God’s grace perfects rather than destroys nature because God is the Creator of nature and does not contradict himself when he redeems it.
Consequently, God is constantly taking ordinary human things and turning them into vehicles of supernatural grace.
We require water to live, so he takes this ordinary everyday stuff and turns it into the fountain living water that, in baptism, bestows the washing, sin-drowning, eternally life-giving supernatural life of the Blessed Trinity himself.
We eat and drink the simple foods of bread and wine and gather in convivial table fellowship to do it, so he raises these ordinary human things to become participations in the very sacrifice and resurrection of the glorified Son of God, fully present in his body, soul, spirit and divinity, joining us in communion with himself and each other.
We fall in love, so God raises the love called eros to participate in the love of the Blessed Trinity through the sacrament of marriage.
We get sick and God uses our experience of physical healing as a sign of the true spiritual healing he gives in the sacrament of anointing.
And in confirmation, God raises the love that is friendship to a participation in his life as well.
The striking thing about friendship, as distinct from a parental relationship, is that it presumes a certain equality. This is surprising and uncomfortable for us, when we start talking about God, because who could possibly speak of being equal to God?
No one, obviously. But then again, who could possibly talk about being a child of God either?
By nature, we are creatures, not children of God. Yet children are exactly what we become in baptism through the grace of Christ. The only reason we don’t find that as shocking as ancients did is because we are used to the idea, having heard the phrase “God the Father” for 2,000 years.
Moreover, this revelation is a bit easier to swallow since a son or daughter is always in an asymmetrical relationship with his or her mother or father. We remain, quite properly, our parents’ debtors forever. So we can more easily adjust psychologically to calling the One to whom we the greatest debt “Father.”
But “friend”? “Equal”? Who on earth is equal to God? Well, nobody — by nature.
But just as the grace of Christ bestows on us a renewed and divinized human nature so that we become children of God, so likewise it is Jesus who graciously declares to his disciples (that would be you and me), “No longer do I call you servants, for the servant does not know what his master is doing; but I have called you friends, for all that I have heard from my Father I have made known to you” (John 15:15).
The striking mark of friendship is that we do not stand face to face looking into the eyes of the other (that’s eros). Nor do we look up, as we do with parental love.
In friendship, we stand side by side, looking at something we love in common. And in our lives as Christians, that’s exactly what Jesus calls us to do alongside him. He directs us — in the liturgy — to join him in the worship of his Father and — as we leave the liturgy — to join him in the evangelization of the world.
And so, in the sacrament of confirmation, we are given the gifts proper to friends of God. We receive the sanctifying gifts of wisdom, counsel, understanding, fortitude, knowledge, piety, and the fear of the Lord (the gifts you get to keep that make us more like our brother Jesus and help us grow in the love of the Father).
In addition, we also get sundry charisms that help us carry out the mission to the world as we walk out of Mass.
Mark Shea is a Register columnist and blogger. To read Mark Shea’s series on friendship: Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4, Part 5 and Part 6.
Dan Burke: A Reminder Amongst the Politics - Blessed John Paul II's Perspective on Authentic Relationships
Comments
Post a Comment
God does not turn an ordinary human being into a vessel of supernatural grace without free-will acceptance and obedience to His will. I, of all people can’t say he does not manifest his presence to unworthy humans. The first time I entered a Catholic Church He enveloped me with His presence and literally took my breath away. Awe overwhelmed me. Why He picked me is still a mystery but I will be eternally grateful that He did. Because of a bigoted family, it was two years before I started dating a Catholic girl that I know God intended to be my wife and she introduced me to a great priest who brought me into the Church in 1949. We were together for 63 years and married for over 58 years before I lost her last year. I certainly can’t disagree with you after all the favors and graces I have received from God and His Blessed Mother.
Gentlemen:
I’m looking at part 7 of the series on friendship. On the click-on access to the previous six parts, you repeat part 4 (The Church Founded on Friendship) again as part 6. Somebody dropped the ball somewhere.
Thank you Mark,
That bible passage rings in my head each time I hear it and always wondered what Jesus was saying in John 15:15.
You brought to clarity what I could not understand before.
It amazes me even more the thought of receiving Baptism, Confirmation, and Holy Communion together as the first day a convert becomes Catholic.
Mr. Shea: Why don’t you go into more detail about what you mean by the verbiage “side by side?”—or why not expound upon friendship by explaining what you mean by the experience called “face-to-face?” We all know that your information is pulled straight from C. S. Lewis, and yes, we have thoroughly read him, but why not take the opportunity to expand upon the phrase, rather than regurgitate it? Instead of reiterating that same old information, why not provide fuller explanation? THAT would prove helpful. Everything else in this article is fluff. I know very few persons who talk about friendship thoroughly. I don’t think it always requires a thesis the size of a book.
Another scripture on Christian friendship and love (the agape kind): “A new commandment I give unto you: That you love one another, as I have loved you, that you also love one another. By this shall all men know that you are my disciples, if you have love one for another.”
Which I take to mean (having read my Bible without help of the magisterium) Christians will not go to war with each other or otherwise act in unfriendly ways.
Am I close?
Solid, sound and simple; crystal clear and concise; beauty filled with a rich promise. If your article was a rock, it would be a diamond.
God provides for us in relation to our need. Air the most important, without it we would die in just minutes, is abundantly available and easily gotten. Water, we can go just a few days without, is not as available as air but fairly easily gotten. Food, we can do without a littler longer than water, is not as easy to get, but most won’t die as quick as without water. Gods grace is the Bible. His rules, his laws. What’s best for us, how we should live and take care of one another.
I most humbly would like to ask for some clarification on the “face to face” versus “looking out” metaphors as well. Aside from the interesting bit about Confirmation being the sacrament of friendship (which was well-explained by your referring to the difference between equality and being a debtor, and the fact that God indwells us and gives us a share of His nature), the metaphors distinguishing friendship from romance was the part that jumped out at me as very interesting and worth knowing more about. I can understand the difference between looking “up” to a higher being or parent and looking “eye to eye” with an equal. But the difference between looking “face to face” with another person versus “outward” at something that they are looking at is rather opaque to me. Perhaps its partly because I’m familiar with metaphorical usage of “looking up to” someone in comman English usage, whereas the other metaphor is quite new to me. I guess also, to say (even metaphorically) that friends do not look at one another face to face is kind of a strange idea to me, because I have many friends and when I talk with them, I like to see their face. I prefer to sit across the table from them at a meal, for instance. I’ve noticed that most romantic couples on the other hand (whether married or dating) like to sit side by side at a meal.
Post a Comment
By submitting this form, you give The National Catholic Register permission to publish this comment. Comments will be published at our discretion, and may be edited for clarity and length. For best formatting, please limit your response to one paragraph and don't hit "enter" to force line breaks.
The time period for commenting on this article has expired.