy–in the gentle, non-resentful sense–St. John the evangelist’s immediate and tangible friendship with our Lord, and I hope to have such a friendship with Him myself, able to lean upon Him as did John at the last supper, and there find Love and Bliss…I pray that in Heaven, I will, but I should like to begin right here on Earth.

Blessings in Christ,
KindredSoul

P.S. I hope that no one finds my sentiments odd due to my gender; I’m a man, but I have long been a very affectionate person, at least inwardly (I don’t always show it). For me, sentiment and affection are ways that I and my emotions tend to express love of all kinds, not only the “romantic marriage-related” sort of love. I am the sort of person who delights in the idea of “David & Jonathan” friendships and see nothing wrong with that. Nor would many men of just over a century ago, before somehow “love” and “affection” became over-sexualized in our culture so that people suspect something “unsavory” whenever two people, regardless of gender, seem quite affectionate or attached to one another… So for me, it’s not weird at all that I should describe my desires for friendship with our Lord in such highly affectionate–perhaps even what some would call “sappy”–phrasing. That’s just my nature.

 

[Dorothy]

I can’t help but mention, since you brought up about an attraction to contemplative prayer, that in the Lay Carmelite Third Order that I belong to there are six men, and about 39 women. That is usually the case with contemplative orders.

And the men who are members in no way feel intimidated or out of place by being the minority. A Carmelite priest mentioned that women are more inclined to contemplative prayer, but that there are certainly men who are also.

 

[KindredSoul]

I can’t help but mention, since you brought up about an attraction to contemplative prayer, that in the Lay Carmelite Third Order that I belong to there are six men, and about 39 women. That is usually the case with contemplative orders.

And the men who are members in no way feel intimidated or out of place by being the minority. A Carmelite priest mentioned that women are more inclined to contemplative prayer, but that there are certainly men who are also.

Thanks, Dorothy!

I suppose that contemplative prayer would really take training on my part to feel closeness without words. I can be a very verbal person, sometimes, so it’s easy to wish I could “converse” with God–in the two way sense–with actual words. Yet the definition of contemplative prayer, as I’ve heard it defined, “spending time with or gazing upon Him Who loves us,” is beautiful. And so I must learn to clear my mind, I think, of distractions, of the desire to always be “talking.” I must learn to simply “be” with God, to enjoy His presence, His company, His love, while loving Him in turn as well. I must learn to be less reliant on “words” and on tangible signs of God’s presence…

That’s not to say there are no methods of making God’s presence more “real.” I have thought, from time to time, that perhaps I can learn something about relating to God from my newfound state of fatherhood to an as-yet unborn child. As with God, I do not hear my child’s voice. I do not see my child’s face. At this early stage my wife’s pregnancy is not “visible.” On the ultrasound, there is already a heartbeat, but the child appears as a vague dot. Yet, we recently had a scare where we thought we might be having a miscarriage (please pray for our child’s safety) and my sorrow was deep and palpable. My affection for the child runs so deeply sometimes that it is as though I already know him/her.

And I think this comes from anticipation. I anticipate the day when I will be able to talk to my child, teach my child, see my child, get to know my child’s personality, and even the mere anticipation of these things makes the child more real, more tangible, despite that I don’t yet have these tangible experiences. Despite that the child as yet barely over half an inch long, and even the ultrasound showed only an indeterminate shape, thanks to my anticipation I am at times able to feel a relationship with the child as tangible as if he were already a speaking, conscious child full of personality.

What I think I can learn from this is that there is a power in anticipating what our relationship with God will be like when it takes on more “tangible” forms, when we can see Him Face to Face in His true form, rather than in “dim mysteries.” It is as though God, to us, seems to be hidden in the twin “wombs,” so to speak, of Sacrament and Faith, and so, as with a child in the womb, we do not yet have the same tangible access to Him as we would with friends and spouse. We cannot yet “see” Him literally, or “touch” Him in the same way the Apostles could, nor “converse” with Him as we would with a friend, with hearing His audible voice. Yet, just as I anticipate all of these tangible things with my child, and just as that makes the child more “tangible” to me in the present, if we can focus as much on anticipating what our relationship with God will be like when He bursts forth across the veil of time and space–whether in the Second Coming or for the individual personally upon death–then He too can become more “tangible” to us.

