Notice v15 of Chapter 15:
“I do not call you servants any longer because the servant does not know what the master is doing. But I have called you friends because I have made known to you everything that I have heard from my Father…”
Another extraordinary statement! Jesus calls each one of us his friends! And his relationship of friendship with us conducts the divine love into our hearts constantly. That’s what friendship is – a dynamic giving to the other, a desiring the good of the other (to quote Aquinas).
Abiding, exemplified by the relationship of the vine to the branch, is a moment-by-moment, vital, dynamic, enlivening, nourishing relationship. It lives, flows, grows, and transforms, like a mother and father loving a child, like a gardener nourishing a garden.
Abiding is the central dynamic of the spiritual life. When we pray our individual prayer, when we participate in the Eucharist, when we experience “coincidences” that can only have a divine origin, we are engaging with God who abides in us and in creation.
And when we do these things, we engage God in the person of Jesus Christ as our friend. And we engage him as we would engage a friend: spend time with him, converse with him, observe him active in our lives.
In your prayer and reflection, ask yourself where you have seen God active in your life as your friend. Ask him to abide in you. Ask him to be yet more your friend.
1 comment:
Great work.
Post a Comment