Knowing Jesus

By Fr. Frederick Edlefsen

Jesus asked, “Who do people say that I am?”  The Apostles gave opinions.  “Some say John the Baptist.”  “Some say Elijah.”  “Others say one of the prophets.”  But Jesus is not an opinion.  He’s a person.  So, he got personal.  He asked, “Who do you say that I am?”

“Right is right when nobody is right, and wrong is wrong when everybody is wrong,” said G.K. Chesterton.  Peter got it right, personally: “You are the Christ.”  Ever since, the Church proposes personal fidelity to Peter, the Pope.  Fidelity to Peter is another way of saying, “You are the Christ, the Son of the Living God.”  It’s personal.  It starts a friendship.  

Step one: Confess sins.  We must reject the manifold death of lying, perjury, cheating, detraction, slander, gossip, backbiting, cruelty, greed, wrath, vengeance, manipulation, envy, unchastity, adultery, drunkenness, and picking-and-choosing which morals apply to us and which don’t.  Friends don’t let friends do these things.    

Step two:  Cultivate virtues, habits of doing the good: Prudence, Justice, Self-Control, and Courage. “Blessed are the pure of heart, for they shall see God” (Matthew 5:8).  They’re key to friendship.

Step three: Cultivate a personal relationship with Jesus Christ through prayer and meditation on God’s Word.  “Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceeds from the mouth of God” (Deuteronomy 8:3).

Jesus prayed often, in solitude, to speak with his Father.  “I will beckon you to the wilderness and speak tenderly to your heart” (Hosea 2:14).  Jesus’ heart-to-hearts with his Father provoked a disciple to ask, “Teach us how to pray” (Luke 11:1).  

St. Therese of Lisieux said, “For me, prayer is a surge of the heart; it is a simple look turned toward heaven, it is a cry of recognition and of love, embracing both trial and joy.”  This little, if only brief, “surge of the heart” is greater than all the good works.  Prayer is Love’s supreme act. “If I give away everything I own, and if I hand my body over so that I may boast but do not have love, I gain nothing” (1 Corinthians 13:3).

St. Therese wrote, “I understood that the Church had a Heart and that this Heart was BURNING WITH LOVE.”  “Yes,” she said, “I have found my place in the Church and it is You, O my God…”