Category: Relationships

The heart of Christianity is not a rule of law or a code of behaviour.  It is a Person whose love we receive and whose life we seek to imitate.  Christianity is centred on a Person.  At its core the Christian life is about a personal relationship with Jesus Christ.  This is message of the Gospel.  It is also reflected in the lives of the saints.

Perhaps one of the best descriptions of what Christianity is essentially about is to be found in the Gospel of John.  In Chapter 14, verse 6, Jesus describes himself as “the way, the truth and the life.” This was obviously how John and his community of disciples experienced Jesus.  For them Jesus was their way, their truth and their life. He was a real living person in their lives, a person who meant everything to them.

Among the saints whose spirituality is built around a relationship with the person of Jesus, three Carmelites are worth mentioning.  For Teresa of Avila, Jesus was a friend.  Indeed he was her best friend, her friend par excellence.  This is why Teresa described prayer as an intimate sharing between friends.  It is taking time frequently to be alone with the one whom we know loves us.  Therese of Lisieux, popularly known as the Little Flower, also experienced Jesus as her friend.  Speaking directly to him in her autobiography she says: “O Jesus, my first and only Friend, you whom I love uniquely.”

And then there was the experience of John of the Cross which is beautifully expressed in his poetry.  John refers to Jesus as his brother, his companion, his master, his saviour and his reward.  Indeed John goes even further. He calls Jesus his beloved.  In his poem, The Spiritual Canticle, John writes:

“Let us rejoice, Beloved,
And let us go forth to behold
Ourselves in your beauty,
To the mountain and to the hill
To where the pure water flows.”

This is a captivating description of who Jesus can become for us.  He offers us his love and friendship and he longs for ours in return.

“You have made us for yourself, O God, and our hearts are restless until they rest in you.”  These are the often quoted words of St Augustine.  There is a longing in the human heart to come home.  It is a longing for God who is the fulfilment of our hearts’ desires.

The longing in the human heart to come home is a longing to be held in the tender embrace of God, the Father of Jesus.  It is a longing to live in the Father’s house.  It is a longing for a room in the Father’s house, a room of our own where we can experience our belovedness, be ourselves and find peace.  Jesus knows the longing we have inside us.  This is why he tells us, “There are many rooms in my Father’s house.  I go now to prepare a place for you, and after I have gone and prepared you a place I shall return to take you with me; so that where I am you may be too” (John 14: 2-3).

The journey through life is the journey home.  But we cannot make the journey home alone; we are not meant to make the journey home alone.  We need the companionship of other people.  Without the companionship of other people we wither and die inside, emotionally and spiritually. The idea that the Christian journey is a private one is false thinking. Jesus gathered companions around him and so must we.  We go to God with and through other people.

On the journey home we also need the companionship of Jesus.  Jesus walks the road of life with us.  He is the invisible companion of our life’s journey.  He helps us find our way home.  This is what Jesus means when he says, “I am the way, the truth and the life.  No one can come to the Father except through me” (John: 14:6).  To call Jesus our Saviour is to accept that we need his help and guidance to find our way home to the Father’s house.  The heart’s journey home is a journey best made in the company of Jesus.