A communion of thinking and willing

What is friendship? Idem velle, idem nolle – wanting the same things, rejecting the same things: this was how it was expressed in antiquity. Friendship is a communion of thinking and willing.

The Lord says the same thing to us most insistently: “I know my own and my own know Me.” The Shepherd calls His own by name. He knows me by name. I am not just some nameless being in the infinity of the universe. He knows me personally.

Do I know Him? The friendship that He bestows upon me can only mean that I too try to know Him better; that in the Scriptures, in the Sacraments, in prayer, in the communion of saints, in the people who come to me, sent by Him, I try to come to know the Lord Himself more and more.

Friendship is not just about knowing someone; it is above all a communion of the will. It means that my will grows into ever greater conformity with His will. For His will is not something external and foreign to me, something to which I more or less willingly submit or else refuse to submit. No, in friendship, my will grows together with His will, and His will becomes mine.

BENEDICT XVI. Homily, 29/6/2011

“Yes” to the friend, “no” to what is contrary to the friendship

A gift of friendship implies a “yes” to the friend and a “no” to all that is incompatible with this friendship, to all that is incompatible with the life of God’s family, with true life in Christ. […] We know these things well but perhaps, precisely because we have heard them too often, the words may not mean much to us. If this is the case, we must think a little more deeply about the content of these “noes”. What are we saying “no” to? This is the only way to understand what we want to say “yes” to.

BENEDICT XVI. Homily, 8/1/2006

Friendship with God is our salvation

Jesus Christ radically transforms man’s relationship with God, which is henceforth a relationship of friendship. Therefore, the only condition of the new covenant is love. St. Augustine, commenting on this passage of the Fourth Gospel, insists on the perspective of grace, which alone can make us friends of God in His Son. Indeed, an ancient motto stated: “Amicitia aut pares invenit, aut facit”, “friendship is born between equals, or makes them so”. We are not equal to God, but God Himself makes us similar to Him in His Son. […]

Our experience tells us that friendships can come to an end through a dramatic gesture of rupture, or because of a series of daily acts of neglect that erode the relationship until it is lost.

If Jesus calls us to be friends, let us not leave this call unheeded. Let us welcome it, let us take care of this relationship, and we will discover that friendship with God is our salvation.

LEO XIV. General Audience, 14/1/2026

Basis for sincere friendship with others

The personal encounter with the divine Teacher who calls you friends can be the beginning of an extraordinary adventure: that of becoming apostles among your peers. […] Then you will see how friendship with Him will lead you to open yourselves to others, whom you consider as brothers or sisters, maintaining with each one a relationship of sincere friendship. In fact, Jesus Christ is truly “the incarnate love of God” (Deus Caritas Est, n. 12), and in Him alone can we find the strength to offer our brothers and sisters human affection and supernatural love in a spirit of service, expressed above all in understanding.

BENEDICT XVI. Speech, 10/4/2006

The power to triumph over discouragement

He who has chosen to belong completely to Christ will find, above all, in intimacy with Him and in His grace, the power of spirit necessary to banish sadness and regret and to triumph over discouragement. […] And if hostility, lack of confidence and the indifference of his fellow men make his solitude quite painful, he will thus be able to share, with dramatic clarity, the very experience of Christ, as an apostle who must not be “greater than He who sent him,” as a friend admitted to the most painful and most glorious secret of his divine Friend.

ST. PAUL VI. Sacerdotalis cælibatus, 24/6/1967

Incentive for perfection

Francis of Assisi was to Clare not only a teacher whose teachings she was to follow but also a brotherly friend. The friendship between these two Saints is a very beautiful and important aspect. Indeed, when two pure souls on fire with the same love for God meet, they find in their friendship with each other a powerful incentive to advance on the path of perfection.

Friendship is one of the noblest and loftiest human sentiments which divine Grace purifies and transfigures. Like St. Francis and St. Clare, other Saints too experienced profound friendship on the journey towards Christian perfection. Examples are St. Francis de Sales and St. Jane Frances de Chantal.

BENEDICT XVI. General Audience, 15/9/2010

Friendship with God and all belonging to Him

He [Thomas Aquinas] was assisted in the composition of his writings by several secretaries, including his confrere, Reginald of Piperno, who followed him faithfully and to whom he was bound by a sincere brotherly friendship marked by great confidence and trust. This is a characteristic of Saints: they cultivate friendship because it is one of the noblest manifestations of the human heart and has something divine about it, just as Thomas himself explained in some of the quaestiones of his Summa Theologiæ. He writes in it: “it is evident that charity is the friendship of man for God” and for “all belonging to Him” (II-II, q.23, a.1).

BENEDICT XVI. General Audience, 2/6/2010

A union that blossoms

We shall be able to do very little in the work for the whole Church, which is my and your daily concern, if we have not acquired this close intimacy with the Lord Jesus: if we are not truly with Him and, like Him, consecrated in the truth; if we do not keep His word within us, seeking to discover its hidden riches every day; if God’s very love for His Christ is not deeply rooted in us.

The external unity for which we pray will be the sprouting, the blossoming of that intimate union with Christ, which all the faithful, without distinction, must possess.

ST. JOHN PAUL II. Speech, 23/1/1981

May His friendship sanctify us

Insofar as we allow Him [Jesus] to touch us, insofar as the encounter becomes friendship and love, we ourselves, on the basis of His purity, become pure people and then people who love with His love, people who introduce others to His purity and His love.

Augustine summed all this up in a beautiful saying: Da quod iubes et iube quod vis – grant what you command, and command what you will.

Let us now bring this request before the Lord and pray to Him: yes, purify us in the truth. May You be the Truth that makes us pure. Obtain that through friendship with You we may become free and thus truly children of God. Make us capable of sitting at your table and spreading in this world the light of your purity and goodness. Amen.

BENEDICT XVI. Homily, 30/8/2009