In the Book of Sirach, we read, “A faithful friend is a sturdy shelter. He who finds one finds a treasure. Faithful friends are beyond price; no amount can balance their worth.” (6:14-15)
I have been pondering with tremendous gratitude the gift of friendship in my life.
Some may think that a celibate life is a lonely existence. I have found the contrary to be true.
My life as a priest and a bishop has been filled to overflowing with so many good, loving, and faithful people that I am honored and happy to call friends.
Friends from grade school, high school, college, and seminary. Parishioners and families whom I met in various pastoral assignments along the way. Individuals I served with on committees, boards, and volunteer projects. Priests, Religious, and bishops.
So many holy people who have witnessed the Gospel to me, showed Jesus to me, carried me in moments of struggle and challenge, laughed, and celebrated in times of joy. I am profoundly grateful for all of them. I cannot imagine life without good friends.
Spiritual companions
Friends are spiritual companions whom the Lord sends to accompany us on our journey to Heaven.
They illuminate our hearts with unconditional support, steady prayer, mischievous humor, and profound faith.
You can be with good friends on an excursion and feel completely comfortable not speaking all the time because you so profoundly understand each other.
You can share the deepest thoughts, emotions, and experiences with them in absolute trust, knowing that everything said is held sacred.
Friends remind us that Christianity is not a solitary, individualized pursuit of holiness.
Even cloistered Religious and hermits are bound to the communion of the Church.
From the very beginning of His ministry, Jesus calls companions to His side, living, traveling, resting, and eating with the Apostles for three years.
In the context of Jesus’ call and their response, the Twelve saw the Lord’s miracles, listened to His preaching, and came to know His true identity as the Son of God.
All the while, even in the midst of their confusion, obtuseness, and competition, Jesus was patiently teaching, forming, and preparing them for their ultimate mission, beginning at Pentecost.
Jesus as a friend
In the course of the Last Supper Discourse, recorded in John’s Gospel, Jesus calls His Apostles “friends”.
The fuller text is worthy of quotation here. “I have told you this so that my joy may be in you and your joy may be complete. This is my commandment: love one another as I love you. No one has greater love than this, to lay down one’s life for one’s friends. You are my friends if you do what I command you. I no longer call you slaves, because a slave does not know what his master is doing. I have called you friends, because I have told you everything I have heard from my Father. It was not you who chose me, but I who chose you and appointed you to go and bear fruit that will remain, so that whatever you ask the Father in my name, He may give you. This I command you: love one another.” (John 15: 11-17)
In this passage, Jesus Christ offers us an astonishing gift! His divine friendship.
Everything He did in His earthly ministry, He did for each one of us. The healings. The forgiveness. The parables. The foot washing. The institution of the Eucharist. His suffering, death, and resurrection.
The Son of God came from Heaven to win us to the Father, to make us a new creation, to place His life within our souls, and to offer us His friendship.
How can any heart not completely melt in love, awe, and praise before the overwhelming love of our Divine Friend, who gave His life on the cross, so that we could live forever? We want to do what He commands so we can find that infinite treasure — friendship with Christ.
We may feel a little uncomfortable thinking of Jesus as our friend. He is God, so far above us in holiness, majesty, and divinity.
Claiming friendship with the Lord may seem presumptive as if we are placing ourselves on an equal footing with Christ or disrespecting His dignity.
John’s Gospel should reassure us that, indeed, the Lord wants to claim us as His friends, that we are a people with whom He has shared the secrets of heaven and the intimacies of His Heart.
In prayer, we come to know the profound love of the Lord and His great desire to abide within us.
We know that we can share all of our joys and burdens with Christ, that he is our treasured Friend who will always be there and will always be faithful.
Every genuine, holy, and healthy human friendship becomes both a signpost and a participation in the friendship we have with Jesus.
My earthly friends lead me to a deeper encounter with the Lord and my love for the Lord makes me a better friend to the precious souls whom the Lord has placed in my path.
Christ is the North Star of our lives, the silent companion in every journey, the divine presence in every conversation, the mysterious guest who carries us to the Father’s heart. As the old hymn sings it, “What a Friend we have in Jesus!”
As Catholics, we have the great privilege of encountering the fullness of the Lord in the Eucharist, to feel His forgiveness in Confession, and to speak with Him at any time in our hearts.
Evangelization is all about befriending others and leading them to the One who loves, heals, and saves.