Volume I, Treatise IV, Chapter XVIII

Of These Sorts of Particular Attachments and Friendships Which Are 7 to be Reprehended

We have hitherto treated of the attachments and friendships that are made by charity, now we will treat of such as are contrary both to the spirit of charity and religion. St. Basil, in his Monastical Constitutions, says, there ought to be a very great union amongst religious, but all sorts of particular ties or friendships between two or three persons only must be retrenched; for how holy soever these ties may appear, nevertheless this strict union with one particular person isa formal disunion from the rest. He takes notice also of this yet more precisely in his first sermon on the institution of mouks, where, descending note to particulars, he says— If any one be found, who upon any account whatsvever, either of kindred or anything else, seems to have a greater tie or affection to one religious than to another, he must be punished, as one who does an injury to common charity.” He adds the reason also in the same place, and still more expressly in the following sermon, where he explains the injury we do in this to a religious community:—“Whoever,” says be, “loves one of his brothers better than another, shews by this alone that he does not perfectly love the rest; and consequently offends others, and injures the whole community.” But if God feels so sensibly an offence given to an individual, that he says, ‘‘ Whosoever touches him, touches the apple of his eye,” how displeased will he be at the offence given a whole community? Wherefore, the same saint expressly forbids all his religious to have any particular tie, affection, or familiarity, more with one than another, “through fear of giving any one the least occasion of offence,” and desires that in imitation of the goodness of God, “who makes the sun shine as well upon the good as the bad, and makes it rain upon the just and unjust” (Matthew 5:45), we should have an equal charity for all our brethren. He adds, that these particular friendships in religion are an everlasting seed of envy, suspicions, distrusts, and enmities; and give occasion of divisions, cabals, and secret assemblies; which ‘are the destruction and ruin of religion. For in them one discovers his particular designs; another speaks of the judgments he has made; a third opens the subjects of his complaints; a fourth reveals those secrets he should not speak of. In these cabals also they murmur, speak ill of one another, betray all sorts of defects, and spare not even the superior himself; and by a most unhappy contagion they presently communicate all that is bad one to another. In fine, by means of these friendships, rules are often violated, and to follow the inclinations of friends, many things are done contrary to duty and profession.

St. Ephrem, speaking of this subject, says, that “these kinds of friendships and ties do great prejudice to the soul.” (Eph. tom. i. p. 51.) We must, therefore, avoid them with a great deal of care, and act upon this principle—that in religion we must have no particular friend with whom we entertain any familiarities prejudicial to the community. Our friendships must be all spiritual; they must not be founded upon flesh and blood, or any other human foundation, but on God alone; and as we are all of us children of God, and brethren of Jesus Christ, we must also equally love one another, without suffering our hearts, which must be attached to none but God, to have any particular affection for creatures. We read in the Chronicles of the Order of St. Francis, that a holy religious, named brother John de Luques, very carefully avoided all sorts of conversations and particular friendships; and that another religious, who had a great esteem and affection for him, and had profited very much by his conversation, complaining one day to him of his manner of proceeding, and asking him why he behaved so coldly towards his friends? Itis for your good I do so, answered the servant of. God, for thereby I shall be more useful to those who also desire my good, for all particular friendships are so many amusements, that serve only to divert me from God, and consequently do harm to us both.

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