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

Chapter 3: The Advantages and Excellence of Spiritual Friendship (Book 2.1–27)

63

Gratian Arrives for the “Feast” of Friendship (2.16−17) 16. And here comes our friend Gratian, just in time; I could rightly call him friendship’s child, iii since he lives “to be loved and to love.” 10 It will be good for him to hear our conversation, since he is so excessively eager for friendship; thus he may not be deceived by something similar to friendship and take false friendship for true, or a contrived friendship for one that is solid, or a friendship according to the flesh for one that is spiritual. 17. GRATIAN: I thank you for your kindness, brother, that you have now allowed one who was not invited, but who rather impudently intrudes himself, to join your spiritual banquet. For if you seriously thought I should be called “friendship’s child,” and were not being playful, I should have been invited into the conversation at its very beginning. Then I would not have had to set aside my modesty and show my eagerness. But you, father, go on where you had begun, and for my sake put something on the table of this feast. 11 So, even if I am not filled up as he is (who has devoured who knows how many courses and only now invites me for the leftovers of which he is tired), I may be somewhat satisfied. 12 10 Aelred described himself as a teenager with these same words (Prol. 1) which he had borrowed from Augustine’s description of himself as a teenager. Augustine, Confessions , 2.2. 11 The image of friendship as a feast points to the marriage feast of the Lamb where friendship will be enjoyed eternally. For more on this theme see Paul D. O’Callaghan, The Feast of Friendship (Wichita, KS: Eighth Day, 2002), 133−137. 12 Dear reader, if you have not yet noted the fun these friends are having as they talk together, please do so now. Aelred wants us to see that friends can joke and laugh together—even when discussing serious topics.