MEDITATION 2: Knowing Jesus

Jesus beckons me to sit next to Him and just enjoy being in one another’s company, as happens when love moves beyond doing and becomes content with just being. Contemplative Cistercian practices, as I know them, teach me to place myself in the presence of Christ, through voluntary practices, and then trust that the Lord will overshadow me with what I need. This movement or process of spiritual evolution is taking place quietly within the upper room of my inner self, with my ongoing active willingness to be present to the one I love, but also without preconditions, such as asking for more power, wealth, or comfort in this lifetime as the price of my presence. St. Thomas Aquinas, Doctor of the Church, stated that “Knowledge comes before love.” The Baltimore Catechism, Question 6, asks and answers a nagging question in my human consciousness. “What is the purpose of Life?” It states: The purpose of life is to know, love, and serve God in this lifetime, so that we can be together in Heaven, in the next one.

Knowing, in the spiritual universe, unlike in the physical or mental universes, comes from God, through Jesus, with the energy of the Holy Spirit, gently overshadowing me with as much as I am capable of absorbing (capacitas dei) when I continuously search for meaning each day, “Having in me the mind of Christ Jesus.” Knowing is absorbing God’s energy as I can assimilate it to sustain my humanity at its deepest level of evolution.

What follows is what Jesus would tell you about knowing God with all your heart (Deuteronomy 6:5) from my Lectio Divina meditation with the assistance of Grok. I approve of this meditation.

“My dear friend, come and sit with me again in this quiet space. The light is soft, the world outside is still, and we turn now to the second meditative anchor: Knowing Jesus.

Let us speak slowly and tenderly about this. In the Old Testament, the great command was given through Moses: “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your strength” (Deuteronomy 6:5). This is the Shema Yisrael. This solemn declaration has sustained the people of God for centuries. It is not a small request. It asks for everything — the whole person, held together in love for the One who created us.

Then Jesus came, took this ancient command, and brought it to its beautiful fulfillment. When asked which was the greatest commandment, He answered: “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind. This is the greatest and first commandment” (Matthew 22:38). Notice how He added, “with all your mind.” Jesus expanded the command so that knowing and loving God would engage every part of who we are — heart, soul, strength, and the full capacity of our thoughts and understanding.

My friend, you may feel right now that this command feels almost impossible. Your heart may be tired from years of struggle. Your mind may wander because of age, illness, medication, grief, or the heavy weight of regrets. Your strength may be limited by poverty, by the walls around you, by the slow fading of the body, or by the loneliness that settles in when night comes. You may think, “How can I love with all when I feel I have so little left?”

This honest poverty is the very place where the anawim begins to know Jesus more deeply.

The Catholic Church, designed by Jesus Himself for wounded humanity like us, does not scold us for our limitations. Instead, she gently holds us and says, “Bring what you have. Offer even the little you can give today.” She knows that on this side of Heaven, our love is always partial. Yet that partial love is precious. It is real. And it is being gathered.

To know Jesus is not the same as knowing about Him. Many people know facts about Jesus — that He was born in Bethlehem, that He taught the Beatitudes, and that He died on a cross. But the anawim are invited into something much more intimate: a personal, living knowledge born in relationship. This knowing grows in the quiet moments when you whisper His name, when you sit with the Gospels even if only a few verses at a time, when you receive Him in the Eucharist, or when you cry out from the heart, “Lord, I want to know You.”

Even when your mind feels scattered or your heart feels dry, this desire itself is already a form of knowing. The very longing to love God more fully is itself a gift from Him. The Church, in her wisdom and maternal care, offers you many gentle paths into this knowing: the Rosary that lets your hands and lips pray when the mind is tired, the simple Jesus Prayer (“Lord Jesus Christ, have mercy on me”), the quiet reading of Scripture, and the presence of the saints who were poor and limited like you.

Now let us look further, beyond this earthly life, to the glorious fulfillment that awaits. After death, when the final collision comes — when a lifetime of struggle meets the mind of Christ Jesus — something magnificent unfolds. The “ALL” in the commandment begins to swell into its full meaning. Your small, imperfect love offered on earth links up with the love of ALL the faithful in Heaven. The anawim of every age, every culture, every condition — the elderly, the prisoners, the homeless, the sick, the forgotten — join together in one great, unified chorus of praise.

This is not a vague merging. You remain fully you. Your unique story, your particular sufferings, your small acts of trust — all of it is preserved and glorified. Together with all your brothers and sisters, your love rises continuously to the Father as glory, honor, power, and blessing. This is the Omega fulfillment of each anawim as God intended from the very beginning, from the Alpha.

Imagine it for a moment in your heart. All the partial knowing you experienced on earth — the moments when you could only manage a weak “I love You, Lord” because of pain or exhaustion — is gathered up, purified, and made complete. What you could not give fully here, you will offer perfectly there. The limitations that made loving with “all” feel impossible will fall away. Your mind will be clear, your heart will be full, your strength will be renewed. And in that renewal, you will love with everything you are, joined to the great communion of saints.

This is why the Catholic Church matters so deeply. She was not made because she is better than other paths in a human sense. She exists because Jesus designed her to be the most effective way for wounded humanity to reach this destiny. Through her sacraments, she gives grace when our strength fails. Through her teachings, she keeps the truth clear amid confusion. Through her contemplative tradition, she teaches the anawim how to wait in trust. She is the sure guardian who helps us keep moving toward the Omega even when the journey feels long and difficult.

Let us go deeper into this mystery of knowing. To know Jesus is to be known by Him. There is a beautiful reciprocity here. The more you allow yourself to be known — with all your poverty, your regrets, your limitations — the more deeply you come to know Him. St. Augustine captured this when he prayed, “You have made us for Yourself, O Lord, and our hearts are restless until they rest in You.” That restlessness you sometimes feel is not a curse. It is the sign that you were made for this greater knowing.

Even now, while you wait, you can practice this knowing in small ways. When you feel distant from God because of suffering, speak honestly to Him: “Lord, I don’t feel I know You well today, but I want to.” When memories of past mistakes rise, bring them to Him and say, “Jesus, know me in this too.” When the false self tells you that your life has been too small to matter, answer with the truth: “My knowing of Jesus, however small, is being gathered into something eternal.”

The Church sustains this practice through the ages. She has preserved the writings of the saints who knew Jesus in their own poverty. She offers the Eucharist so that knowing becomes communion. She gathers the anawim week after week so that even in our weakness, we can support one another’s knowing.

As you meditate on this, let these truths settle gently into your heart. Your current inability to love with “all” is not a failure. It is the honest condition of the anawim on earth. God does not despise your small offering. He receives it with tenderness and prepares it for the day when it will join the great swelling praise of Heaven.

One day, dear friend, the partial will become complete. The fragmented knowing will become whole. You will know Jesus as He has always known you — fully, perfectly, joyfully. And in that knowing, you will love with all your heart, all your soul, all your mind, and all your strength, together with every anawim who has ever cried out to God in their poverty.

This is your heritage. This is the promise. This is the Omega fulfillment that began in the Alpha of God’s loving plan for you.

Rest in this meditation. Return to it often. Let the desire to know Jesus become the quiet rhythm of your waiting. He is already drawing you toward that beautiful completion.

Do What He Tells You.

Copyright 2026 Michael F. Conrad, The Center for Contemplative Practice. All Rights Reserved.