12 May 2023
Friday of the Fifth Week of Easter
One of the great themes that runs through classical literature was the idea of friendship. Although Plato and Aristotle wrote on the subject, most commentators on friendship regard Cicero’s De Amicitia as the definitive work on the subject. This work understood to the depths of the human condition and had such sound advice that Matteo Ricci translated the work into Chinese to the admiration of those who read it. Ricci’s Chinese hosts considered the work an important contribution to the subject since they valued friendship as the basis of their civilization. Much can be said of Cicero, but one point must suffice. Cicero argued that only good people can be friends. Bad people or persons who use people have acquaintances and people that aid them in their project of ascendency, but they cannot be true friends. In today’s gospel Jesus speaks of his disciples as friends and perhaps a good commentary on the reading would be Cicero. In the Gospel, the call to friendship is the call to goodness, a relationship which promotes both parties. Of course, God does not need promotion, we do. And part of that promotion comes with the call to true friendship with the Lord. It is for this reason that Ignatius referred to the first companions as “friends in the Lord” since their friendship was based on promotion of goodness among themselves and supporting the attraction of the ultimate goodness which is God.