This might require some Ignatian Spirituality, some “Imaginative Prayer,” because there is of course an element of imagination in “anticipating” something that hasn’t yet happened. Just as my child might not be exactly the way I anticipate, so too our relationship with God, once we die or He returns, will be unlike anything we can anticipate. But the point is not to “p(name removed by moderator)oint” what God will be like, anymore than my anticipating my child’s future life is supposed to “p(name removed by moderator)oint” accurately what kind of person he or she will in fact be. The point is that these anticipations, accurate or not, make God more “present” to us, for no matter how inaccurate our anticipation may or may not be, the very act reinforces to the brain that there is Someone to anticipate.

I, of course, have a long way to go. I get too caught up in the sometimes outright obsessive desire for ever deeper Earthly friendships, this despite having friends already, and I believe this is a symptom that I am not as focused as I should be on the one Friendship that matters most; that, in fact, is the catalyst for the thoughts that inspired this thread. Besides that, even now, my soul stands in need of the sacrament of reconciliation, and I feel that once I truly perceive God as being immanently present, this would be diminished–because it seems to me that it would be difficult to do that which gravely offends God if, with love, one senses Him to be immanent at each moment. Requesting your prayers for the amendment of my life and the remedy for my vices, I desperately echo the words of the Apostle, “Oh, wretched man that I am!” But still, I have hope and faith that one day I will, after all, become a true friend, son, and younger brother to the God Who loves us.

Blessings in Christ,
KindredSoul

 

[Dorothy]

Keep remembering that the Lord loves us, right where we are now, unconditionally. (In spite of our wretchedness.)

May the Lord and His Mother be with you always on your spiritual journey!

 

[InLight247]

I, of course, have a long way to go. I get too caught up in the sometimes outright obsessive desire for ever deeper Earthly friendships, this despite having friends already, and I believe this is a symptom that I am not as focused as I should be on the one Friendship that matters most; that, in fact, is the catalyst for the thoughts that inspired this thread. Besides that, even now, my soul stands in need of the sacrament of reconciliation, and I feel that once I truly perceive God as being immanently present, this would be diminished–because it seems to me that it would be difficult to do that which gravely offends God if, with love, one senses Him to be immanent at each moment.
Blessings in Christ,
KindredSoul

Your longing for deeper earthly friendship is actually an echo of your deep longing for God. Nothing and no one will ever fill the God shaped void in our heart except God himself. We are created that way.

Your need of the sacrament of reconciliation will not die down as long as you live. We human beings with the fallen nature always have the need of redemption. Confession is not only for grave sins though it is only required for that. I take it as the occasion of grace to better unite myself with God. All saints engaged in frequent sacrament of reconciliation and I don’t think they sin gravely. When you love God with your whole heart, and when his presence is so real to you, you would bring yourself to the foot of the Cross for anything you sensed his displeasure. A glance from the Lord will be enough to make you prostrate right away.

Practice the presence of God, and you will enjoy his tangible presence.

 

[KindredSoul]

Keep remembering that the Lord loves us, right where we are now, unconditionally. (In spite of our wretchedness.)

May the Lord and His Mother be with you always on your spiritual journey!

Thanks!

Your longing for deeper earthly friendship is actually an echo of your deep longing for God. Nothing and no one will ever fill the God shaped void in our heart except God himself. We are created that way.

Yes, this is my thought as well. If I have friends and a wife and a child (in the womb), then it seems to me that whatever void that still remains must be one that probably cannot be filled. Oh I don’t necessarily mean that I shouldn’t always seek to deepen my existing relationships and form new ones–for our relationships on Earth can make beautiful symbols of our relationship with God and of the relationship within God, provided we don’t let them become distractions from God (with which I can sometimes struggle)–but it is true that only God Himself will ever satisfy and leave me at true rest.

Your need of the sacrament of reconciliation will not die down as long as you live. We human beings with the fallen nature always have the need of redemption. Confession is not only for grave sins though it is only required for that. I take it as the occasion of grace to better unite myself with God. All saints engaged in frequent sacrament of reconciliation and I don’t think they sin gravely. When you love God with your whole heart, and when his presence is so real to you, you would bring yourself to the foot of the Cross for anything you sensed his displeasure. A glance from the Lord will be enough to make you prostrate right away.

Oh, this is true. In fact, I still practice confession even without “needing” it. When I say I “stand in need” of it, I usually use the word “need” in the strongest possible sense of “Without this, I will not survive (spiritually)”. In other words, I use the word to indicate when I have grave sin on my soul. But yes, frequent confession is a necessity even for holy souls, so that their humility and holiness may be maintained.

Practice the presence of God, and you will enjoy his tangible presence.

That’s my hope and my prayer. Thanks!

Blessings in Christ,
KindredSoul