Ramapo College of New Jersey || Campus Ministries

Campus Ministries: Catholic Ministries

GOOD FRIENDS

We don't usually think of our friendships in religious terms. Yet our friendships are very special expressions of our love. And love is what religion is all about.

This is my commandment: love one another as I have loved you. There is no greater love than to lay down one's life for one's friends. And you are my friends, if you do what I command you. . . I call you friends. . . This command I give you: that you love one another.

Jn 15:12-15,17

The overarching purpose of our lives is to keep growing in love--love for ourselves, our neighbor, and our God. That's the way we become more like God, Who is love (1 Jn 4:8 & 16). Our friendships gently expand our love beyond ourselves and our families. Friendships instill in us a genuine concern for the welfare of others. And that is what love is all about.

But not just any friends will do. We need to be, and to cultivate, good friends, that is, friends who are wholesome, trustworthy people. "Birds of a feather" do "flock together." More than we realize, as if by osmosis, we do become like the friends we keep. Peer pressure is persistent and powerful. Gradually we absorb each other's desirable, and undesirable, traits. When it comes to friends, quality is far more important than quantity. We depend upon the good sense and good advise of friends. True friends will tell us the truth, even when it hurts. They will warn us if our drinking is becoming a problem, a romance too passionate, or a cult is seducing us.

I'm not afraid to be wrong; I'm afraid no one will tell me.

I don't worry about young people who have good friends. Not only will they provide enjoyable and enriching companionship for each other, they will look out for one another. They will stand by each other during difficult times.

Children generally make friends effortlessly. But as we become more self-conscious, friendships do not always blossom so spontaneously. As a result, many of us are left feeling lonely, our need and desire for friends unfulfilled. What can we do?

Why not let the pain of my loneliness work for me? That pain can motivate me to overcome my fear and inertia, and go out into situations where I am more likely to meet the kind of people I might like to have as friends. And when I meet such people, loneliness can get me to dare to extend my hand, and heart, in friendship.

The pain of loneliness can also give me the courage to look within and take honest stock of myself. Are there changes I can make in my habits, attitudes, or self-centeredness that would make of me a more attractive friend? Happily, the same changes that make me a better friend also make me a better person.

I cannot be who I want to be by myself alone.

We might be tempted to try to deny our loneliness and tough it out alone. But social beings that we are, we cannot grow into the loving persons we are meant to be without the give and take with others that gradually rubs off our rough edges. Love is not an abstraction. We learn love through our concrete interactions, and that includes mistakes and hurts, forgiveness and reconciliation. Good friends are our companions on the road to holiness.

God is not love in the abstract. At the core of God's being are Good Friends: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Here we have the model for what matters most in life: good friendships. Here too we learn that the love among good friends is neither jealous nor exclusive. For the love within the Holy Trinity overflows out into the world sending Jesus Christ to extend God's Hand in friendship to each of us. "I call you friends," Jesus says. Then He bids us to "Love one another." It's not only our friendship with God that is religious. All good friendships are sacred.

Ronald Stanley, O.P.

FORGIVE! ...AND FORGET?

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