According to Catholicism, how does God manifest and interact with Christians?

Question

I'm interested in understanding the specific ways in which God's presence and intervention are consciously experienced by Christians in their daily lives. In this question, I'm narrowing the scope to Catholicism.

Do Catholic teachings provide specific guidelines for how Christians should or could experience/encounter God in everyday life? Moreover, are there particular types of divine experiences accepted by the Catholic Church that other denominations would be more reluctant to accept or actively promote?

For context, I'm asking this as a follow-up to my previous question, To what extent are Christians encouraged to make conscious efforts to "experience" God as "real"?

Answer 1

"According to Catholicism, how does God manifest and interact with Christians?"

I agree with the statement made above, that this is a broad (and somewhat vague) question. I will try to answer it in a general way.

In general, God interacts with members of His Church, through the Mass, the Sacraments (especially the Holy Eucharist, and Confession), through Eucharistic adoration, and through the teaching authority of His Church (The Magisterium). See the gospel story of the Good Shepherd (John 10). Also, John 10:16, and Hebrews 6:4-6 may apply here.

I don't know if the Catholic Church has any standardized, printable list of guidelines that show us how to interact with other Christians (although certain parts of a standard guide to confession might qualify for that).

Many times in Catholic writings I have come across a phrase something like "Whatever we do, do all in things in charity". I think that this is probably the best general answer to a very general question.

This general idea of love (charity) is reflected by St. Paul in the gospels which do give us a general rule to follow.

1 Corinthians 13:1-8, 13 NIV

¹ If I speak in the tongues of men or of angels, but do not have love, I am only a resounding gong or a clanging cymbal. ² If I have the gift of prophecy and can fathom all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have a faith that can move mountains, but do not have love, I am nothing. ³ If I give all I possess to the poor and give over my body to hardship that I may boast, but do not have love, I gain nothing.
⁴ Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. ⁵ It does not dishonor others, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. ⁶ Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. ⁷ It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres.
⁸ Love never fails. But where there are prophecies, they will cease; where there are tongues, they will be stilled; where there is knowledge, it will pass away.
...
¹³ And now these three remain: faith, hope and love. But the greatest of these is love.

One last late thought. An additional thought to what I initially wrote. In the past, Christ has actively interacted with many of the saints, through inspiration, and/or actual in person visits. Sometimes He sends his Mother, the Virgin Mary. The following link will give you more info. ncregister.com/blog/saints-who-saw-heaven-and-hell – James Ball 2 days ago

Answer 2

By divine revelation:

Disclosure by God of himself and his will to the human race. The disclosure comes to human beings by way of communication, which implies the communicator, who is God; the receiver, who is the human being; and a transmitter or intermediary. Depending on the intermediary, there are in general two main forms of revelation, commonly called natural and supernatural.

If the intermediary is the world of space and time, the revelation is said to be natural. In this case, the natural world of creation is the medium through which God communicates himself to humankind. Moreover, humanity's natural use of reason is the means by which it attains the knowledge that God wishes to communicate. It is therefore natural twice over, once in the objective source from which human beings derive knowledge of God and divine things, and once again in the subjective powers that a person uses to appropriate what God is revealing in the universe into which humanity has been place. In the Old Testament those are said to be "naturally stupid" who have "not known God and who, from the things that are seen, have not been able to discover Him-who-is or, by studying the works, have failed to recognized the Artificer" (Wisdom 13:1). And St. Paul affirmed: "Ever since God created the world his everlasting power and deity--however invisible--have been there for the mind to see in the things he has made" (Romans 1:20).

Supernatural revelation begins where natural revelation ends. It is in the character of grace from God who has decided to communicate himself in a manner that far exceeds his manifestation through nature. The Scriptures call this form of communication a divine speech and refer to God as speaking to humankind. There are two levels of this supernatural revelation, as capsulized by the author of Hebrews: "At various times in the past and in various ways, God spoke to our ancestors through the prophets; but in our own time, the last days, he has spoken to us through his Son, the son that he has appointed to inherit everything and through whom he made everything there is. He is the radiant light of God's glory and the perfect copy of his nature (Hebrews 1:1-2).

The difference between these two kinds of supernatural communication lies in the fact that, before Christ, God spoke indeed but still indirectly through the prophets who were inspired to tell others what Yahweh had told them. In the person of Christ, however, it was no longer God speaking merely through human seers chosen by him; it was God himself speaking as man to his fellow members of the human race. (Etym. Latin revelatio, an uncovering; revelation.)