Q. OK, fair enough...
A. So then if from this perspective friendship is about gift-ing or giving, then I hope it makes sense that the better the friendship, the more we learn to give; or to rephrase it, the best friendships are those that teach us how to give most.
Q. It does make sense, but at the same time it's becoming more and more unrealistic! Are you saying that if I'm in a relationship of whatever description because of what I get from it, because of how the other person makes me feel, then that relationship I'm in is not a real friendship?
A. I wish it were that straightforward... Our problem is humanly speaking, it is incredibly difficult to have motives that have absolutely no personal interest. It's not impossible, but it is incredibly difficult...
Q. And therefore also the more heroic!
A. Indeed! I love your optimism!
Q. I love a challenge!
A. Nice!
Do you now begin to see why marriage - that particular form of friendship - is perhaps the greatest (human) level of friendship?
Q. To be honest, not really... I don't see the connection...
A. Well so far we've said that the best form of friendship is that which does not end and at the same time teaches us to give the most.
Q. Ummm... There's nothing about those two qualities that prevents them from being qualities present in my friendship with a really good and close friend of mine.
A. Well marriage, has the level that you can give yourself even physically. It is a completeself-giving. You can't give yourself to your homeboy at this level.
Q. Lol! Point made. Fine. Marriage is the greatest human form of friendship.
A. And do you also begin to see just how deep - at least for Catholics - friendship with God can become?
Q. Because He gives us His body?
A. Yes! Just like in a marriage! One more way to understand why in both the Old and the New Testament God persistently and repeatedly uses the image of marriage to illustrate the relationship He has with each soul and the image of an unfaithful wife when we betray Him.
Happy Sunday!
7th August 2016