FRIENDS OF AUGUSTINE

AUGUSTINE FOR TODAY

FRIENDSHIP

THE WORD

FROM AUGUSTINE

Friendship has been rightly and with just reverence defined as “agreement on things
human and divine combined with good will and love.”
                                                                                       Contra Acad III 13
There is no true friendship unless You weld it between souls that cleave together by
the charity poured forth in our hearts by the Holy Spirit
                                                                                                          Conf V,19
If you love your brother (or sister) whom you see, by that very fact you will also see
God, because you will see charity itself and God dwells in the interior.   In ev Io 17,8

He loves his friend truly who loves God in him, either because God is already in him
or in order that he may be in him.  Sermon 361, 1

If together with me you hold firmly to these two commandments (love of God and love
of neighbour), our friendship will be true and everlasting, and it will unite us not only to
one another, but to the Lord himself. Letter 258

Whenever I feel a person burning with Christian charity and love for me has become
my friend, when I entrust any of my plans and thoughts to him , I am entrusting them
not to a man, but to Him in whom he abides, so as to be like Him, “for God is love, and
the one who lives in love lives in God.” Letter 73

Not everyone who spares is a friend, nor is everyone who strikes an enemy. “Better
are the wounds of a friend than the proffered kisses of an enemy (Ps 27:6) Love
mingled with severity is better than deceit with indulgence.  Letter 93

At the heart of the ministry of Jesus is the building of community. Throughout his life
on earth Jesus drew people out of isolation, loneliness and division into unity with God,
with each other and within themselves. The divisions of sin are healed in the
creation of unity and community. The amazing story of the Fall, given to us in Chapter
3 of the Book of Genesis, is reversed in the mission and ministry of Jesus.

Throughout his life, Augustine sought this unity and community. He searched, as the
Confessions vividly portray, for an inner unity, for a discovery of his deepest inner self
which was inextricably linked with his search for God. One of the things which is
very clear from the Confessions and from other writings, is that, while Augustine had
to make this journey to unity himself, he needed to do it in the company of friends.

Friends were of great importance in the life of Augustine. He needed the company of
others. In his early life he was prepared to do almost anything in order to be
accepted, popular and admired by his peers. His desire to be “one of the boys” led him
into many situations which he was later to regret. Even though some of these early
“friendships” led him into paths which were, as he understood it, sinful,
Augustine did not repudiate the need for friendship. As he matured his concept of true
friendship became more and more refined and centred in God. It is not surprising
that Augustine gathered round him friends with whom he could share the search for
God.

There are in Augustine’s thought on friendship a number of key elements:

Friendship is a grace. It comes from God who is the author and giver of
friendships.
There is no true friendship unless You weld it between souls that cleave
together by the charity poured forth into our hearts by the
Holy Spirit. Conf 5

True friendship springs from the love of God expressed to us in Christ and can
only be made secure in Christ.
If souls please you, then love them in God because they are mutable in
themselves but in him firmly established; without him they would pass
and perish. Conf 4

Christian friendship is transfigured by grace and so brings union with God.
Love your friends in him, and draw as many souls with you to him as
you can, saying to them, “Him let us love.”  Conf 4

Friendship will only reach its perfection in heaven.
We shall offer praise, we shall all be one in Christ, directed towards the
one God.   En in Ps 147

If true friendship is to flourish, Augustine insists that it must be based on

truth, honesty & frankness

No one can truly be a friend to another if that person is not first a
friend of the truth . When I speak up for your good, I will be more
frank with you the more I am your friend, because I will be all the
more a friend the more I am faithful to you. Letter 155

All of Augustine’s thought on friendship can, perhaps, be summed up in the
wonderful exhortation in the Rule:

My dear brothers and sisters, let us be of one mind and one heart on
the way to God.  Rule 1:2

POINTS TO PONDER

1. What do Augustine’s thoughts on friendship say to you?

2. Is Christian friendship different?

3. How important is it to share and gather community if true friendship is to flourish?

4. Truth, honesty, frankness: what are the demands of genuine friendships?

5. These thoughts on friendship were written by men, might a woman’s view be
different?

FROM ANOTHER TRADITION

Gibran’s reflection contains many echoes of Augustine

And a youth said, Speak to us of Friendship.
And he answered, saying:
Your friend is your needs answered.
He is your field which you sow with love and reap with thanksgiving.
And he is your board and your fireside.
For you come to him with your hunger, and you seek him for peace.

When your friend speaks his mind you fear not the “nay” in your own mind, nor do you
withhold the “ay.”
And when he is silent your heart ceases not to listen to his heart;
For without words, in friendship, all thoughts, all desires, all expectations are born and
shared, with a joy that is unclaimed.
When you part from your friend, you grieve not;
For that which you love most in him may be clearer in his absence, as the mountain
climber is clearer from the plain.
And let there be no purpose in friendship save the deepening of the spirit.
For love that seeks aught but the disclosure of its own mystery is not love but a net cast
forth: and only the unprofitable is caught.

And let your best be for your friend.
If he must know the ebb of your tide, let him know its flood also.
For what is your friend that you should seek him with hours to kill?
Seek him always with hours to live.
For it is his to fill your need, but not your emptiness.
And in the sweetness of friendship let there be laughter, and sharing of pleasures.
For in the dew of little things the heart finds its morning and is refreshed.

A FINAL THOUGHT

Friendship must not be circumscribed by narrow limits. It embraces all those to whom
affection and love are due, even though it goes out more readily to some and turns
more hesitantly towards others. Friendship even extends to our enemies, for whom we
are also obliged to pray. Therefore, there is no one in the human race to whom love is
not owed, if not by reason of mutual affection, at least because we share a common
human nature. On the other hand, it is only right that those especially delight us, by
whom we are mutually loved in a holy and chaste way.  Letter 130