I have just spent a couple of days reading and thinking
about a book called Forming Intentional
Disciples: The Path to Knowing and Following Jesus, by Sherry Weddell. This
book has a charismatic bent, tries real hard to sound Catholic in spite of that,
and is liberally sprinkled with the phrase “a personal relationship with
Jesus”. I was, therefore, mildly amused by the fact that Michael Voris produced a Vortex using
exactly that phrase – “personal relationship with Jesus” – as its title, just
in time to mesh with my own thoughts on that topic.
I read the above-mentioned book reluctantly; it’s not the
kind of thing I would ordinarily read, because I have a pretty good idea what I will find
in such writing, and it irritates me. But I had heard that concepts from the book were being used as
the foundation for the evangelization program being instituted here in the
Diocese of Baker, so I decided to take a look at the basic premise of the
program. Guess what? The premise is primarily that most Catholics don’t have a
“personal relationship” with Jesus, and this is what they need in order to be
“intentional disciples” who spread the Good News.
The author’s premise also includes a strong emphasis on
“identifying the charisms” of each parishioner so that those gifts can be put
to service in the parish and the community. Since I come from a Pentecostal
background, this jargon and these concepts are all too familiar with me. They
are an immature and cheap imitation of the real thing – which is Catholicism as
we “experience” it in the sacraments (especially the Eucharist, of course,
since that is the source and summit of our Christian life). After all, what is
really meant by saying that one has “a personal relationship with Jesus”?
During my years in the Pentecostal community, I saw my
journey as one in which I sought to be ever closer to Jesus. When I discovered
the truth of the Real Presence of Jesus in the Eucharist, I knew I had to
become Catholic. I was suspicious of many things about Catholicism, but I had
read large portions on the Catechism of
the Catholic Church, and had found that I could not disagree with what I
read there. And on “discovering” the Real Presence of Jesus in the Blessed
Sacrament, I thought to myself, “How much closer can you get to Jesus than
receiving Him, Body and Soul, Blood and Divinity, in Holy Communion?” That’s
pretty personal, wouldn’t you agree?!
And like MV in the Vortex episode embedded below, I thought
of St. John of the Cross and his experience and explanation of the “Dark Night
of the Soul”. What would St. John think
of telling people that all they need is “a personal relationship with Jesus”?
I suspect that the concept came out of the philosophical distinction
between a personal God and an impersonal God – but that distinction, too, is
fraught with problems of definition and interpretation. I also suspect that the
emergence of the philosophy of personalism as a driving force in the change in
perspective on many Catholic issues also allowed this “personal relationship”
idea to enter the minds of Catholics who have been contaminated by Protestant
thinking.
And this all leads to relativism, in the end. After all, if
it is your “personal relationship” with the Lord, then that implies that you
can define it any way you want. It’s personal,
ya know. But as MV notes:
Any legitimate relationship
with Our Blessed Lord comes to us through AND in the Church. PERIOD.
The problem with a personal
relationship with Jesus is that apart from the Church, or not in unity with the
Church, the TERMS of the relationship are often set by man, not Jesus.
If you are a Catholic in good standing who has been baptized
and confirmed, and who partakes frequently of the sacraments, then yes, you
have a “personal relationship with Jesus”.
Don’t let any Protestant or protestantized Catholic tell you
otherwise!
Here's the Vortex:
Here’s
the script:
A phrase that has gained a great deal of currency in the
Church these past few years is: “having a personal relationship with your lord
and savior Jesus Christ.”
Sometimes the short hand version is just .. “a personal
relationship with Jesus.”
When we examine a phrase like that, we have to be very thoughtful
because the object of that phrase is more the “me” or the “I” than it is Jesus.
Accordingly, it shouldn’t be surprising that the phrase has gained MUCH
traction in American Protestantism – in many quarters of Protestantism in fact,
it is spoken in near sacred and hushed terms, as if the phrase alone is
sufficient for salvation.
There is no relationship with Jesus possible without the
Church. Pope Francis, in line with his successors, said this just a few weeks
ago. There is no Jesus without the Church. Any legitimate relationship with Our
Blessed Lord comes to us through AND in the
Church. PERIOD.
The problem with this phrase, like so much in the Church
these days is that it is very ambiguous and murky and unclear – just the way
those uncertain in their faith like it: ambiguous and murky and unclear.
Such ambiguity allows people to fill in the blanks THEY want
to… even apart from the teachings and tradition of the Church if they feel like
it. So Jesus becomes to them, the font of all emotionalism and FEELINGS of joy,
but not THE ACTUAL source of joy – that is coming from their own emotions.
