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Catholic friendships matter: Community based in the Good is a gift from God

Recently, I gave a talk on โ€œCatholic Friendshipโ€ at Our Lady of Victory High School here in Denverโ€”a fabulous school, by the way. It was a great opportunity for the kids, but it was also a great opportunity for me to spend some time contemplating a topic we donโ€™t often contemplate.

It seems to me that, among all the forms of love, friendship is the one that gets short shrift. I mean, there are literally thousands of books in print right this very minute on improving your marriage. And there are thousands more on building and maintaining a happy family and even more on becoming a more generally loving person. But I donโ€™t see a lot of books about โ€œHow to Have a Great Friendship.โ€

I think we assume that friendships are the kind of relationships that just sort themselves out, and we donโ€™t need to pay much attention or put a lot of effort into them.

That is a shame.

While preparing the talk, I leaned heavily on C.S. Lewisโ€™ book The Four Loves, combined with a smattering of Pope St. John Paul II and a few tidbits from the ancient Greeks. It led me to some insights that seemed worth sharing to encourage all of you to give some thought to the relationships we donโ€™t often consider much.

Lewis says that friendship is always about something. We donโ€™t build friendships in a vacuum. We donโ€™t choose friends randomly. For someone to stand out from the crowd and for us to want to spend time with them, there must be something we share in common, some interest or commonality or intersection in our lives. The ancient Greeks, who were always big on categorizing, said that those commonalities tend to fall into three different categories, which create three categories of friendship or three legs to the barstool of friendship.

The first is mutual benefit. These are the friends we work toward a goal with. Co-worker friends fall into this category, as do school friends or friends we embark with on projects. Maybe itโ€™s the friend youโ€™re working with to rebuild a car, write a book, or launch a side hustle. This is the friend who helps you get to the finish line and makes the journey more fun.

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Speaking of that, the second category is pleasure. These are the friends we have fun with. Maybe theyโ€™re the ones who make us laugh, mountain bike with us or like the same vacation spots we do. Whatever weโ€™re doing, we enjoy having them around while weโ€™re doing it.

Finally, there are friendships based on the Good. These are people whose thinking aligns with our own or the people we admire. Maybe we share a worldview, political views, values, religious faith, approach to life, etc. Maybe we just enjoy being around them because they radiate love, which is always attractive.

The best friendships, of course, rest on more than one leg. Itโ€™s nice to meet someone who makes us laugh. But when they make us laugh and share our worldview, thatโ€™s better yet.

Of course, any of this can be good or bad. We could have friends who join us in planning a bank heist, who enjoy shooting heroin with us, or whose corrupt values align with our own. The assumption is that whatever brings us together in a healthy friendship also brings us closer to health, truth, beauty, God and all good things.

This is why friendships based on the Good tend to be the strongest and the most lasting.

Why is all of this good for us to know? Well, it helps us better understand some of the most important relationships in our lives and how they evolve, change, grow and sometimes end. Remember those high school friends you couldnโ€™t go a day without talking to? Writing in their yearbooks, you waxed eloquent about how โ€œyou are sooooooooo important to me, and we will be in each otherโ€™s weddings, and we will ALWAYS be in each otherโ€™s lives [heart, heart, heart].โ€ And today, while some of them may actually remain friends, most of the rest you couldnโ€™t pick out of a lineup. And have you noticed that, while the first evening of a high school reunion is SO much fun, by the third day, youโ€™ve pretty much run out of things to talk about, and youโ€™re ready to get back to your real life? We generally arenโ€™t interested in moving into the future with people we share nothing with but the past.

The friendships that endure are based on a more solid foundation. When we have people in our lives who we genuinely enjoy being around, who help us reach our goals, and who we can talk to about the things that matter โ€” these are real friends. These relationships are truly a gift from God and should not be taken for granted. We should be willing to put effort into our friendships, just like we do into our romantic and family relationships.

I was going to add an entire section on Pope St. John Paul II, love and friendship. But we are coming to the end of our word count. So, it looks like that will be our discussion next time.

In the meantime, this is your homework. I want you to think about who your โ€œinner circleโ€ is. Try to identify your real friends โ€” your โ€œride or die,โ€ the ones you most enjoy talking to, recreating with or working with. Once you have, think about what you can do to strengthen those relationships and let them know they are important to you. Are they going through a difficult time? Do they need anything? Has it just been too long since you have caught up with them?

And if you donโ€™t have any of those โ€œride or dieโ€ friendships, then your homework is to go out and start building them. Look for the people you admire, the ones you enjoy being around. Reach out to them. Invite them over for dinner or out for a beer. Go make a friend or two.

Youโ€™ll thank me for it when they thank you for it.

Mary Beth Bonacci
Mary Beth Bonacci
Mary Beth Bonacci has been giving talks on love and relationships across the United States and internationally for . . .well . . . her entire adult life. She was among the first Catholic speakers to introduce audiences to St. John Paul IIโ€™s beautiful Theology of the Body. She is the founder of Real Love, Inc., an organization dedicated to promoting respect for Godโ€™s gift of human sexuality. Her book Real Love, based on the Theology of the Body, has been translated into ten languages. She is also the author of Weโ€™re on a Mission from God, writes a monthly column for Catholic newspapers and contributes regularly to the Catholic Match Institute blog.
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