Vigils Reading

A Commentary on Ben Sirac by St John Chrysostom  [1]

Ben Sirac recommends great caution in the choice of friends. St John Chrysostom develops this further. “A friend is truly more to be desired than light itself, I mean a genuine friend. I am speaking of spiritual friends, who care for friendship more than anything else. Let me show you what friendship is like: friends, Christ’s friends, surpass parents and children. Do not quote the people of today to me. Think of how, in the days of the apostles, the ordinary Christians had one soul and one heart, and claimed not a single possession as their own, but gave to each whatever was needed. There was no mine or yours in those days. This is friendship, that none should think of their property as their own, but as belonging to their neighbor or to anyone other than themselves. In this way they must care for the souls of others as for their own, and others likewise must show the same attitude. But how, you ask, is such a thing possible? It is only not possible because we are unwilling to try it. If we were really willing to try it, it would be perfectly possible. For if it had been impossible, Christ would not have commanded it, nor would he have spoken about love in the way he did. Friendship is a great thing, just how great no one could know nor could any words describe without the experience of it.

Those who love do not wish to command or rule, they prefer to be ruled and commanded themselves. They prefer to give rather than receive a favor, for they love and always feel as if they could never do enough for another. They do not enjoy being well treated themselves as much as doing good to others, for they prefer to be in the debt of others and have others in their debt as well. And they want to show kindness to others without appearing to do so, but rather to be in their debt. And they want to be first in kindness without appearing to be first but rather to be repaying it, just as God did with humanity. He intended to give His Son for us, but so that He might not appear to give but rather to owe him to us, he commanded Abraham to give his son, so that his own great deed should not appear to be great. For when there is no friendship our kindness is full of reproaches, and we exaggerate our small acts; but when there is friendship, we try to hide our kindness, and are also anxious to show that our great acts are small, so as not to make our friends feel they are debtors, but that in having them as our debtors we ourselves are in debt to them.

[1]  A Word in Season –  vol. VIII -Augustinian Press – 1999  pg 156