It is one thing to hear about, to read about, Jesus Christ -- His life, death, and resurrection. It is something else entirely to know that He lives today. Not only that He lives in heaven, but that He lives on earth today, and that we can experience Him today.
The disciples on the road to Emmaeus were downcast and discouraged. They had hoped that He was the One promised for ages, the Messiah. They had followed Him, had seen His works, had heard His teaching. But now, He had been put to death by the Romans. He was dead, and His work, His teaching would pass out of memory. But then.....they recognized Him in the breaking of the bread and in His teaching once again. HE'S ALIVE! They rushed back to Jerusalem with the news. They had seen Him!
For us today, faith is that essential contact with the Living Jesus of the Gospels. We have read, we have heard, we have been at the Mass and received Him in the Eucharist. But do we know He lives today? Have we had contact with the Risen Lord of the Gospels? In his book, A Key to the Doctrine of the Eucharist, Abbot Anscar Vonier writes:
It is a favorite idea with Saint Thomas (Aquinas), that faith is truly a contact with Christ,
a real, psychological contact with Christ, which, if once established, may lead man
into the inner glories of Christ's life. Without this contact of faith we are dead to Christ,
the stream of His life passing us by without entering into us, as a rock in the midst of a river remains unaffected by the turbulent rush of waters. This contact of faith makes man susceptible to the influences of Christ....Till faith be established the great redemption has not become our redemption; the riches of Christ are not ours in any true sense; we are members of the human race, but we are not members of Christ.
For the Protestant believer, this initial contact with Christ is what is referred to by being "born again." Most of them will recall a moment when they gave their lives to Christ, or surrendered everything to Him and were born again. For Catholics, typically, there is a slow simmer towards faith rather than a defining moment that they can recall. But they know Jesus is alive and active in their lives, and they live for Him.
St. Paul said, "If Christ has not been raised from the dead, then our faith is in vain and we are the most pitiable of men." Most of us can accept the historical fact of the Resurrection without problem, but to many, Jesus is still dead in terms of a living relationship with Him. He does not affect their lives in any way; He is simply someone they have heard about.
So how do we come into a living relationship with this historical Person? For many, many People, He comes to us gratis, as a Gift, as He did with the disciples on the road to Emmaeus. For those who have heard but have not yet experienced the Gift of God, is is imperative that we ask for the Gift, as Jesus told us in Matthew 7 and Luke 11:
Ask and it will be given to you;
Seek and you will find;
Knock and the door will be opened;
For everyone who asks, receives;
He who seeks, finds;
and to him who knocks, the door will be opened.
...For if you, who are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children,
how much more will your Father in heaven give the Holy Spirit to those who ask Him!
For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son....
and if He gave His Son, would not He want us to know Him, to believe in Him, to love Him? Would He not want us to have contact with Him through a living faith? How much more simple could it be? If you knew the Gift of God, you would ask, and He would give you living water, welling up to eternal life!
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