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

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

109

we’re now speaking, he so maintained the rights of friendship with me that when he was moved to utter angry words and, indeed, when he was already bursting forth into speech I could restrain him with only a nod of my head; he never publicly mentioned those matters which were the cause of his anger, but he always waited until we were alone to unburden his mind. 38. But if it were not his friendship for me that made him do this, but rather his nature that dictated it, I would not think him either so virtuous or so worthy of praise. And if, as indeed happens, my opinion differs from his from time to time, we defer to each other so that sometimes he submits to my will, but more often I submit to his.