THE SAINTS IN A YEAR - BASIL, GREGORY AND THE GIFT OF FRIENDSHIP

Fr Billy Swan

The gift of friendship and what it means to be blessed with a friend, has taken a new meaning with the explosion of social media. We might have many virtual friends but no virtual friendship can ever replace the gift of a real friend in life. The sad irony is that despite us being connected digitally more than ever before, a sense of alienation is growing as close human relationships seem harder to come by.

The joint feast day on 2^nd January of Saints Basil and Gregory Nazianzen opens a window into what a beautiful friendship looks like. In one of his sermons, Gregory tells us that he and Basil were close friends from their childhood but then they separated physically because of their studies. But now, at the time of writing, Gregory is overjoyed for they were reunited in Athens. Gregory interpreted this reconnection as part of divine providence and a gift from God: ‘We were united again as if by plan, for God so arranged it’ (Office of Readings, 2^nd January).

Did you ever feel that a friend was sent into your life for a good reason? Do you believe that making friends is not by chance but is something directed by a providential power greater than our own? If so, then you join with Gregory in seeing things that way. Loving and healthy friendships are not our achievement but God’s gift to us. Friends make us better people and are sent by God to make us that way.

Gregory then names the virtues of his friend Basil – his conduct, his wisdom, his maturity and life-giving conversations. Are we aware of the virtues of our friends? What are they? Can we rejoice in them as if they are our own? Can we speak of them to the person themselves and tell them how much we admire them for these virtues they have? Gregory shares that he wanted others to know and admire Basil too. In this he was successful: ‘I sought to persuade others, to whom he was less well known, to have the same regard for him. Many fell immediately under his spell, for they had already heard of him by reputation and hearsay…he was held in highest honour’.

Gregory describes his friendship with Basil as warm and affectionate. He talked about ‘the kindling of that flame that was to bind us together. In this way we began to feel affection for each other’. True friendships are not cold and contractual. There is real affection that unites hearts, souls and lives.

Then Gregory reveals a shared ambition that united them – the pursuit of wisdom: ‘We acknowledged our friendship and recognized that our ambition was a life of true wisdom’. For St Thomas Aquinas, perfect friendship is not for itself but exists for the growth of virtue (cf. On Ethics, 8, 3). In the words of Gregory, ‘we followed the guidance of God’s law and spurred each other on to virtue’. He then adds: ‘We found in each other a standard and rule for discerning right from wrong’.

Do we help each other discern right from wrong and help each other to know what’s true? Or is it a case of you have your truth and I have mine? The other detail from the friendship between the two saints is that both hoped for the same thing – the blessings that are to come. Both believed that the practice of holiness and virtue brought happiness in the present life and the fulfilment of that joy in eternity.

Gregory concludes the passage by saying that ‘our great pursuit, the great name we wanted, was to be Christians, to be called Christians’. For these friends in God, to be Christian was their greatest identity. It was not a given or something that ended at their baptism but a life-long pursuit and adventure to truly become who they were baptised to be.

On the night before he died, Jesus called his disciples ‘friends’ (John 15:15). A friend shares the secrets of the heart with another friend. This is what Jesus did with us. As his followers, each of us enjoy his friendship; and because of our friendship with him, we become friends of one another too.