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

Chapter 6: Testing Spiritual Friends (Book 3.39–75)

127

73. Surely this is a virtue of friendship that is easy enough to test, because if anyone lacks good judgement, he is like a ship without a rudder that is constantly carried about by the shifting gusts of wind and the unpredictable motion of the waves ( Eph 4:14 ). In the same way, also, there will be many opportunities to test the patience of one whom you desire to be a friend when it is necessary to correct the one you love. Sometimes it will be good to do this rather more harshly, as though from diligence, so that you may test or exercise his powers of toleration. xxi Concluding Thoughts on Testing a Friendship (3.74−75) 74. This should certainly be attended to, so that if you test your friend and find in him such things as offend your soul, or some careless revelation of a confidence, or a desire for some temporal gain, or a somewhat ill-judged chastisement, or some transgression of the gentleness appropriate to friends, you should not immediately shrink back from your proposed friendship or choice while there is any hope of his correction. You should never tire of being careful in the choice and testing of friends, since the fruit of this labor is “live-saving medicine and mortality’s” firmest foundation (Sir 6:16). 15 75. For since many are skilled in multiplying earthly treasures, in raising, selecting and comparing cattle and asses, sheep and goats, and since there are accurate standards for judging all these animals, it is sheer madness not to take the same care in getting and testing friends, and to learn to recognize the signs which show that those

15 Aelred paraphrases Sir 6:16 here.