The problem with a personal relationship with Jesus is that
apart from the Church, or not in unity with the Church, the TERMS of the
relationship are often set by man, not Jesus.
Here’s a newsflash: not every aspect of truly living the
faith fills one with a giant tidal wave of joy expressed in giddiness – and we
might, spiritual immaturity. Living the faith is sometimes extremely difficult
and requires supernatural strength – otherwise known as grace – and it doesn’t
always have the immediate effect of making you skip down the garden path.
Ask St. John of the Cross, for one – who brings with his
spirituality the now famous phrase – The Dark Night of the Soul.
The grace of consolation is not always given NOR does it
remain, especially in the greatest names on the role of saints. Even Mother
Theresa it was revealed after her death suffered greatly from the lack of the
feeling of Divine consolation.
Yet, there is this continual childish – not child-like, mind you – but childish view that if you have a personal
relationship with Jesus Christ that you walk around like a giddy immature
follower of the Lord always on some kind of high.
This is exactly the image of a personal relationship with
Jesus that some in the Church – including many leaders – are anxious to
present. They don’t want to talk about the struggle of the Christian life,
anxious themselves that it will turn people off.
People want to be happy and join a Church that is fun and
“joyful”, they say. Well, such an effort most likely will appeal to the
emotions of some people, to their individual psychologies. But it won’t have
any staying power – as many mega-Church pastors are finding out these days,
having to re-invent themselves and their congregations as numbers begin to dip
as the “Jesus Party” comes to an end.
Living the devout and faithful life is hard business. The
joy comes from the consolation of the knowledge that you are doing the will of
God in loving Him. And what is loving God? How is it measured?
“If you love Me, you will keep My commandments, and My
Father and I will come to you and We will make Our home in you.”
How easy is it to keep His commandments? Our Blessed Lord
tells us – “pick up your cross and follow Me”. But there is this cultural thing
in America – and the rest of the
West, thanks to America – that if something is a struggle,
it isn’t fun, and therefore can’t be joyful.
Our Blessed Lord Himself swats down this stupid notion by
saying, “Come to Me all you who burdened and heavy-laden and you will find rest
for your souls.”
Does Our Lord grant the grace of consolation? Of course He
does. Is it usual, and often? It doesn’t appear so. Even on the cross, at the
height of His own suffering, He withdrew the feeling of consolation of His
divinity from His humanity, so that He cried out from His own depths, “My God,
My God why have you abandoned Me?”
Our Sweet Lord, desiring to be united to every pain of humanity
he could, even willingly endured the feelings of the Dark Night.
So forgive some of us, if all this childish talk of a
personal relationship with Jesus isn’t immediately, instantaneously talked
about in relationship to the Church – the sacraments and nothing else.
You cannot have Jesus without the Church and being in a
personal relationship with Jesus does not mean you skip and hop all over
creation like a love sick albatross.
Having a personal relationship with Jesus means one thing –
Love of God, not dependent on emotions. Might you have an emotional response? Sure.
But having an emotional response doesn’t mean its origin is in Jesus, and
having a personal relationship with Jesus doesn’t guarantee an emotional
response. In fact, most of the time, it doesn’t mean that at all.
I need only look to my own Mother who as many of you know,
asked for a cross to bring about the reversion of both my brother and me. Shortly
after that prayer, she was diagnosed with cancer.
My mother suffered terribly from bi-polar depression her
whole life AND what one doctor called a severe case of Obsessive Compulsive Disorder
– which created not a few dramatic episodes in our home.
Yet through it all – without ever really experiencing what
could be remotely referred to as “human joy”, this woman stayed faithful and
carried not one, but various MAJOR crosses under which most people would be
crushed.
In the midst of her sufferings, and they were great, both
physical and emotional, she made sure that I and my brother received the faith.
You will never hear or see or read anything about her being “joyful” the way
the term is tossed around today by many in the Church.
In fact, the way that term is used is almost insulting to
the many, many souls who have borne up under their crosses with almost no
feelings of the graces of consolation. You won’t find them on any archdiocesan
promotion posters under a banner of New Evangelization. You won’t find them
smiling in brochures about how “joyful” it is to be Catholic.
But you will find them living the fullness of the Catholic life
at the foot of the cross, tearing away the old man in all its painful reality
and putting on the new in anticipation of the heavenly banquet.
The “joy” that we should be receiving in a personal relationship
with Jesus comes from the knowledge that if we persevere, Heaven is ours AND
Our Blessed Lord and His Church, His Bride is there to keep us strong.
That joy is evident in our faithfulness, not a childish view
of this valley of tears. SO be joyful in your personal relationship with Jesus,
absolutely. But make sure the joy is rooted in the authentic.
