Texts chosen from the writings and teachings of the Father Theodossios Maria of the Cross
Friendship
True friendship cannot be destroyed by anyone and this gift of God makes a fiery incision within the souls who advance for his glory and with the desire to convert the universe. When friendship, and every feeling of affection in general, succeeds in obtaining this level, this sensitivity, it is so free, so great, and it grows each day, that no exterior trial can wound or weaken it.
But in order for this to be, it must be cemented in God's love and based on God's love, and therefore also on the love of all souls, for their conversion; then this friendship, this bond of souls is stripped of all vanity and all selfishness.
If our joy is not founded on the eternal good of others and on the joy of others, even temporal at times, but which helps them in the long run to awaken, then our life is dead, our sensitivity is absolutely transitory and friable, and our affections are based on our egoism, our pride, our self love. This does not mean that the most perfect love does not entail suffering and difficulties: the most holy brothers, the deepest friends may know moments of pain, but no one can touch bottom; it is like the waves of the sea: they may be dozens of meters in height, the bottom of the sea remains stable and motionless; true friendship in God is there, in the depths of the ocean of love.
True friendship is a grace from God, it is a real bond of the love of God; but because it is real, man is free from time, from the world, and he advances through winds and tides, through all difficulties, and the point of his joy is immutabie: it is the good of others.
And since there is that concern for the salvation of humanity, the more the bond is fraternal, the more the friendship is delicate and profound. There is always a pain, a sorrow, that of the whole of humanity; and the fact that this pain is lived, the fact that it is a part of the soul of friends, renders the friendship more and more beautiful and eternal.
Christ did not continually reproach the apostles for their summariness; it is not in this way that He converted them and united them to the great mystery of his Cross; but He loved them from the beginning as they were, taking upon Himself all the solitude and sufferings which that summariness entailed. Much more than miracles and discourses, it is that infinite clemency of Christ which engendered the first core of the Church. And through all the Saints and Servants, the Church does not cease to express the royal authority of Christ. If we also desire to participate in Christ's royalty, we must continually live that clemency, we must live that universal pardon in regard to every soul, and therefore first in regard to each brother.
The testament of the greatest theologian of all times, the apostle Saint John, is that prayer which he repeats tirelessly, "My little children, love one another". Outside of that love, all thoughts and all actions remain empty; but if we carry out Saint John's appeal, then we do participate in the royalty of Christ which is holy delicacy and fraternal respect, first in our interior attitude and in all our exterior manifestations. This holy sensitiveness cannot exist unless one continually has his brother's soul before him, that is, his brother's eternal good.
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