And when that happens, he does what all who have truly received revelation do:<\/em><\/strong>.\u00a0 But here lies my question\u2026\u201dHow do I make that happen?\u201d\u00a0 My non-Catholic friends refer to this experience as \u201cborn again\u201d and point to the Catholic church as a barrier.\u00a0 I\u2019m trying to increase my time devoted to spiritual reading and prayer but this still leaves me feeling unconnected, not in a deeper relationship with God.\u00a0 I don\u2019t believe my issue lies with my belief and faith but rather in how I relate to God.\u00a0 It\u2019s a big ask to throw at you but what am I missing?<\/p><\/blockquote>\nThe counsel of Jesus Christ, the Word of God who promises that we are born again in baptism (John 3:5) is both simple and hard: Listen to his word which he gives you through his Holy Catholic Church, receive the grace to obey that word through his sacraments, and then go do it.\u00a0 As Jesus puts it to his apostles \u201cHe who hears you hears me, and he who rejects you rejects me, and he who rejects me rejects him who sent me.\u201d (Luke 10:16).\u00a0 Jesus makes clear that revelation is not something you have to have some special private mystical experience to have.\u00a0 It is plain and out in full public view.\u00a0 True, during his earthly ministry Jesus sometime spoke in secret to his apostles and not openly.\u00a0 But he himself made clear to them that once his Church was established, everything would be spoken openly and in public: \u201cNothing is covered up that will not be revealed, or hidden that will not be known. Whatever you have said in the dark shall be heard in the light, and what you have whispered in private rooms shall be proclaimed upon the housetops\u201d (Luke 12:2-3).\u00a0 So, as Paul says, \u201cDo not say in your heart, \u201cWho will ascend into heaven?\u201d (that is, to bring Christ down) or \u201cWho will descend into the abyss?\u201d (that is, to bring Christ up from the dead). But what does it say? The word is near you, on your lips and in your heart (that is, the word of faith which we preach); because, if you confess with your lips that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved (Romans 10:6-9).<\/p>\n
My suggestion (written, mind you, in complete ignorance since I don\u2019t know you) is to stop trying to make revelation happen and realize that it already has.\u00a0 For instance, realize that being \u201cborn again\u201d is not an emotional\u00a0<\/em>experience (though it might be accompanied by emotion sometimes) but a spiritual and ontological experience.\u00a0 It occurs, not when you have a gush of feelings about Jesus, but when you are baptized. It was done for<\/em>\u00a0you as an act of gracious love by God and doesn\u2019t need to be done by<\/em>\u00a0you to make something happen in your feelings. Since you are already baptized, you have already been born again the sense the Bible means it.\u00a0 That\u2019s not to say that feelings of love for Jesus are bad.\u00a0 It\u2019s rather to say that putting a demand on you to feel something you don\u2019t happen to be feeling right now is unjust to you and is a function of your friends\u2019 human tradition and not of revelation from Jesus.\u00a0 You have no obligation to gin yourself into a state of emotion about Jesus.\u00a0 Emotions come and go like weather. They are beautiful gifts when they are nice, but nothing you have to achieve to please God. What God cares about is our will to obey Jesus in the here and now through our obedient actions.\u00a0 The way to do that is look to the Church\u2019s tradition which is, as I say, both simple and hard.\u00a0 Love God with all your heart, soul, mind and strength, and love your neighbor as yourself is the core of it.<\/p>\nSo: frequent the sacraments, especially Mass, since that is where Jesus is fully present in the Eucharist and speaking to us in his word.\u00a0 Then find some practical way to love your neighbor, your co-workers, your family in what you do in your daily life.\u00a0 Ask Jesus throughout the way to guide you (it will usually be in little stuff, small acts of politeness, generosity, forgiveness, etc).\u00a0 It\u2019s seldom epic.\u00a0 Find ways to cultivate a prayer life.\u00a0 Some people like the Rosary.\u00a0 Others do lectio divina.\u00a0 Others read lives of the saints to see how they did it.\u00a0 They idea is not so much to keep a law or a set of rules as to practice the Divine Presence (speaking of which, you might try Brother Lawrence\u2019s book).\u00a0 The bottom line is this:\u00a0 God is not a remote goal you are struggling to reach on your own.\u00a0 He has *already<\/strong>* come to you and is already in you working with the grace of the Holy Spirit, or you would not be seeking him at all. Let that revolutionary idea really penetrate your heart and it can have a huge impact on how you strive for God.<\/p>\nHope that helps!<\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
He writes: I hope this email finds you.\u00a0 I truly enjoy reading your article in Northwest Catholic each month.\u00a0 However, your recent writing leaves me with an un-answered question\u2026\u201dHow do I truly receive revelation?\u201d\u00a0 This is in reference to your description of John being the recipient of revelation and you go on to write\u2026And when […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":92,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[8,650],"class_list":["post-91316","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-mailbag","tag-na"],"yoast_head":"\n
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