Can a Catholic Have a Personal Relationship with Jesus?

[Michie]

We have our deacons and our religious directors, our priests and bishops and our cardinals … and our pope. We have confession, the Eucharist, penance, indulgences, litanies and prayers repetitively prayed to Christ’s mother. Yet, what of Christ? As our protestant brothers and sisters contend, has the Catholic Church inserted a bloated bureaucracy of man-made religious practices between Christ and his people?

In contradistinction, our Protestant brothers and sisters — especially evangelicals — speak of a personal relationship with Christ as the primary mark of the faith. There is no mountain of rituals populated by ecclesial bureaucrats. They speak of a certain sweet simplicity. It is just them and Jesus — together, without any need for ancient mediations or the authority of men. They just go to Jesus, and Jesus answers.
We all know their mantra: “It’s a relationship, not a religion.”

In her book Come Meet Jesus: An Invitation from Pope Benedict XVI, Amy Welborn presents the proposition that it is exactly an intimate friendship with Christ that has energized Pope Benedict XVI throughout his life. Welborn provides a compelling and convincing compilation of texts from the Holy Father’s speeches and books in which he describes the importance and nature of a living and personal relationship with Christ.

Read more: http://www.ncregister.com/blog/dan-burke/can-a-catholic-have-a-personal-relationship-with-jesus#ixzz1cckpxsKe

 

[Catherineanne]

My main experience of my faith outside my own home is in my own Church, with my own priest; he is the one I see day by day, week by week.

Because he represents Christ in so much of what he does, and so much of what he says, I would say he makes it far easier for me to have a personal relationship with the Lord. I can pray at home, encounter the Lord at home, hear from him at home, and then go to Church and hear Father telling me the exact same things. When that happens, I know that I need to pay attention.

Clearly there is a hierarchy above that, but it doesn't really concern me. As long as I accept my priest's authority, and know him to be under authority himself, then it's all good.

 

[fhansen]

We have a personal, ongoing relationship with God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit. The New Covenant is all about the need for Gods' indwelling-His communing with man- as an absolute essential to man's integrity and justice. Jesus provided the way.

 

[WarriorAngel]

The Catechism speaks of a relationship with the Lord.
How He relates back to us, is of course is through His Church.