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

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Spiritual Friendship

Friends Cling to One Another in the Spirit of Christ

22. Let us consider the propriety of this fleshly kiss, so that we may pass from fleshly things to spiritual things, from the human to the divine. The life of mankind is sustained by two types of nourishment, food and air. Without food a person is able to live for a while, but without air this is not possible for even an hour. So while we live, we take in air through the mouth and exhale it again. What is exhaled and inhaled is called “breath.” 14 23. Thus, in one kiss two spirits 15 meet one another, and they are mixed together and so made one. From this mingling of spirits there grows up a kind of mental

14 Aelred’s wordplay is lost in translation as the Latin word used here, spiritus , can be translated as either “spirit” or “breath.” 15 Or “breaths.”