Expert: Griff Ruby - 7/3/2006

Question
Best answer I've received yet. Thanks. So how would you define this Divine Intimacy or "relationship"? As a lifetime attempt, through prayer and contemplation, to increase our love of God?
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Followup To

Question -
I've been hearing a lot lately from fundamentalists about having a "relationship" with Jesus. My first reaction was that that concept is a very new and nebulous kind of touchy-feely American term that could mean anything. It's enough that we have faith (through grace) in Jesus' words and obey His commandments (good works) so that we are saved. My "relationship" with Him consists of worship through prayer and the tendency of my heart to do His will rather than my own. However, a few verses were pointed out to me which do seem to indicate a new kind of relationship to God than that enjoyed under the Old Covenant. They talk about a relationship between friends or between a parent and child rather than one between a master a slave. What exactly do these mean? John 15:15 (I know longer call you slaves, because a slave does not know what his master is doing. I have called you friends, because I have told you everything I have heard from my Father.)
1 Cor 1:9 (God is faithful, and by him you were called to fellowship with His Son, Jesus Christ our Lord).
Rom 8:14 (For those who are led by the Spirit of God are children of God. For you did not receive a spirit of slavery to fall back into fear, but you received a spirit of adoption, through which we cry, "Abba, Father!" The Spirit itself bears witness that we are children of God, and if children, then heirs, heirs of God and joint heirs with Christ, if only we suffer with Him so that we may also be glorified with Him)

Answer -
The loose and fraternal "palsy walsy" sort of "relationship" Protestants often extol (and more and more so as Protestantism disintregrates into the amorality of the world, the flesh, and the devil) is in stark contrast to how the creation (ourselves) is meant to "relate" to our Creator, our Redeemer, and our Sanctifier.
"Hi ya, Jesus!  How's things in Heaven?  Hope you are having a wonderful time there.  Well, as you probably know, I'm having a little trouble, and ..." is simply not and never could be how an inferior addresses a superior, no matter how strong the friendship.  Whole Protestant churches now seem to revolve around such "prayers," urging more and more sponteniety and so forth.  Typical among such teachings is a tendancy to mock the "rote" prayers of Catholics (and for that matter even Protestants of former eras), as they fail to understand the purpose of such prayers and why we pray them.
Among the saints (and we must all strive to become saints) there does exist a concept as "Divine Intimacy" which comes from contemplating the awesomeness of God and what He as accomplished in Creation and in ourselves and so forth.  In such intimacy we do approach Him with the simple humility that a small child approaches his earthly father, but only all the more magnified in respect and also with the additional qualities of adoration and contrition, and perhaps even fasting.
Examine those "rote" Catholic prayers carefully.  They are very beautiful, far above in dignity and appropriateness to addressing one's Creator than the "Hi ya Jesus" prayer illustrated above.  It was never intended that these rote prayers would be the only things one can say to God, but rather they are meant to serve as a kind of spiritual "training wheels" to teach us how to pray, and the sorts of things to be praying for and how to pray for those things.
A true mark of a saint who has this Divine Intimacy is that his prayers will sound just like those rote prayers in its beauty, majesty, respect, adoration of God, thanksgiving to God, contrition for one's own sins, and perhaps even glory, poetry and rhythm, and yet there is nowhere any text of this prayer written anywhere, as this is how the saint spontaneously prays from his own heart.  A saint simply speaks that way to God all the time, but relating all sorts of matters weighing on his heart.  And of course such prayers come in the context of a life lived in a manner consistent with that lived by the canonized saints of the Church.  You want to know who has a genuine "relationship" with God, see who prays like that.


Answer
There is a book, fairly expensive, but worth every penny, which will guide one through and into what it is to have this.  It is "Divine Intimacy" by Rev. Gabriel of St. Mary Magdalen.  This book is structured in many small dvotional chapters, based on the liturgical calandar, which can be read one a day, giving you something to think about throughout the day.  It can be ordered through:
TAN Books and Publishers,

http://www.tanbooks.com/index.php/page/shop:flypage/product_id/697/

A number of other books worth reading would be the Sermons of St. Francis of Assisi, the Sermons of the Cure of Ars, the Imitation of Christ, the Spiritual Combat, and the Three Ages of The Interior .  See how saints think, how they talk, and how much of God permeates their whole being and shines through them like light refracted in crystal.  These fine works are also available from the same place:

http://www.tanbooks.com/index.php/page/shop:flypage/product_id/238/keywords/Serm
http://www.tanbooks.com/index.php/page/shop:flypage/product_id/261/keywords/Serm
http://www.tanbooks.com/index.php/page/shop:flypage/product_id/276/keywords/Serm
http://www.tanbooks.com/index.php/page/shop:flypage/product_id/246/keywords/Serm
http://www.tanbooks.com/index.php/page/shop:flypage/product_id/435/keywords/Serm
http://www.tanbooks.com/index.php/page/shop:flypage/product_id/147/keywords/Imit
http://www.tanbooks.com/index.php/page/shop:flypage/product_id/313/keywords/Spir
http://www.tanbooks.com/index.php/page/shop:flypage/product_id/562/keywords/Spir

I know this is quite an armful of books, and you might want to start with just a couple of them to start.