Friday of the
Fifth Week of Easter
Acts 15:22-31; John 15:12-17)
In his book The
Four Loves C.S. Lewis sees friendship as grossly undervalued in modern
times. He writes that the ancients considered
friendship as “the happiest and most fully human of all loves.” In contrast, he comments that moderns have
trouble seeing friendship as a love at all.
Friendship, according to Lewis, is sharing personally and fully over
common interests. By no means does he
equate friendship with regular companionship, however. Rather he indicates that one would be blessed
to have only two or three friendships in her entire life. So it is remarkable that in today’s gospel
Jesus calls all his disciples’ friends.
But, of course, it is not the case that the twelve or so men
gathered around Jesus the night before he died exhaust the list of his
friends. Really all serious followers of
Jesus become his friends because they share the same desire to know God. In order to reach this goal Jesus has
revealed that they have to keep his commandment of love.
We should see the purpose of our lives as having God for
our friend. The grace of the Incarnation
is that He took on human flesh to overcome the impasse that our bodily nature posed
from knowing Him. He has become one like
us. We can know him as an ever-caring,
ever-helpful friend.
