Friendship… The first paragraph on Chapter 10 tells the story about a father who says to his son “if you find five true friends in your lifetime, you will have lived a life infinitely blessed”. Well, I don’t want to sound arrogant, but I’ve been infinitely blessed.
The message on this chapter is of great importance. Earlier we discussed the concept of holiness: be all you can be. Well, it is safe to say that we can’t be all we can be if we don’t have the support system we need around us. Friends are just that… “A true friend brings the best out of her friends”. True friends “challenge us to become all we can be and encourage us to become the-best-version-of-ourselves.”
Now, where can we find those friends? I’ve been lucky enough to find them throughout my life. They are not many, but they are the kind who inspire me to become a better person every day. However, sometimes those friends are not here with us anymore. Saints and even ordinary (or should I say extraordinary) people like Mother Teresa or Francis of Assisi can be our friends. They have had and continue to have the ability to inspire people to become better-versions-of-themselves. We can learn from them, imitate them in their actions, and hope to be as humble as they were and to be able to find our purpose in life.
Let’s not forget though that we need to foster our spirit. We need to always ask ourselves “what it will take for me to become the better person I can be?” Let’s reflect every day about how can we imitate our friends and strive for holiness. Other people has been able to do it, why can’t we?
Chiquinquira
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"Better someone dead that can lead you to life than someone alive who can lead you to death." I like that. This is the prime reason why relics should never be disregarded. Of course, as we know, it is only among the dead those who are truly alive.
ReplyDeletePatrick
In reflecting on this chapter I am reminded again how truly blessed I have been to have married my best friend. How different would life, not just mine but many others, be had this not been the case?! I chose well. In looking back and asking myself how, and why it is something of a mystery to be sure. But somehow I/we knew.
ReplyDeleteMany of us have adult children of an age where this is, simply put, the most important issue in their lives. How do we help them? As parents we want to make sure that they do the right thing, make good choices, never have to endure the agony of a failed marriage. All that we can do is to be openly available to them and to pray for them to "seek a soul mate, a spouse, a companion for the journey who has this quality." (striving for bettering themselves) page 137. There is a great deal of wisdom to reflect upon in this chapter.
Luke