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Do you, my child, love every one with the pure love of charity,
but have no friendship save with those whose intercourse is good
and true, and the purer the bond which unites you so much higher
will your friendship be.
If your intercourse is based on science it is praiseworthy,
still more if it arises from a participation in goodness,
prudence, justice and the like; but if the bond of your mutual
liking be charity, devotion and Christian perfection, God knows
how very precious a friendship it is!
Precious because it comes from God, because it tends to God,
because God is the link that binds you, because it will last for
ever in Him. Truly it is a blessed thing to love on earth as we
hope to love in Heaven, and to begin that friendship here which is
to endure for ever there. I am not now speaking of simple charity,
a love due to all mankind, but of that spiritual friendship which
binds souls together, leading them to share devotions and
spiritual interests, so as to have but one mind between them.
Such as these may well cry out, "Behold, how good and joyful a
thing it is, brethren, to dwell together in unity!" (1) Even so,
for the "precious ointment" of devotion trickles continually from
one heart to the other, so that truly we may say that to such
friendship the Lord promises His Blessing and life for evermore.
To my mind all other friendship is but as a shadow with respect
to this, its links mere fragile glass compared to the golden bond
of true devotion. Do you form no other friendships. I say "form,"
because you have no right to cast aside or neglect the natural
bonds which draw you to relations, connexions, benefactors or
neighbours.
My rules apply to those you deliberately choose to make. There
are some who will tell you that you should avoid all special
affection or friendship, as likely to engross the heart, distract
the mind, excite jealousy, and what not. But they are confusing
things. They have read in the works of saintly and devout writers
that individual friendships and special intimacies are a great
hindrance in the religious life, and therefore they suppose it to
be the same with all the world, which is not at all the case.
Whereas in a well-regulated community every one's aim is true
devotion, there is no need for individual intercourse, which might
exceed due limits;--in the world those who aim at a devout life
require to be united one with another by a holy friendship, which
excites, stimulates and encourages them in well-doing. Just as men
traversing a plain have no need to hold one another up, as they
have who are amid slippery mountain paths, so religious do not
need the stay of individual friendships; but those who are living
in the world require such for strength and comfort amid the
difficulties which beset them.
In the world all have not one aim, one mind, and therefore we
must take to us congenial friends, nor is there any undue
partiality in such attachments, which are but as the separation of
good from evil, the sheep from the goats, the bee from the
drone--a necessary separation.
No one can deny that our Dear Lord loved S. John, Lazarus,
Martha, Magdalene, with a specially tender friendship, since we
are told so in Holy Scripture; and we know that S. Paul dearly
loved S. Mark, S. Petronilla, as S. Paul Timothy and Thecla. (2)
S. Gregory Nazianzen boasts continually of his friendship with the
great S. Basil, of which he says: "It seemed as though with two
bodies we had but one soul, and if we may not believe those who
say that all things are in all else, at least one must affirm that
we were two in one, and one in two --the only object that both had
being to grow in holiness, and to mould our present life to our
future hopes, thereby forsaking this mortal world before our
death." And S. Augustine says that S. Ambrose loved S. Monica by
reason of her many virtues, and that she in return loved him as an
Angel of God.
What need to affirm so unquestionable a fact! S. Jerome, S.
Augustine, S. Gregory, S. Bernard, and all the most notable
servants of God, have had special friendships, which in nowise
hindered their perfection. S. Paul, in describing evil men, says
that they were "without natural affection," (3) i.e. without
friendship. And S. Thomas, in common with other philosophers,
acknowledges that friendship is a virtue, and he certainly means
individual friendships, because he says that we cannot bestow
perfect friendship on many persons.
So we see that the highest grace does not lie in being without
friendships, but in having none which are not good, holy and true.
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