FRIENDS OF THE BRIDEGROOM

Friends in Christ,

I have been reflecting a lot recently on the importance of holy friendship. Holy friendship—that is, friendship rooted in Christ—is important both for our personal growth in holiness and for the growth of our friends. Friends build us up and call us on. Simply put, we can’t get to heaven without friends. I’ve been reflecting on this, in part, because of the time I spent recently with 19 young adults from the parish in Montana at Glacier National Park. The time was rich with beauty, prayer, exercise and fellowship. I was struck by the sheer amount of time we had as a group to invest in relationship: talking on the trails while hiking, chatting by the fire at the campsite, and recounting the graces of the day’s activities over a meal. Times away like this with friends are for me a glimpse of heaven, and they also open up many, many opportunities to go deeper than we normally would in conversation and connection. There’s a lot of time to go deep on an 11 mile hike!

I am reminded of one of my favorite passages from In Conversation with God entitled “Friends of the Bridegroom”: “Jesus liked to talk with those people who came to see him or who met him along the way. He made use of those conversations, which often started with something trivial, in order to enter fully into their souls and fill them with love. Anything and everything would be sufficient for his purpose in order to make friends and reveal to them the divine message he had brough to earth. We too ought not to forget that friendship and charity are one and the same thing. They are a divine light which spreads warmth.”

I’ve also been reflecting on friendship in light of Discovering Christ, the 7-week series (September 12 – October 24) we’ll begin in just over a month. So many of us have friends who are far from the Church and have never met Christ. Just last night Megan and I were grabbing a drink with our neighbors who would identify themselves as spiritual but not religious, and one of them lamented feeling frustrated and even angry that no one in their life had given them the opportunity to know God in the way that she hears Megan and I talk about Him. Needless to say, we invited them to join us for the seven Tuesdays of Discovering Christ. I pray that they’ll join (and invite you to pray too!), and that our friendship with them will ultimately draw them to heaven.

That In Conversation with God reflection continues: “we can learn from Christ to have many friends, taking advantage of every opportunity of simple proximity, of work, study, chance encounters, pre-planned meetings…The Christian is always open to others. With a friend one shares the best things one has; in our case, we have nothing to compare with the love we have for Christ.” Relationship with Christ is the best thing that we have to offer our friends, and our invitation could be the very catalyst that sparks their encounter with Him. If you haven’t already, I encourage each of you reading to invite a friend to Discovering Christ this fall. You can find more details and registration at ourholycross.org/discoveringchrist.

~Nate Whipple