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

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Spiritual Friendship

because it comes from reason, and agreeable because it comes from affection. Which of these sources of love do you think is more suited for friendship? 4. WALTER: This last one, surely! It is both formed by the contemplation of virtue and adorned by the attraction of good character. But I would like to know whether all of those whom we come to love in this fashion should be admitted to the secret joys of our friendship. 5. AELRED: One must first lay a solid foundation for spiritual friendship upon which its principles may be based. If this is done, the person who is ascending the higher reaches of spiritual love by a direct path ought not to neglect this foundation nor go beyond it, but instead exercise the greatest caution. The foundation of which I speak is the love of God; by this foundation we should measure all those things which either love or affection prompts, all those things which either the heart secretly suggests or some friend openly urges. We must be especially careful that whatever we add to this foundation fits with it, and whatever exceeds this foundation, you will agree, must be brought back in line with it and corrected in every way, according to the pattern of the foundation. 6. Nor must all of those whom we love be received into our friendship, since not everyone is worthy of it. “For a friend is the sharer of your soul, to your friend’s spirit you join and attach your own, and you so mingle Love for God Is the Foundation and Limit of Spiritual Friendship (3.5−7)