Beginning with chapter 7 when we take up the question of “Who is Jesus?” in Turn to the Lord, we also begin to invite parents or sponsors or other family members of those undergoing formation to provide short testimonials about “Who is Jesus for me?” Two parents from the original Catholic Formation Group at Saint Joseph Parish in South Bend, Indiana, generously agreed to share their testimonials here. Thank you!

If you would like to learn more about crafting “Stories of Grace,” which are similar but not identical to these testimonials, please visit the page on Witness: Learning to Tell the Stories of Grace that Illumine Our Lives.

Mary Lee

Not too long ago, I was doing an Ignatian-style meditation on the Scripture passage from John where Jesus meets the Samaritan woman at the well. Ignatian meditation is a form of prayer in which you imagine yourself within a scene from one of the Gospels in order to get to know the person of Jesus better and hopefully grow in your friendship with him. 

In this particular meditation, I imagined myself as the Samaritan woman encountering Jesus as he sat by himself near a well on a hillside outside my village. For some reason, I pictured Jesus sitting on a large rock from which he could look out over the valley below.  Somewhere in the distance lay Nazareth, and that seemed to be where Jesus’ thoughts were directed.  I thought he looked tired and sad and maybe even frustrated. It says in John’s Gospel that Jesus is “tired from his journey”. But, knowing that not long before that in another gospel (Luke), Jesus had also had the experience of preaching in his hometown of Nazareth where the people among whom he had grown up, whom he called friends and neighbors, had turned on him angrily, threatening to kill him, I also imagined that Jesus was feeling rejected and discouraged. There was so much at stake, yet it seemed like so few understood his plan or, if they did, so few were willing to risk everything to join him. I imagined him praying to his Father in heaven, asking him what to do next and begging for help.

And then, he had this short but brilliant and moving conversation with me (as the Samaritan woman) in which he revealed himself to me as the son of God and proved that he knew me better than I know myself, in all my sinfulness, and still loved me! I was so convinced that he really was the Messiah that I ran and told my fellow townspeople about him and how my experience with him had changed me. And the WHOLE TOWN came to believe in him! In fact, he stayed there for days, talking with and teaching us. Our hearts were so open and hungry for his words, he would have had a hard time leaving us if he had wanted to! And the funny thing was that somehow I sensed that encountering our great faith encouraged Jesus too and filled him with joy. His heavenly father knew he needed this moment to build him back up after that awful scene in his hometown and had led him here, to Samaria of all places (most Jews considered us Samaritans the dregs of society), where our hearts were already disposed toward him. He told his disciples that he had ‘food to eat that [they] know nothing about”: Jesus’ “food is to do the will of the one who sent him and to accomplish his work…” and here, in this Samaritan town, “the fields are ripe for harvest”. Saving the lost is all the food Jesus needs!

The experience of doing this meditation was so powerful and real for me that for months afterward, in my prayer, I could go back in my imagination to that rock by the well in that small town in Samaria and find Jesus waiting for me there and have a conversation with him. Sometimes, I did the talking, and sometimes I listened to him. Most often, he told me about his love for people and his desire for them to know him, his sadness when they turn away.

In many ways, this story sort of sums up who Jesus is to me. Jesus is a real person, with real emotions, who loves and wants to be loved in return, who has hopes, dreams and even disappointments. He wants to be my friend and hopes that I will be a friend to him too. And every day, I can either ignore him or choose to further that friendship and cause it to grow.

Nathaniel Utz

Jesus told his disciples to “love one another as I have loved you.” My parents have always made this true for me. They have shown me Jesus’s love. I grew up in a family environment where my mom and dad both loved each other unconditionally as well as loved me and my siblings each and every day, faults included. Look no further than the news every day for people who are not as fortunate as I have been. Just as Jesus taught his followers by preaching and action, my parents did the same throughout my life. In other words, my parents are the manifestation of Jesus and The Way in my life. They show me his love.

My wife does the same for me now: she shows me the love of Jesus. The way in which she treats other people, the way in which she cares for her children and for me, for her family (without regard for her own happiness), the selflessness in which she lives, the way she teaches our kids to be better people, the way she teaches her students at school… and all that after having grown up in a family environment that was not like the one I was fortunate to have growing up. I'm in awe when I think about it, and consider her part of the who Jesus is for me. She shows me his love

I could go on and list many others, but they all have the same thing in common - they are everyday examples of living The Way and examples of Jesus’s own love. They make him present to me. I know him better through them.

Let’s Work Together

If you haven’t already done so, would you mind providing me with your contact info so I can periodically reach out to you about new ideas and developments, and send you other useful resources from time to time? And if you have ideas, questions, or even corrections, please email me directly. I’d really like to work together, and maybe help build a community of leaders who can support each other. Thanks again!

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