Every relationship begins somewhere. Some begin romantically with our hearts alive in the excitement of getting to know someone who we are drawn to for the very first time. Some begin at our birth with our introduction to our family. Some begin at school or work, where we first meet our peers and colleagues. Some begin at our baptism, when the immersion into water symbolizing both our dying and rising with Christ signifies our inherent immersion into a set of relationships (the entire Body of Christ, which is the church) that can never be undone. Yet, there is one relationship that begins before all others.
Some relationships are deeply intimate, where we reveal our true selves and are open to the other person’s true self, as with a spouse, close sibling, or best friend. Sometimes those same relationships are difficult or strained, causing us to become disinterested in another. Some relationships are simply professional, casual, or superficial and nothing more becomes of them. Some relationships will last for a lifetime, while others last for just a short stint. Yet, there is one relationship that will last forever.
Everybody, whether conscious of it or not, has a relationship with God. The fact that you or I exist, or that anybody exists, testifies to the reality that we are in relationship with our Creator.
One medieval theologian describes this relationship as that of an artist to her artwork. There is a preexisting relationship between a painting and a painter: The choice to create when one does not need to do so can signal love, the reflection of the particular artist in the image through unique and unrepeatable brushstrokes can point beyond the creation to the creator, and the beauty of the image – even with its inevitable imperfection – brings to mind the truth that there is something wonderful about life. But we are more than paintings and God is more than a painter.
Fr. Dan brings the Franciscan tradition to life by imagining our faith journeys in terms of”dating” as a dynamic, creative, and renewing spiritual thread for twenty-first century Christians.
I believe that all human beings, by virtue of simply being human, have a capacity for God that is fundamental and part of the deepest core of who we are. I also believe that God is already and always extending an invitation to us to be in relationship. But how do we recognize this presence of God in our lives?
It can be difficult to consider the importance of intimacy in our relationship with God because, whereas we are all familiar with the effort and attention necessary to work on our relationships with various people in our lives, our connection to God can appear to be so different. In a sense, our relationship with God is indeed different from those experiences of intimacy with others in our lives, but we nevertheless bring ourselves to every relationship we form, including the one with our Creator. Our hopes and joys, our anxieties and sorrows are carried into how we relate to God just as much, if not more than, they are in relationship to others. We don’t even have to overtly express these things to God. The reason is, as St. Augustine wrote in his Confessions, because God is closer to us than we are to ourselves.
This inherent sense of intimacy can be daunting for those of us who live in a technologically saturated world, which allows us to keep a distance from one another through the creation of screens, masks, and social-media “profiles” that give us a false sense of control over what people can or cannot see of us. God does not need a Facebook account or an online-dating profile to learn about us. God already knows us better than we could imagine.
Awareness of God’s closeness has always felt like a two-sided coin to me. On the one hand, it’s intimidating to know that, unlike a social-media profile, there is nothing I can hide from God. God knows those things about me that might be considered good and those things about me that are not so good. Yet, on the other hand, there is a freedom and a peace that comes in contemplating the closeness or intimacy of being fully recognized, loved, and accepted – at times in spite of my less-than-perfect self. Because God cannot be fooled by the appearances we present to the world, we can take comfort in knowing that we are truly loved completely and without limit for who we really are and not what we pretend or wish to be. When considering this intimacy with God we might also recognize the challenge to live more authentically as ourselves created to love, forgive, and reflect the image and likeness of the Creator.
This lifelong, intimate and, at times, challenging relationship with God is not always understood or realized right away. Like any significant relationship, our connection with God is perhaps best described as a lifelong journey of discovery. As the Trappist monk and author Thomas Merton says in his book New Seeds of Contemplation, it is in discovering God that we come to discover our true selves. Because it is only through our intimate journey of relationship with God that we come to understand our own identity, our connection with God is the cornerstone and foundation of all of our relationships. Not only is God responsible for bringing each aspect of creation into existence and sustaining that reality, but every authentic relationship we share is also rooted in and made possible our primary relationship with God; whether we are conscious of this or not. In order to truly know another I must also know myself, and to truly know myself I must first know God.
At the heart of the Franciscan tradition stands the primacy of relationship. St. Francis of Assisi eschewed the traditional forms of religious life in his day that kept women and men in consecrated life away from the rest of society within a cloister. Instead, St. Francis desired that the world be his cloister and that nothing should get in the way of his relationship with others. This was, after all, the example Jesus Christ set out for his followers according to the Gospels: no one should be turned away.
St. Francis intuited the significance of intimate relationships as the centerpiece of the spiritual life. He wished to be as aware of God’s closeness to him as possible while striving to follow in the footprints of Christ. This opened his eyes to the world around him, which included women and men that his privileged upbringing allowed him to ignore previously. He would embrace those people thought to be un-embraceable and love those that no one else dared to love: the poor, the sick, the forgotten, the outcast. Like Christ who always identified the will of God as the source of his mission, St. Francis lived his vocation of solidarity and service to others according to a life of prayer and humility, which continually reminded him that God was the primary source and ultimate goal of all he did.
As a Franciscan friar, I am able to look at the path that St. Francis has laid before all of us. It is an intimate journey of relationship with God that necessarily spills over into every other relationship we have. It challenges me to recognize my inherent connection to the entire created order that extends far beyond the boundaries of our human family to include the rest of creation. It calls me forward to focus on the ways I can reconnect with my Creator again and again to renew my awareness of the most intimate relationship in my life, a relationship that grounds and sustains all others.
Follow the life of Fr. Dan Horan, OFM, Franciscan Friar living in Chicago, IL and working at the Catholic Theological Union.
DANIEL P. HORAN, OFM is a Franciscan friar, a columnist for America magazine, a PhD student in the Department of Theology at Boston College, and the author of several books including: Dating God: Live and Love in the Way of St. Francis (2012)