East Anglia Seminarians: True Friendship

Friday 13 March 2009

True Friendship

St Francis de Sales says the following about friendship:

O Philothea, love everyone with a great love of charity, but have no friendship save with those who can communicate with you in virtuous things; and the more exquisite the virtues are, which are the matter of your intercommunication, the more perfect will your friendship be. If the matter of your intercommunication be knowledge, your friendship is assuredly very praiseworthy; still more so if it be the practice of virtues, prudence, discretion, fortitude and justice. But if your mutual and reciprocal communication be founded on charity, on devotion, on Christian perfection, O God! how precious will your friendship be! It will be excellent because it comes from God, excellent because it tends to God, excellent because its bond is God, excellent because it will endure eternally in God. Oh! how good it is to love on earth as we shall love in heaven, and to learn to cherish one another in this world as we shall do eternally in the next...

Do not form friendships of any other kind. I mean friendships of your own choice; for you must not forsake or disregard the friendships which nature and former obligations constrain you to cultivate with relations, with connections, with benefactors, with neighbours and others; I speak of those which you choose yourself.

St Francis is very practical here, because he acknowledges that we should not refuse our friendship to those we may already know through our situations in the world - perhaps those who do not share our views on God, maybe friends or acquaintances who have fallen away from the faith - but nevertheless we need for our own spiritual welfare friends with whom we can share those things close to our heart, friends who we know will support us in our struggle to be more virtuous, more holy. This is the opposite of someone who does't want us to grow because it will disrupt their own contentment. To quote Bob Dylan (whose nonsensical lyrics often hide deep truths):

One who...
Cares not to come up any higher
But rather get you down in the hole
That he's in!

This is not to blame others - contentment in the spiritual life is something I know I have to guard against. I've certainly found it a great help having friends inside and outside seminary who I can talk to about the life of faith, and it makes me realise among other things that many of us struggle with the same difficulties, and receive consolation from the same things - we're not flying solo!

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Prayer for Priestly Vocations

O Lord Jesus Christ, Who moved to pity at the sight of the multitudes, scattered like sheep without a shepherd, didst say to Thy disciples: "The harvest indeed is great, but the labourers are few. Pray ye therefore the Lord of the harvest, that He send labourers into His harvest," deign to turn Thine eyes of pity on this our diocese, and to call to Thy priesthood young men, who will spend themselves and be spent for Thy honour and glory, and for the souls whom Thou has redeemed with Thy Most Precious Blood, Who livest and reignest for ever and ever. Amen.

Prayer for Seminarians

O Lord Jesus Christ, great High Priest, I pray that You call many worthy souls to Your holy priesthood.

Enlighten the Bishop in the choice of candidates, the Spiritual Director in molding them, and the professors in instructing them.

Lead the seminarians daily in Your unerring footsteps; so that they may become priests who are models of purity, possessors of wisdom and heroes of sacrifice; steeped in humility and aflame with love for God and man; apostles of Your glory and sanctifiers of souls.

Amen.

Prayer for the Pope

V. Let us pray for our Pontiff, Pope Benedict.
R. The Lord preserve him, and give him life, and make him to be blessed upon the earth, and deliver him not up to the will of his enemies

Our Father. Hail Mary.

Let us pray.

Almighty and everlasting God, have mercy upon Thy servant, Benedict, our Supreme Pontiff, and direct him, according to Thy loving-kindness, in the way of eternal salvation; that, of thy gift, he may ever desire that which is pleasing unto thee and may accomplish it with all his might. Through Christ Our Lord. Amen

Prayer for the Queen

V. O Lord, save Elizabeth, our Queen.
R. And hear us on the day we call upon you.

V. O Lord, hear my prayer.
R. And let my cry come before you.

[V. The Lord be with you.
R. And with your spirit.]

Let us pray

Almighty God, we pray, that your servant Elizabeth, our Queen, who, by your providence has received the governance of this realm, may continue to grow in every virtue, that, imbued with your heavenly grace, she may be preserved from all that is harmful and evil and, being blessed with your favour may, with her consort and the royal family, come at last into your presence, through Christ who is the way, the truth and the life and who lives and reigns with you in the unity of the Holy Spirit, God, for ever and ever. Amen.