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

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Spiritual Friendship

The First Spiritual Friendship Was a Marriage

58. So from the very beginning nature impressed upon human minds the emotional desire for friendship and love, a desire which mankind’s inner sense of love increased with a certain taste of sweetness. But after the fall of the first humans, when love grew cold and greed had crept in and made mankind prefer private property to the common good, avarice and envy corrupted the splendor of friendship and love, and brought disputes, rivalries, hatred, and suspicion to our corrupted human nature. 59. Then those who were good began to distinguish between love and friendship, noticing that affection ought to be given even to those who are enemies and perverse,