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This month, Fr. Denis’ article is not connected to a Sunday reading.
Do you have a personal relationship with Jesus Christ? The question is often posed in evangelical and charismatic circles and is generally taken to be the central issue as to whether or not your life as a Christian disciple is what it should be.
If you don’t have a personal relationship with Jesus Christ, or are unsure if you do or not, this means you have some serious work to do to get your faith life up to where it should be.
I’ve thought about that question quite a bit over the years. It seems to me a good starting point for understanding it is John 15:1-5:
I am the true vine, and my Father is the vine-grower … Abide in me as I abide in you … I am the vine, you are the branches. Those who abide in me and I in them bear much fruit, because apart from me you can do nothing.
Well, that would seem to support the general idea: intimate personal communion with Christ, to the point where he is truly the source of our life and our fruitfulness, the abiding presence in our souls, which makes our lives rich and full and blessed—who would want to argue with that?
Personal relationship with Christ truly is vital to our spiritual life; arguably, it and it alone is spiritual life.
On the other hand (my regular readers probably could sense I was about to discover another hand …), it’s not quite so simple.
Where I get a bit nervous about this whole business of “So, do you have a personal relationship with Jesus Christ, brother?” is that the expected answer, if I am on board that particular train, is a hearty “Halleluiah! I sure do, brother! Let me testify about it!”
Well, this makes me a bit nervous. Now, I don’t mean to disparage anyone else’s faith journey here, nor how they choose to express that journey. I’m a writer, I get it. Words are hard. It’s difficult to find right language to talk about our intimate life with Christ.
But at the risk of scandalizing some, I have to admit it: I personally am not able to blithely say, “Oh yes, I have a personal relationship with Jesus Christ! Definitely!”
Not after almost 30 years of life in Madonna House, not even after two years or so spent as a poustinik where I presumably spend a rather large chunk of my time with no one else but the Lord.
No, with all that, the answer I have come up with to that question, when it is posed to me, is a bit different.
What I would say is that I know for certain, absolutely, that Jesus Christ has a personal relationship with me! And I hope, most sincerely and devoutly, that I have a personal relationship with him.
This may seem like splitting hairs. It is not. It is all about this matter of abide in me as I abide in you, (John 15:4) and it is all about how utterly crucial that mutual abiding is, how our whole life, temporal and eternal, truly hangs on our abiding thus, and how we must not fall into the sin of presumption in this matter, casually assuming that we are quite well on this point, based on whatever criteria we decide count towards such a personal relationship, such an abiding.
Jesus abides in us; that is, he gives himself to us wholly and utterly, his whole being handed over to us continually.
He came to abide in us with the Father and the Holy Spirit when we were baptized. He gives himself to us so completely and perfectly every time we receive the Eucharist. And he continues to abide, continues to give himself to us in ways beyond numbering or knowing, so long as we are in a state of grace.
All of this is a matter of faith; it is our holy Catholic faith that this is so.
But we now—that’s another question, isn’t it? Do we abide in him as he abides in us? That’s what the Lord is all about in this Gospel after all, alerting his disciples that this is not a given, that his abiding has to be reciprocated by ours, and that this might not happen.
And if it doesn’t happen, our lives are not going to bear the fruit God wants them to bear.
To abide in Jesus—what does that mean? Well, what does it mean for him to abide in us? It means he gives himself to us, to each one of us, meets us in the depths of our being and ministers to us there, is utterly given over to us to make our lives beautiful and holy.
So, our abiding in him means we return the favor, right? We give ourselves over to him, make his mission our mission, his life our life, his will our will, his love for every human being our love for every human being.
All of which is unthinkable for us frail finite creatures … except for the fact that he has given himself to us and come to abide in us with his Father and his Holy Spirit.
I know that Jesus is in a personal relationship with me; I hope that at least some of the time, I am in a personal relationship with him.
That is, that I am at least beginning to abide in him as he abides in me, at least beginning to give myself utterly to the life of Christ living in me, looking for no other life, understanding myself as having no other life apart from him, allowing him to continually shape and guide me according to the kind of branch he wants me to be, bearing the kind of fruit he wants me to bear.
I hope that’s happening; if it is, it is only due to his grace and mercy.
Let’s be very clear about it: to have a personal relationship with Jesus Christ is a very big deal—it’s not just about having warm fuzzy feelings towards him or knowing your Scriptures backwards and forwards or even praying to him quite a bit (good as all those things are).
It’s about abiding in him as he abides in us, and from that abiding, having no other life but the life he gives me.
It’s a life that will lead us to abundant fruitfulness, and ultimately to eternal bliss in the kingdom, but that’s his business and his work; ours is to become his disciples (John 15:8) as expressed in obeying his commandments, especially his commandment to love one another as I have loved you (John 15: 12). And that is the life of the kingdom here and now, lived in us.
