When in the monastery, I read much, again, of Aelred, especially on friendship. In his Spiritual Friendship, he reminds us of two things. One, that one must surround one's self with really holy companions in order not to fall away. And, two, that Christian community must be based on friendship.
Aelred was classically educated and many of his ideas are from Cicero.
The impact of his work on monastic life was profound. His monastery was famous for the love shown among the monks in the form of friendship. Here are snippets in the form of a dialogue:
8. In my opinion, from amor comes amicus and from amicus amicitia. That is, from
the word for love comes that for friend, and from friend, friendship.
9. Now love is an attachment of the rational soul. Through love, the
soul seeks and yearns with longing to enjoy an object. Through
love, the soul also enjoys that object with interior sweetness and
embraces and cherishes it once it is acquired. I have explained the
soul’s attachments and emotions as clearly and carefully as I could
in a work you know well enough, The Mirror of Charity.
20
But if in our own Christian times
friends are so few, I seem to be slaving in vain to acquire this virtue,
for I am terrified now by its astonishing height, and I almost despair
of reaching it.
21
Hence it is the mark of a virtuous mind
always to think steep and lofty thoughts, either to reach the desired
objectives or to understand and grasp more clearly what should be
desired. Indeed we should believe that one who by understanding
virtue has discovered how far he is beneath it has made no little
progress.
22
No wonder the
followers of true virtue were rare among the heathen, for they were
ignorant of the Lord and giver of the virtues,
23
of whom it was written,
the Lord of virtues, he is the king of glory.
24
Though challenged, though injured, though tossed into the
flames, though nailed to a cross, a friend loves always.
And as our
Jerome says, “a friendship that can end was never true.”
.
25
According to Cicero’s definition, you would agree that those people
excelled in the virtue of true friendship of whom it was said that
“the multitude of believers was of one heart and one soul. No one claimed
any belonging as his or her own, but all was held in common.”
26 How could the highest agreement in things divine and human,
with charity and good will,
27
fail to exist among those who were of
one heart and one soul? How many martyrs laid down their lives for
the brethren? How many spared neither cost nor toil nor their
bodies’ torture? I suppose that often, not without tears, you have
read of that maiden of Antioch who was delivered from among
prostitutes by the glorious deceit of a soldier, who became her
companion in martyrdom after having found himself the guardian
of her virginity in the brothel.
29
He also said, “no one has greater love than to lay down
his life for his friends.”
30.
I could cite for you many examples of such heroism, if sheer
numbers did not prohibit it and the mass of material impose silence
on me. For Christ Jesus preached and spoke, and they were multiplied
beyond counting.
31.
IVO. Are we to conclude, then, that there is no distinction
between friendship and charity?
32.
AELRED. On the contrary, the greatest distinction! Divine
authority commands that many more be received to the clasp of
charity than to the embrace of friendship. By the law of charity
we are ordered to welcome into the bosom of love not only our
friends but also our enemies.
But we call friends only those to whom we have no qualm about entrusting our heart and all its
contents, while these friends are bound to us in turn by the same
inviolable law of loyalty and trustworthiness.
There is much more. The point I want to highlight is that there is a great need for Catholics to form friendships and to form those into communities of lay people.
I have tried to do this where I have been...to no success.
to be continued....
