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

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Spiritual Friendship

Friendship Is a Spiritual Discipline: A Path Leading toward God (2.14−15)

14. Therefore, to the rich, friendship is like glory; to exiles, it is like a homeland; to the poor, it is like a family fortune; to the sick, it is like medicine; to the dead, it is like life; to the healthy, it is like grace; to the weak, it is like strength; to the strong, it is like a prize. For “such honor, memory, praise and desire follow” friends, that their lives are judged to be praiseworthy and their deaths are precious. 8 And, in this respect, friendship excels everything I’ve just said, for friendship is a path that leads very close to the perfection which consists of the enjoyment and knowledge of God, such that a man who is a friend of man is made into a friend of God, according to what the Savior said in the gospel: “No longer do I call you servants . . . but I have called you friends” (John 15:15). 15. WALTER: Your speech has truly admonished me—it has whetted my mind’s appetite for friendship—that I hardly consider myself really alive while I lack the diverse fruits of so great a good as a friendship. But I wish that you would explain for me more fully that result of friendship which you mentioned last; I am quite taken with it, as it has almost made me forget earthly conceptions of friendship. I mean your point about friendship being the best path to perfection. 9

8 Cicero, On Friendship , 7.23. 9 Perfection – spiritual maturity, or complete conformity to Christ. See also Eph 4:11−16.