Friendship: Christ's Command

"There is nothing on this earth more to be prized than true friendship." - St. Thomas Aquinas


"I no longer call you servants, because a servant does not know his master's business. Instead, I have called you friends, for everything I learned from My Father I have made known to you. You did not choose Me, but I chose you..." - John 15:15.

This verse in Scripture is of incredibly great important (like the rest of it). It is here that the Lord Jesus tells the Apostles that, through all the trials, traveling, and ministering, and through all the signs He had already performed, through all the people whose sins He had forgiven already, through all they had gone through with Him... They could finally be called His friends. He finally accepted them as His dearest companions, and so they could from then on ask for anything in His name from the Father. Most importantly, He not only asked them, He commanded them to love one another, specifically in this new state of being His friends.

Friendship with God is, as St. Thomas Aquinas writes in the Secunda Secundae in his Summa Theologica, only possible by the gift of His own Spirit, Who is Charity Itself. It is by this giving of Himself that He enables us to be with Him on a personal level, which we always need more of, for sure! And by 'communicating' Himself to us, again and again He commands us to love each other like He loves us.

Obviously in this life people will come and go continually, so much so that we feel many times that we don't really have a chance to 'make friends'. But, in fact, God's command to us is realized incredibly well in the fact that life is fleeting. We seek great companionship, not only from God, but also from the others around us who we secretly, in the depths of our hearts, hope will lead us closer to our Lord, even as time goes by quickly. We suffer with them, we adventure with them, we laugh and cry with them! And so we love and love with them by being with them and sacrificing our time and giving our efforts for them. Christ has called us to do so every day of our lives, and in doing so to bring them closer to Him, our greatest Friend! At the same time, He calls on them to do the same for us.

In essence, true, loving friendship is that bond made between two people with Christ in between, steadily and mutually driving the friends to love God by their giving of self for each other, all for the sake of coming closer to Him by doing His will for the good of the other. Jesus commanded His friends, the Apostles, to do His will by giving of themselves to each other and to others, and so they became more and more His friends. In this fleeting life, we are called to constantly give ourselves courageously for the people we meet, even those we only know for a short while, to live sacrificially for them in hopes of showing Christ to them every day. "Greater love no one has than this: To lay down one's life for one's friends" John 15:13 We must give ourselves completely for these people.

So go live out this command! Lead your friends, all of them, to the greatest Friend, our Lord Jesus Christ, especially those who do not really know Him yet! There's so much work to be done in this fast-paced world, so get started on it as He constantly commands of you!

Lord Jesus, thank You for all the people You have placed in our lives for Your work to be done! Please bless all of them, even those who we may not see or know anymore, that they may always come to meet You, the One who gave Yourself up totally for us!