Friendship

I think a very good subject to start the new year with is Friendship. I capitalize the word because Abbot St. Aelred teaches us that God is Friendship.

Of course we will joyfully keep it positive even though His Holiness Pope Benedict Ratzinger has already in the first 4 days of the new year declared war and hatred four times on our same-sex Friendship (still capitalized).

The very Love which is of God, in God, and with God is condemned cold bloodedly and blasphemously. Indeed, those who live in Love and Friendship live in God, and God lives in them. So we don’t want to play the war and hatred game. It is just plain out of order. It does not ft the plan of God for Love and Friendship.

In our website, we note Abbot St. Aelred’s beautiful description of a “True Friend” (from his book on Love, “The Mirror of Love” which St. Bernard of Clairvaux asked him to write).

In Mirror of Love (Speculum Caritatis), we find a delightfully human description of what a friend is. This is indeed a model for true friendship; that is, friendship with love.

A True Friend

It is such a great joy to have the consolation of someone's affection;
someone to whom I am deeply united in the bonds of love;
someone with whom my weary spirit can find rest;
and to whom I may pour out my heart;
someone whose conversation is as sweet as a song in the tiring times of daily life;
someone whose presence is a harbor of calm when my life is rocked on the choppy seas of life;
someone to whom I can lay bare all my thoughts and secrets;
someone whose spirit will give me the comforting kiss that heals all the sickness of my troubled heart;
one who will cry with me when I am upset and rejoice with me when I am happy;
the one I can talk to when I need advice or good judgment;
someone so closely bound to my heart and soul that even when far away is together with me in spirit;
when the world falls asleep all around us, our souls will be embraced in absolute peace;
our hearts will lie quiet together, united in our oneness, as the grace of the Holy Spirit flows over us;
with heart and mind together, we are bound by the closest ties of love.

Abbot St. Aelred yearned for such a True Friend, and in his books he describes not only the general description of a “True Friend” (as above), but also reveals and describes his own beautiful relationships with “true friends.”

At the end of his description of a “True Friend,” he adds a very pointed paragraph. Since it was obvious that he was talking about a same-sex friend, he suggests that some people may find this wonderful awesome friendship between two persons of the same sex unusual.

Then he invites us to ponder the “model” of true friendship, directing us to look at the friendship of Jesus and his beloved friend. “No doubt,” he writes, “Jesus loved all the 12 apostles, but one had the privilege of lying with his head on the heart of Jesus.” He goes on to remind us, not just once, but eight times, that this one special one was called the beloved of Jesus, “the beloved disciple, the one whom Jesus loved.”

Is this the kind of Love and Friendship His Holiness has declared war on? Of course, he would deny that. I’m sure Abbot St. Aelred would debate that with him or anybody else.

Below, at the end, I am going to include a neutral “mini bio” of this “beloved disciple.” My friend, Ito, emails me every day the “Saint of the Day,” and that’s the website where this appears.

According to a very ancient tradition in the Christian church, the beloved disciple was St. John whose remembrance day is just after Christmas.

For now, and we have only just begun to discuss friendship, let conclude with a practical application of what it is to be a “true friend.” I want to make a little comment about “love’s bottom line,” a day to day way to put all the points of abbot St. Aelred’s description of a true friend into daily life situations.

When two people say they love each other, or they are “true friends,” and if their Friendship is truly “in God,” we say they will live “love’s bottom line.”

Some people, shall I say many people, seem to think that the purpose of being together is to argue, fight, and win. But those who want to live as true fiends, will always have in their heart and on their mind, not, “how can I win,” but “how can I make my partner happy?” It’s the secret to the happiest relationship, friendship, in the world.

Now go back and ponder Abbot St. Aelred’s description of “A True Friend.” Then you see some of the manifestations of the happy life and friendship of those who live love’s bottom line. This is Friendship at its very best, because God is Friendship and those who live in Friendship live in God, and God lives in them.

