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

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Spiritual Friendship

15. Indeed, it is difficult for one who often is stirred up with the fury of anger not to attack his friend from time to time, as it says in Ecclesiasticus: “There are friends who change into enemies, and tell of the quarrel to your disgrace” (Sir 6:9). So Scripture says: “Make no friendship with a man given to anger, nor go with a wrathful man, lest you learn his ways and entangle yourself in a snare” (Prov 22:24–25). And Solomon said, “Anger lodges in the bosom of fools” (Eccl 7:9). But who will not think it impossible to maintain a friendship with a fool for very long? The Friends We Choose Do Not Have to Be Perfect (3.16−21) 16. WALTER: But, unless we are mistaken, we have seen that you have cultivated a friendship of the highest devotion with a man who was very prone to anger, a man to whom you never did any harm even to the end of his life, although—we have heard—he often harmed you. 17. AELRED: There are some who, through their natural constitution, are prone to anger, but who are so accustomed to control and moderate their passion that they never fall into those five sins which, as Scripture bears witness, can cause a friendship to dissolve ( Sir 22:22 ). However, they may sometimes offend a friend by an inconsiderate word, or by an action, or by a zeal that is less than discrete. If by chance we have taken such people into our friendship, we must put up with them patiently; and since we have some certainty about their affection for us, if there is any excessive speech or action on their part, we must indulge it because they are our friends, or certainly we ought to admonish them, but do it without causing grief, or even do it pleasantly.