We all like to be with Jesus at times like the Transfiguration, with sun rays streaming through the clouds and glory shining in the Lord's face. That's the easy part. Peter, James and John liked that part so much they wanted to set up tents and stay on the mountain.

But Jesus led them back down into the world — and that's where the story gets difficult. Not many of us want to be in Gethsemane when Jesus asks us to pray with Him awhile. Not many of us want to stay around when He asks us: Be with me, among the lepers and the paralytics. Be with me, when I stand before Pilate. Be with me, when I hang on the cross.

We have 63 million Catholics in the United States. Somewhere between 50 million and 80 million Americans claim they've been "born again." Ninety-six percent of Americans believe in God; 90 percent pray; 93 percent of American homes have a Bible; 87 percent of Americans describe themselves as Christian; and more than 40 percent of Americans attend church weekly — which, on the surface, makes the United States one of the most religiously active countries in the world. Americans spend $4 billion dollars a year on CDs, books and bumper stickers honoring Jesus Christ.

But if that's true — if we Americans are so seemingly religious — then why is it that more than half of all Americans can't name the authors of the Four Gospels; 63 percent of us don't know what a Gospel is; 58 percent can't name five of the Ten Commandments; and 10 percent believe that Joan of Arc was Noah's wife?

Why is it that pornography is a multibillion dollar industry in our country? Why are a million unborn babies aborted each year? Why are hundreds of thousands of families locked below the poverty line; why are 200 million guns in circulation; and why do we live in one of the most violence-prone cultures in the world?

A man can say he loves his wife, but he proves it by his actions. Men and women can say they love God, but they prove it by their actions. Relationships have consequences, or they're not real.

Jesus tells us, "I am the bread of life"; "I am the light of the world"; "I am the way, the truth and the life"; "No one comes to the Father except through me"; "Come, follow me, and I will make you fishers of men." In saying these things, Jesus invites us into a relationship of love, and being in love with Jesus Christ means being with Him all the way — from the silence we share with Him at Communion, to the work we share with Him in the sanctification of the world.

We need to remember that the Catholic faith is personal — intensely personal — because each of us is unique and unrepeatable, and God loves each of us uniquely and infinitely. But "personal" does not mean the same thing as "private." Our faith is never private; it always has social implications. The Eucharist is not a pious retreat into the self. Our relationship with Jesus Christ begins and ends with a call to discipleship, and discipleship has a cost.

Comfortable faith, easy faith, is false faith. Relationships have consequences.