Homily originally presented September 27,2020
Monsignor Michael Deering
More than Relationship ... we want Union with Jesus!
A Priest friend of mine tells the story of the time he was out getting some exercise by walking in the park and a woman approached him and said,
“May I ask you a question?”
He said, “Certainly.”
And she asked, “Do you have a personal relationship with Jesus Christ?”
Now the priest was dressed in his T-shirt and Jogging shorts …
so she had no idea he was a Priest.
Here’s how he responded:
He said, “You know I do… but I don’t want one.”
Her mouth dropped open … and she didn’t know what to say.
The Priest went on, “You know the word relationship means “side to side”.
Relationship comes from the word latissimus,
the very name of the side muscles in the back
( often referred to as “Lats” in body building)
He said, “I don’t want Jesus aside of me.
With you ... and my friends ... and the Saints, I’ll be happy to have relationship.
But with Jesus, I want something more… I want union!
I don’t want Him off to the side … I want Him in me!
And she said, “That’s not in the Bible.”
He said, “Oh, I don’t know, what does Paul mean when he says in Galatians (2:20)
‘It’s no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me.’
Wow! What a powerful picture that is … Christ living not alongside me, but in me!
The Priest who shared this story is Fr. David Meconi,
who was Retreat Master at our Annual Priest Retreat a few years ago.
Fr. Meconi is a Jesuit priest who did his doctoral dissertation on Deification,
which means becoming God … or becoming God-like.
While becoming Christ may at first seem to be a heretical idea,
it’s actually the essence of Christianity!
We know that Jesus is the Word of God and that the Word became flesh …why?
Not because God wanted Christianity to be a spectator sport ...
where we’re all supposed to look at His Son and go Wow!
No, St. Athanasius says Jesus became like us so that we could become like Him!
In other words, God became man ... so that men could become gods.
This is the heart of the Christian message.
The CCC #460 highlights the thoughts of several of the Church Fathers on this.
(2 Pet. 1:4): “The Word became flesh to make us partakers of the divine nature”
(St. Irenaeus) “For this is why the Word became man, and the Son of God became the Son of man: so that man, by entering into communion with the Word and thus receiving divine sonship, might become a son or daughter of God.”
(St. Athanasius) “For the Son of God became man so that we might become God.”
(St. Thomas Aquinas) “The only-begotten Son of God, wanting to make us sharers in his divinity, assumed our nature, so that he, made man, might make men gods.”
You see, you can have a relationship with the mailman and the garbage man … you can call them by name and ask about their family. But when is comes to Jesus … our Creator and Redeemer … we want something more than that … we want union.
Notice the words that the Priest prays in the Great Doxology at the end of
the Eucharistic Prayer when we offer ourselves with Jesus to the Father:
“Through Him, and with Him, and in Him.
O God, almighty Father, in the unity of the Holy Spirit …
all Glory and Honor is yours, for ever and ever, Amen.”
Once you begin to consider God’s desire for us to have union with Him,
you’ll see it show up everywhere … in Scripture and in Tradition.
For example, in our 2nd Reading today, Paul writes, “Complete my joy by being
of the same mind, with the same love, united in heart, thinking one thing.”
That one thing is Jesus and being in union with Him, which Paul identifies a few verses later writing: “Have in you the same attitude that is also in Christ Jesus.”
You know, we live in a culture today where no one is going to be motivated
to love Jesus because of rules. Nor is anyone going to be motivated by tradition.
We live in a culture where people are going to be motivated simply by love …
which is what Christianity has always been based on.
Not by culture … not by nostalgia … but by a life-giving union with Christ.
Unless we discover or re-discover this language of union,
we’re only left with the language of morality & rules.
And as important as they are, they are not sufficient to bring people to Christ.
Jesus demonstrates this in His Parable of the two sons ...
who were both told to do something by their Father.
One does and one does not.
Jesus asks, “Which of the two did his father’s will?”
Both of them knew the rule … the 4th Commandment … to honor their father.
But only one chose to do so. So, the Rule failed 50% of the time!
So, what’s it going to take to get people to do the will of the father?
Not more rules … it’s going to take the desire to have union with God.
When we truly live the Christian life ... we take on three new prepositions:
(Prepositions are words placed before nouns that show relationship.)
- Doing things for
- Doing things with
- Doing things as
You see, when we were young, we wanted to do things for Jesus.
We went to Mass, lit a candle, said our prayers, obeyed Mom & Dad, etc.
