The great Dominican theologian Thomas Aquinas from the 13th century stated: “There is nothing on this earth more prized than true friendship.” Our first reading today from Sirach addresses friendship. The book of Sirach was written in Alexandria, Egypt by a Jewish scribe about two centuries before Christ’s birth in the tradition of Jewish wisdom literature. Sirach tells us that while we will have a lot of acquaintances in life, a true friend or a true confidant will be one in a thousand. Father James Martin has said, in order for us to be a true friend of Jesus, in order to be his true disciple, we cannot put Jesus in a box. We need to understand Jesus as truly human and truly divine, as God who invites us into a friendship and a relationship with him.
Being an active member of a parish and being a disciples of Christ is more than just coming to mass. Making friendships and relationships and being a true part of the Catholic community are a part of our calling as practicing Catholics. If we claim to be Catholic and ignore the community and friendship aspect of our faith, then we are missing a big part of what it means to be Catholic. We use the word “friend” so often in our modern world, that the true sense of friendship has lost its meaning. To have a friend, we need to be a friend, to reach out to others. Like the word “love” that has so many different worldly connotations when compared to love in the context of our faith, the sense of friendship has an entirely different meaning from our perspective of faith. True friendship is based on genuine love. As we come to mass today to celebrate around the Lord’s table as a community, let us thank God for the true friends we have in our lives, those friends who are there for us no matter what.
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