Since I have been teaching “Love’s bottom line” for several years, I receive happy stories form around the world. Please email your questions or comments about Friendship, about Love’s Bottom Line. (Email: saintaelred@gmail.com)

Fr. Richard

December 27, 2007
St. John the Apostle

It is God who calls; human beings answer. The vocation of John and his brother James is stated very simply in the Gospels, along with that of Peter and his brother Andrew: Jesus called them; they followed. The absoluteness of their response is indicated by the account. James and John “were in a boat, with their father Zebedee, mending their nets. He called them, and immediately they left their boat and their father and followed him” (Matthew 4:21b-22).

For the three former fishermen—Peter, James and John—that faith was to be rewarded by a special friendship with Jesus. They alone were privileged to be present at the Transfiguration, the raising of the daughter of Jairus and the agony in Gethsemane. But John’s friendship was even more special. Tradition assigns to him the Fourth Gospel, although most modern Scripture scholars think it unlikely that the apostle and the evangelist are the same person.

John’s own Gospel refers to him as “the disciple whom Jesus loved” (see John 13:23; 19:26; 20:2), the one who reclined next to Jesus at the Last Supper, and the one to whom he gave the exquisite honor, as he stood beneath the cross, of caring for his mother. “Woman, behold your son... Behold, your mother” (John 19:26b, 27b).

Because of the depth of his Gospel, John is usually thought of as the eagle of theology, soaring in high regions that other writers did not enter. But the ever-frank Gospels reveal some very human traits. Jesus gave James and John the nickname, “sons of thunder.” While it is difficult to know exactly what this meant, a clue is given in two incidents.

In the first, as Matthew tells it, their mother asked that they might sit in the places of honor in Jesus’ kingdom—one on his right hand, one on his left. When Jesus asked them if they could drink the cup he would drink and be baptized with his baptism of pain, they blithely answered, “We can!” Jesus said that they would indeed share his cup, but that sitting at his right hand was not his to give. It was for those to whom it had been reserved by the Father. The other apostles were indignant at the mistaken ambition of the brothers, and Jesus took the occasion to teach them the true nature of authority: “...[W]hoever wishes to be first among you shall be your slave. Just so, the Son of Man did not come to be served but to serve and to give his life as a ransom for many” (Matthew 20:27-28).

On another occasion the “sons of thunder” asked Jesus if they should not call down fire from heaven upon the inhospitable Samaritans, who would not welcome Jesus because he was on his way to Jerusalem. But Jesus “turned and rebuked them” (see Luke 9:51-55).

On the first Easter, Mary Magdalene “ran and went to Simon Peter and to the other disciple whom Jesus loved, and told them, ‘They have taken the Lord from the tomb, and we don’t know where they put him’” (John 20:2). John recalls, perhaps with a smile, that he and Peter ran side by side, but then “the other disciple ran faster than Peter and arrived at the tomb first” (John 20:4b). He did not enter, but waited for Peter and let him go in first. “Then the other disciple also went in, the one who had arrived at the tomb first, and he saw and believed” (John 20:8).

John was with Peter when the first great miracle after the Resurrection took place—the cure of the man crippled from birth—which led to their spending the night in jail together. The mysterious experience of the Resurrection is perhaps best contained in the words of Acts: “Observing the boldness of Peter and John and perceiving them to be uneducated, ordinary men, they [the questioners] were amazed, and they recognized them as the companions of Jesus” (Acts 4:13).

The evangelist wrote the great Gospel, the letters and the Book of Revelation. His Gospel is a very personal account. He sees the glorious and divine Jesus already in the incidents of his mortal life. At the Last Supper, John’s Jesus speaks as if he were already in heaven. It is the Gospel of Jesus’ glory.

Comment:

It is a long way from being eager to sit on a throne of power or to call down fire from heaven to becoming the man who could write: “The way we came to know love was that he laid down his life for us; so we ought to lay down our lives for our brothers” (1 John 3:16).

Quote:

A persistent story has it that John’s “parishioners” grew tired of his one sermon, which relentlessly emphasized: “Love one another.” Whether the story is true or not, it has basis in John’s writing. He wrote what may be called a summary of the Bible: “We have come to know and to believe in the love God has for us. God is love, and whoever remains in love remains in God and God in him.” (1 John 4:16)

(This entry appears in the print edition of Saint of the Day.)