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

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Spiritual Friendship

Aelred’s eulogy testifies both to the good character of his friend Simon, and to the intimate spiritual friendship they enjoyed. It also points to a lost tool for developing a Christian community’s understanding and vision for spiritual friendship. For many centuries, it was common for good friends to give a long eulogy about their friend when they died. For example, Gregory of Nazianzus’ (d. 390) eulogy for his friend Bishop Basil (d. 379) runs seventy-three pages in its English translation. 32 Brian McGuire would go so far as to say that if a history of friendship was to be written, it would perhaps best be done by studying friends’ laments after a friend’s death. 33 Leaders are often challenged to “begin with the end in mind.” Why not start thinking now about the (temporary) end of a spiritual friendship by writing a eulogy for a friend? If your closest spiritual friend were to die today, what would you say about them and the nature of your spiritual friendship? Or think about what your vision might be for a spiritual friendship that lasted three or four decades or more. What do you hope that spiritual friendship would look like? Use your imagination to write a lament that describes your vision of the kind of friendship you hope to have with a spiritual friend at the end of your life. You don’t need to wait for your friend to die to share this “eulogy.” Why not turn it into a letter, and send it to your friend to share the reasons you appreciate them and your shared spiritual friendship? 32 Saint Gregory of Nazianzus, “On Basil the Great,” in Funeral Orations , trans. Leo P. McCauley, vol. 22, Fathers of the Church (Washington: Catholic University of America Press, 1968), 27−99. 33 Brian Patrick McGuire, Friendship and Community: The Monastic Experience, 350–1250 (Kalamazoo, MI: Cistercian, 1988), xvi.