Kevin
The United States has long been one of the most church-going nations in the western world, and Catholics have been the largest religious denomination in the country. However, for the past several decades, Church attendance by Catholics has been declining drastically (from 58% in 1965 to 22% in 2016.) The second largest denomination in the country is former Catholics, whose numbers have grown four-fold since 1965. Increasingly, poorly catechized Catholics are abandoning the faith to join evangelical mega-churches.
Whether driven away by scandal or lured by programs and services with high production and entertainment values, many report having the desire for a personal relationship with Jesus Christ. Evangelicals in this country have long been challenging its members and those it recruits to aspire to that personal relationship. Catholics in particular, whether out of ignorance or a misguided notion that Catholics follow the Pope and not Christ, are accused of not aspiring to such a noble relationship with their Lord and Saviour. We hear the criticism so often we run the risk of believing that we are somehow missing something in our spiritual lives. For nearly fifteen million former Catholics, most of whom still attend their new churches regularly, something was truly missing from their appreciation of the Catholic faith. But is there really something missing? Or do we have everything we need? I have come to appreciate that our Catholic faith offers us all we need and then some. The Gospels and the teachings of our Church offer us more than a mere “personal relationship” with Jesus. However, I have to admit that for a number of years I let myself settle in on the Evangelical notion that having a personal relationship with Jesus would provide me with peace and joy.
Now obviously there is nothing wrong with the fact that I was seeking a relationship with Jesus. Yet I found little peace or joy in those days. Whether it was a lack of appreciation of the nature or the quality of my relationship with Christ or just plain spiritual laziness, little in my life changed for the better. Yes, I prayed and attended Sunday Mass, but the burdens of providing for a young family kept me thinking of Jesus as more of a mere acquaintance than a close friend. I managed to treat Him much I like I treated all my other friends, with benign neglect, confident in the belief that He would be there for me if I needed Him and if He needed anything from me He would let me know. This is probably not the personal relationship our evangelical friends had in mind. So what is the right answer?
If we think about our own lives we have lots of relationships of varying natures. Should we seek to relate to Jesus as a loving mother or a distant father? Should we be as involved with Him as we are with a best friend or avoid Him like a pesky co-worker? If this relationship with Christ is so important, where can we find guidance on how to relate to Him? For me the answers were to be found in the Bible and the Church’s teaching on marriage, where we are told that the two are to become one flesh. (Genesis 2:24, Matthew 19:5, Mark 10:8, and Ephesians 5:31)
My wife Crystal and I obviously shared a relationship. Yes, it was “personal” and at times even intimate, yet we still struggled as many married couples do to live in peace and joy. We had a relationship, but, at the same time, we had other roles and important responsibilities, such as being loving parents and providing for the family. These other duties sometimes impacted our marriage so that we would become quarrelsome and less than unconditionally loving toward each other.
Fortunately, on a married couples retreat we were introduced to the notion that God’s desire for our relationship was unity. He didn’t want us to merely come together and raise kids who would themselves become good Catholics. No, His desire was that we be in true communion with each other, that we share in one life. He sought a relationship where our goals weren’t about me, they weren’t even about the other. They were to be about us.
It was a call to become a couple united in Christ, sharing His love with our family and our Church. Our journey has been a long one with plenty of twists and turns, but most often joyful and grace-filled. It has helped me to understand that a personal relationship with Jesus isn’t about the relationship I want to have but it is about the one He desires. For me it has come most significantly in His invitation to eat of His flesh and drink of His blood. In and through the Eucharist, I hear Jesus calling me to be one with Him, to be in true communion with Him and his Sacred Heart so that together we can bring more love into the world.
So these days I would say to my evangelical brothers and sisters, “Not only do I have a relationship with Jesus as my personal Lord and Savior but I seek to live united to Him in my heart and my soul.” Regardless of our vocation, it is this union we seek to strengthen each time we receive Him in Holy Communion where His true presence becomes part of who we are. It is so great to be Catholic! How could anyone ever walk away?
Crystal
There’s a saying in the diet world that you are what you eat. The implication is that if you eat junk food, you will become overweight and unhealthy. If you eat healthy foods, such as fruits and vegetables, you will be physically fit. I believe that the same can be true in our spiritual lives. As Catholics, we have the great blessing of access to the Body and Blood, Soul and Divinity of Christ. We are not only figuratively temples of the Holy Trinity, but literally vessels of His presence in the world. Understanding this incredible grace should make us super Christians, abounding in love and kindness and forgiveness for everyone we meet, most especially our spouses. And yet how difficult this concept of unity is for our human minds to grasp, especially when the opportunity for Communion is so available that it can become habit rather than the recognition that it is the source and summit of our faith.
In marriage, when unity is broken, it is usually because one or both of the spouses have taken their eyes away from each other’s needs and focused on something that was self-seeking. When it comes to Christ, we know that any lack of unity with Him is always going to be a result of our attitudes or behavior. God is ever-present, loving us with an unconditional love that goes far beyond what we truly deserve. God yearns for fullness of relationship… so much so that it reminds me of a pregnant woman who is literally connected to her child by the umbilical chord, nurturing her child with her very blood. Like that embryo, we are often blissfully unaware of all that God is doing for us to bring us to fullness of life in order that one day we will be with Him.
As a simple married woman, the incredible greatness of the gift of the Eucharist is beyond my ability to fully comprehend it. I only know that I must continue to pray for the grace to believe that, with Him, I will receive the ability to be one with my husband as I strive to be one with Christ.
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