The Sturdy Shelter and Treasure God Gives, 7th Friday (I), March 1, 2019

To listen to an audio recording of today’s homily, please click below: 

The following points were attempted in today’s homily: 

• Today’s readings is one of Sacred Scripture’s most powerful passages on one of the most important realities of human life. But it’s one on which we don’t focus enough. We hear the first reading of Friday of the Seventh Week of Ordinary Time rarely, only on odd years when either Christmas falls on a Sunday (and therefore the Second Sunday of Ordinary Time is early) or Ash Wednesday is really late, or both. By my own count, in the 49 years since the Church gave us the new lectionary, we have heard today’s first reading just 9 times including today (1973, 1979, 1981, 1987, 1995, 2003, 2011, 2017, and 2019) and over the course of the rest of our lives — or at least until 2060 — we’ll only hear it five other times (2025, 2033, 2049, 2055 and 2057). The novices present will be in final vows the next time we hear it at Mass! By the second time we hear it, I’ll be eligible for social security! So it’s worth prioritizing not just because of its importance but also because of its infrequency!
• We cannot over stress the importance of friendship in human and Christian life, especially in an age in which people treat friendship at the level of Facebook acquaintances. Today Sirach today contrasts true friendship from the many pretenders and tries to help us beware of the faux forms and treasure the true one. He makes the following points, among other things:
  • We gain friends by “kind mouths” and “gracious lips,” by being good, rather than being the type of caustic, sarcastic critics that can’t attract anyone.
  • We need to test friends, lest they be among those who pretend to be friends just when it suits them, who will abandon us when we need them, who will turn on us and betray us publicly, who will be with us for parties but not for funerals or sorrows, who will take advantage of our relationships with others. One of the reasons why God permits us to suffer some difficulties and crosses in life is that it does provide an opportunity to test our friends, and one of the reasons why he permits their suffering some misfortunes is so that our friendship can simply be tested and strengthened.
  • He tells us that true friends are sturdy shelters, priceless treasures, and life-saving remedies. I’m convinced that there would be far fewer suicides if people had more and deeper friendships. The devil always seeks to isolate us; friends remind us that we’re not alone, that someone cares, that someone loves.
  • He also adds that when friends mutually “fear God,” they can have a genuine friendship indeed. The deepest “common good” ought to be “the one alone who is good,” God. We see this type of friendship, for example, in SS. Gregory and Basil whom we celebrate very January 2.
• Christ calls us to have friendship with him and then to love others as he has loved us. That means we need to seek to be friends with others as he is with us. During the Last Supper, he said, “No one has greater love than this, to lay down one’s life for one’s friends. You are my friends if you do what I command you. I no longer call you slaves, because a slave does not know what his master is doing. I have called you friends, because I have told you everything I have heard from my Father.” He points to some truths about Christian friendship from his friendship with us:
  • Friends spend time together. Love, as kids know, is spelled TIME.
  • Friends are intimate with each other, revealing things and finding that the other is trustworthy of our confidence.
  • Friends are willing to sacrifice for each other, even to die.
  • Friends have a common good together, as Jesus and we had the revelation of the Father.
  • Friends have mutual love.
• One of the most important types of friendship is Christian marriage, which is the subject of today’s Gospel. The eros of marriage, however, must be based on philia and agape. That’s why Jesus’ words about adultery in today’s Gospel are so poignant, because adultery is a true betrayal of the type of friendship that should exist in a marriage, when one sacrifice’s a loved one for gratification. Marital friendships, and all Christian friendships, must feature true loyalty.
• It’s so important to talk about Christian friendship, especially among religious and consecrated people, because in many communities, there’s a suspicion of friendship. Perhaps this was because of a defect in chastity formation in yesteryear, in which many communities feared the development of “particular friendships” that could either turn homosexual or exclusive, cliquish and destructive of community life. But these abuses shouldn’t take away the real “treasure” of authentic friendship, which sustains chastity, because when there’s no real love of friendship in a celibate consecrated person’s life, one can easily succumb to the temptation to think that what’s missing is eros. But for the development of friendship to take place, there needs to be formation in friendship and permission and space for friendships to develop. This will help people grow in fidelity all of their days. The hierarchy of the life of a religious must always be God first, community second, and apostolate third, which can be translated as: friendship with God first, friendship with members of one’s convent and larger religious community second, and friendship with those we serve third. If there’s no real friendship among sisters in a convent, it will make it difficult for them to do the apostolate of friendship with others. Similarly priests must have deep priestly friendships flowing from their mutual friendship with Christ the High Priest, otherwise their priestly life will limp and lose its salt. And what goes for priests and consecrated persons go for all Catholics. The importance of friendship cannot be overestimated.
• Every Mass Jesus seeks to renew his friendship with us, revealing to us what he heard from the Father, making us free by that truth rather than slaves, strengthening us from the inside to keep his commandments, and then sending us out to love others with the same agape, the same philia, with which he loved us. Our friendship with him is the sturdiest shelter, the most priceless treasure, and the supreme life-saving remedy, transforming us in such a way that we can be those shelters, treasures and remedies for others, by drawing them through the discipleship and apostolate of friendship more and more deeply with us into friendship with Christ!

Reading 1 SIR 6:5-17

Responsorial Psalm PS 119:12, 16, 18, 27, 34, 35

Alleluia JN 17:17B, 17A

Gospel MK 10:1-12