Saturday of the Fourth Week in Ordinary Time
My wife and I are blessed to be friends with a couple who serve as youth ministers for a non-denominational church community in northern Ohio. Recently they shared with us the story of a young girl who had been bringing her Catholic friend to their youth group. According to our friends, the Catholic girl, although described as “very Catholic”, seemed to not understand what it meant to have a “personal relationship” with Jesus. Looking for advice from a Catholic perspective, our friends reached out to us in an effort to better communicate with this girl and bridge the apparent language divide. With many experiential, catechetical, family, and social factors still unknown, I found myself offering broad, general advice. This is a portion of the message with which I replied:
“As a Catholic, continue to reassure her that the essence/ foundation of the Christian/ Catholic experience is to have a personal relationship with Jesus and to meet the Lord… Pope Benedict XVI said that "We are Christians ONLY if we encounter Christ" which I think is a powerful reminder for all of us. That being said, there's probably many things that you've already told her to help outline and characterize what that personal relationship looks like in the life of a Christian... daily prayer, daily Scripture reading, worship, participation in the life of the Church, the moral life, etc. Something that might be unique in the life of a Catholic that may help you to reach her and open her eyes to the "personal relationship" is the unique sacramental expression in which this gets lived out. First, baptism. Remind her that in virtue of her baptism she has the Trinity living within her! This is "the life of grace"... nothing short of participation in the divine life of God and sharing in His divine nature (2 Peter 1:4). As a result, she is a beloved daughter of the Father. That's personal! Truly, God dwells within her... not in some bumper sticker or catch phrase way, but in a real way, giving her spiritual life in Him. St. Paul said it like this... "I have been crucified with Christ, yet I live; no longer I, but Christ lives in me." (Gal. 2:19-20) That's so personal! Secondly, emphasize the Eucharist and remind her of the heart of the Eucharist... Christ substantially present, offering Himself to us (and her) like a husband offers himself to a bride. We receive Him in such a way that we not only consume Him, but He consumes us and we share in all that He is. Why? Simply so we could be near Him and have a personal relationship with Him that satisfies not only our spiritual nature, but our physical nature. At the Last Supper, Jesus said: "Remain in me, as I remain in you." (John 15:4) Again, very personal language….”
I thought back to my advice and the concept of the “personal relationship” as I read today’s first reading from 1 Kings. Throughout the reading, I couldn’t help but be drawn into the personal relationship between Solomon and the Lord. Nearly the entire reading consists of the intimate conversation between these two characters. For me, it reads with the same personal tone as the encounter between Moses and I AM at the burning bush or Christ and the woman at the well. As a result, it illustrates the personal relationship and puts before us a simple, but important question: Have I experienced that personal relationship with the God who calls me by name? As a Catholic, do I understand what it means to have a personal relationship?
In today’s Gospel from Mark, I think a different tone is set- not personal, but communal. Rather than the intimate dialogue between two characters, we read of “the Apostles gathered together”, the “great numbers”, and the “vast crowd” for which the Lord’s heart was “moved with pity.” In this way, we are drawn to the equally important communal aspect of our faith- an aspect which I failed to mention in the advice that I offered above (and is probably cause for a follow up email on my part). In the spirit of the Catholic “both/and”, our personal relationship is coupled with the beautiful image of Christ seeing us together. That does not detract or damage the emphasis of the personal relationship, but rather gives it a certain fullness, an appropriate context, and a necessary expression. In his encyclical letter Lumen Fidei, Pope Francis writes: “Christians are ‘one’, yet in a way which does not make them lose their individuality; in service to others, they come into their own in the highest degree.”
Jesus is both our personal Savior and communal Savior. In other words, we are both disciples and a community of disciples, and Christ is calling us to both. Just as our baptism is the indwelling of grace within the soul of a person, which is personal, it is also the means by which we become part of Christ’s Body, which is communal. Just as the Eucharist is a personal “yes” (amen) to Christ, it is also a corporate act of worship- in fact the highest prayer of the Church. More astonishing still is that the deepest reality of the sacrament is that it makes us one!
There are times when I look at my family as a whole- incomplete if just one were absent, and I thank God. Other times, I look at my son, Andrew, and I thank God. I recall times when I’ve had the unmistakable sensation that the world has stopped and that my wife and I are the only two people on the planet. Which would I prefer: the family vacation or the marriage proposal? I’ll take both. Today, may we be drawn to the personal encounter with the Lord, but also the communal fullness of that encounter as the Body of Christ! Amen.
Ryan J. Mahle