"The true companionship, meaning a constructive, creative factor of life, and therefore generator of beauty, consolation, - repairing what falls down - a positive companionship in this sense can be born only from a friendship. Friendship is the virtue, the energy that constructs the companionship. This is why the Lord, wanting man to know Him, became man and this man generated a companionship. He became present here and now, in every moment of history, within a companionship. And if one claims to have a relationship with the mystery of God and leave out the companionship, and in particular, leave out the authority that guides it, one deceives oneself; it would be an illusion....
"So what is friendship? Friendship in its minimal state, is the encounter of one person with another person whose destiny he or she desires more than his or her own life. I desire your destiny more than I desire my life. The other reciprocates this and desires my destiny more than his or her life. Friendship is like this, and the proof that this is true is that you'd want anyone you'd meet in the diversity of circumstances to understand this, so that everyone would embrace each other. Those who do not experience this must humbly ask the Lord and the Blessed Mother to make it understood to them, because without this, not even the relationship with God is true."
Is It Possible to Live This Way? Vol.1 Faith, pp.145, 146
Powerful words from Fr. Giussani. I wonder how many of us truly experience friendship this deeply. The more I experience what it is to be a Christian, the more convinced I am that we experience Christ as a person in others... through our relationships with them.
ReplyDeleteSorry to take so long in responding to your comment. Your observation stayed with me, we do indeed "experience Christ as a person in others...through our relationships with them." We not only receive or get Him from them, we also "give" Him to them. Why? How? Is there a way to put it in words that can capture it? I think it springs from an awareness, awareness of a Presence, a Presence that cannot not be present whether we are conscious of Him or not. He is always conscious and aware of us, carrying us, if you please. So He is the connection between us in a true friendship. We enjoy each other, we enjoy everyone, because we somehow sense our grounding in Him. That's why a friendship in Christ lasts, a marriage lasts, vowed or consecrated life lasts, that's why "forever" and "faithfulness" become real in real time in spite of all of our human weaknesses. In His mercy the Presence unites us, and bubbles up in us in the form of our human joy as we communicate and share Him even when we don't talk or think about Him. Does that make any sense to you? I hope it is not gibberish.
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