Call to Prayer 2022: A Personal Relationship with Jesus

The Second Vatican Council and the recent Popes have urged all the baptized to respond to Jesus’ command to “go make disciples of all nations.” The Decree on the Mission [Activity] of the Church says that proclamation and conversion must be, “sufficient to make a man realize that he has been snatched away from sin and led into the mystery of God’s love, who called him to enter into a personal relationship with Him in Christ” (§13).  Additionally, the Bible “gives rise to a personal relationship” because Jesus reveals Himself to us on every page. The Holy Spirit, the one who “searches the depths of God,” (1 Cor 2:10) inspires that word in such a way that we actually encounter Christ in the words of scripture. He speaks directly to our spirit, enabling us to know Him.
 
The phrase “personal relationship with Jesus” expresses an essential element of a deeply Catholic understanding of conversion and discipleship.  To say, “I have a personal relationship with Jesus,” is simply to say that I know, with deep personal conviction, that God knows me and He loves me. I know it because while I was yet a sinner, Christ died for me (Rom 5:8); He poured His love into my heart through the Holy Spirit (Rom 5:5). Through the Holy Spirit, I have seen what God has prepared for me in Christ Jesus (1 Cor 2:9-10); I have come to understand the gifts bestowed on me by God (1 Cor 2:12). By His mercy I have “tasted the heavenly gift…the goodness of the word of God and the powers of the age to come” (Heb 6:4-5).
 
I know Him in whom I have believed (2 Tim 1:12). I haven’t come to know Him apart from the Catholic Church or despite the Catholic Church, but within the Catholic Church. The Jesus I know personally is the Jesus of the Bible, of the Catechism, the Jesus I meet in the sacraments, and in my neighbor. It is the Jesus who has made Himself known to me not simply with “plausible words of wisdom, but by a demonstration of the Spirit and of power,” (1 Cor 2:4).

He did that for me so that my “faith would not rest in the wisdom of men but in the power of God,” (1 Cor 2:5). And it is that faith, which by His grace, is near to me, on my lips and in my heart, enabling me to confess that Jesus Christ is Lord! Not only Lord of all, but my Lord and my Savior! (Rom 10:8-13).  He has done all of this for me, a sinner: wretched, pitiable, poor, blind and naked, (Rev 3:17), a foolish and weak man (1 Cor 1:26-27), who, apart from Christ lived without hope in the world (Eph 2:12).
 
This great mercy has come to me by grace, “not by my own doing, it is the gift of God,” (Eph 2:8). And now, I gladly boast in my weakness (2 Cor 12:9); I believe and so I speak (2 Cor 4:13). What I say is simple: I know Jesus Christ in a personal way. I have a relationship with Him. He is my Lord, my Savior and my best friend. Do you know Him in this way? Would you like to? You can. He is here right now, with you, right where you are. He is standing at the door of your heart, knocking (Rev 3:20). Will you let him in?