Friday of the
Fifth Week of Easter
(Acts 15:22-31; John 15:12-17)
In his book The
Four Loves C.S. Lewis writes that friendship is grossly undervalued in
modern times. He says that the ancients
considered friendship as “the happiest and most fully human of all loves.” In contrast, he continues, modern people 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. That is the point; with very few people would
a person risk relating feelings of the heart. It is remarkable then that in
today’s gospel Jesus calls all his disciples’ friends.
But it is not even the case that those men who gathered
around Jesus the night before he died exhaust his list of friends. Really all serious followers of Jesus become
his friends because they recognize in him one whom they can trust implicitly. They
can tell him how they yearn to know God.
In reply he will urge them to keep his commandment of love.
We should see the course of our lives as grooming our
friendship with Jesus. As children we
will listen with awe the gospels stories of him helping the needy. As youth we will imitate his virtue in our
quest to find a mate and launch a career.
And in old age we will confide in him as one who suffered own worries. His friendship will not let us down. Rather, it will bring us to eternal life.
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