As we got older, we wanted to do things with Jesus.
We came to realize we didn’t have the power … that it was all His grace.
So we asked Jesus to help us with our homework, our job, our family, our health.
And hopefully the day comes when we get to do things for others as Jesus.
As a Priest, I stand in the place of Jesus to dispense his power sacramentally.
And you, the faithful, can also do things as Jesus.
Yes, through baptism, you too are configured to Christ as Priest, Prophet & King
So you too can be Christ to other people.
You can be His hands to care for others, his legs to go and gather others,
his mouth to speak to others words of kindness and love and hope.
Let me share with you a powerful insight from Bsp. Robert Barron, Los Angeles:
It is a peculiarity of Christian prayer
that it is not so much directed to God who stands outside of the one who prays,
but rather that takes place, if I can put it this way, within God.
In baptism, a person is grafted onto Christ, indeed so intimately
that he commences to share in Christ’s own relationship with the Father.
Therefore, when baptized men and women pray they do so as
“sons and daughters in the Son.” And this means that they speak, as it were,
in the Son’s own voice and with the Son’s own intentionality –
and finally this implies that they pray within the dynamism of the Holy Spirit,
who is none other than the love shared by the Father and the Son.
Now we can see how important it is to make the sign of the cross
before we address the Lord, for the gesture signals
the absolutely unique spiritual space that we inhabit when we pray.
Wow, he’s speaking of the union that we have with God by Baptism!
So, is it good to have “relationship” with Jesus? Yes, Of course it is!
But relationship is just a wonderful beginning ... it shouldn’t stop there.
For Jesus, we want something more, something much more. We want union!
And, Jesus wants this more than we do ... which is why He devised a way
to truly be in union with us even before we get to Heaven.
That way is ... the Eucharist ... the Source and Summit of the Catholic faith.
Each time we pray Mass, we are in union with Jesus in a true and substantial way.
Each time we receive Holy Communion, we are in a union without equal this side of Heaven … for He is not just alongside of us … He is indeed inside of us!
Recall Jesus’ words in John 6 where He said,
“Just as the living Father sent me and I have life because of the Father,
so also the one who feeds on me will have life because of me.”
Inviting us to feed on Him is Jesus’ way of saying He wants union with us.
He wants us to be ... so very close ... truly united with Him!
I recall the many times I‘d hear my Mom looking lovingly at my little sister that she was holding in her arms when she was just a tiny baby and she’d say,
“I love you so much, I could just gobble you up!”
Or she’d say, “I could just put butter and brown sugar on you and eat you right up!”
So deep was her love for her little baby that she wanted more than just to have her beside her ... she wanted to have union with her.
That’s the same way it is between two people called to marriage.
So strong is their love for one another that they desire the two become one.
They say in effect: “I don’t just want relationship with you … I want you!”
And so it is with God … and even more so … because God is Love itself!
Here’s a great thought to take to Adoration …
Jesus, you became man to become more like me
and so I come before you to become more like You!
So you see, we no longer need to live merely at the human level.
Of course we’ll always be human
And the Saints glorified in Heaven are still creatures,
But through the grace of Baptism, you and I can now live at the Divine level …
in union with Jesus Christ.
None of us are charitable on the natural level.
None of us are merciful because we feel like it.
None of us are strong enough to lead the Christian life that Jesus led.
But Jesus wants to give that power to us now. He wants to give all His followers
the ability to live lives of mercy, understanding and charity.
This leads us right into the Beautiful Canticle that St. Paul gives in Philippians.
Paul writes, “Have in you the same attitude that is also in Jesus Christ.”
And what was that attitude?
Paul declares, “(Jesus) humbled Himself, becoming obedient to the point of death.”
Jesus is our greatest model of humility.
Jesus humbled Himself to become like man.
And if we humble ourselves we can become like God.
So now, think of how you would answer if someone asked you,
“Do you have a personal relationship with Jesus Christ?”
And consider answering as Fr. Meconi did ... by saying,
“Yeah I do … but I don’t want one!”
Actually, I want something more than relationship … I want union!
For, you see, it’s not enough to do things for Jesus … or even to do things with Jesus
… I want to do things as Jesus!
I want for me to be in Him … and for Him to be in me.
I want to be able to say as Paul did:
“It is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me.”
This is the essence of what it means to be Christian ...
living in union with Jesus … both now and forever … Amen!
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