Spiritual Friendship: Learning to Be Friends with God and One Another

Chapter 5: Choosing Spiritual Friends (Book 3.1–38)

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conversation, namely, that friendship is an agreement to share the same likes and dislikes? 6 12. AELRED: This definition is certainly valid among those whose characters have been corrected, whose lives are in order and whose affections are under control; I do not think it should be rejected by such people as these. 13. WALTER: Let Gratian see to it that these qualities you just mentioned are present both in himself and in the person whom he loves. In this way his friend will agree with him both about what he wants and about what he does not want: since he has not been asked to do anything which is either unjust or dishonorable or indecent, he will not ask that anything of the sort be done for him. But we are waiting for you to tell us what we should think about those four steps of friendship you have already mentioned. Step 1: How to Choose a Friend (3.14−15) 14. AELRED: Then let us deal first with the choice of a friend. There are certain vices which will not allow a person involved with them to preserve either the obligations or rights of friendship for very long. It is not easy to choose friends, for a friendship of the sort we are speaking about; but if their lives and habits are otherwise suitable, we should treat them in every way so that they may be corrected and thus considered worthy for friendship—I mean people who may be prone to anger, or flightiness, or those who may be distrustful or talkative.

6 See Spiritual Friendship , 1.35.