A friend. Friendship with God.

Anthony de Mello under the title “Duckling” writes the story of the ascetic Sufi Shamse Tabrizi about himself: “From childhood I was considered as someone who could not be trusted. I guess no one understood me. My father once told me, “You’re not crazy enough to be locked up in an insane asylum, and you’re not sane enough to be put in a convent. I don’t know what to do with you.” And I answered him: “Once someone put a duck egg under a hen. When the duckling broke through the shell, it walked along with the mother hen until they reached a pond. The duckling went straight into the water and the hen, frightened she stayed on the shore, cackling.”

The Easter season does not end. Every Sunday is the commemoration of the resurrection of the Lord Jesus, and therefore week after week, throughout the year, we realize the greatness of the love of Christ, whose words “No one has greater love than he who lays down his life for his friends” (Jn 15:13) are alive and current even before and after the feast of the Ascension of the Lord.

God bestows on some people in the Holy Scriptures the honorary title – friend. Abraham and Moses are friends of God. Jesus also had friends. He looked lovingly at the young man who had many possessions. Jesus had a friend, Lazarus, the brother of Martha and Mary, and often stopped at their house. Out of modesty, John the apostle does not write about himself in the Gospel, and yet he notes about himself as a disciple with the words: “…the one whom Jesus loved” (Jn 13:23). After the last Supper in the Garden of Gethsemane, Jesus even addressed the traitor Judas: “Friend, why did you come here” (Mt 26:50). The Gospel reminds us that Jesus connects friendship with love. Jesus speaks clearly and comprehensibly about criteria that are unchangeable: “If you keep my commandments” (Jn 15:10). And as if in one breath, Jesus says what awaits people for this loyalty: “You will remain in my love, as I keep my Father’s commandments and remain in his love” (Jn 15:10).

Why does a person need friendship? Because a person realizes himself only in a relationship with another person. Unless a person recognizes a friend, it is as if he is not himself. Why did God create a woman for man? Adam felt alone.

The word “friend” emphasizes closeness between people. The word “friend” does not contain anything sinful. Friendship arises when we recognize that we think alike, that we are united by the same values, we have the same criteria, we say, “You are like me”. A person with another person advances more easily on the path of fulfilling the will of God. Where two or three are gathered in Jesus’ in my name, there is also Jesus. Friendship after original sin can also be understood negatively when it contradicts the will of God. Jesus turns to us with a challenge. ” This is what I command you: That you love one another” (Jn 15:17).

It is beautiful and useful that today when we use the term “friend” we think of our friends and during today’s Holy Mass. Prayer, Holy Mass, and Eucharist are a deposit, a blessing for us believers to strengthen friendship.