"Behold, how good and how pleasant it is for brethren
to dwell together in unity...it is there that the
Lord commands His blessings!"
Psalm 133:1
Intimate Friendship: A Place To Meet God

The words of Jacob upon meeting his brother Esau:
    "to come into your presence is for me like coming into the presence of God" (Genesis 33:10)
The fire of unbounded love offers an incomparable taste of New Creation. "To love another person is to see the face of God."
    The more deeply we experience intimacy with another person the more likely we are to be open to the love of God. Jesus and the Magdalene, Francis and Clare did this. We simply have to put aside all of the fears and second thoughts that the offer of intimacy brings. Despite the acknowledged risks that relationships carry with them, they are from God. They have been entered into by the Clares and Francises of history and they are the one surest safeguard from the sterile individualism that so afflicts modern society.
    There are important links between intimacy and spirituality, between life in  God and life in another. Life in God, for example, requires that we move our centers of gravity outside of ourselves to dance the dance of life with all peoples and all of creation. Intimate friendship calls us to dance the dance with the others as well. Intimacy requires that we risk as well -- in the miraculous discovery of mutualy respectful, life-giving and just relationships.

Choose one important and intimate relationship with which you have been blessed in your life and answer the following questions as you reflect upon it:
 
   1.  How have I been challenged to personal growth by this relationship?
   2.  Has this relationship pushed me out toward a suffering world or pulled me into private space?
   3.  How did we challenge each other to be more faithful to the gospel, especially to the social                       dimension of the gospel? 
   4.  In what ways did I meet God through this relationship?


Let us pray:
   Father, you have called us all to live in love...to be Christ and priests to one another. Help us to know love as you are love. Help us to live in that love, especially among our brothers and sisters. Protect us from division and the one who brings that division. May unity, love, and fellowship bind us together. Forgive us Father, where we have failed to love. May we begin fresh and new today, and love one another as you love us. It is in this love that the world will know that we are yours.
                         In the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit,
                          in the sweet name of Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.

     
"They devoted themselves to the apostles' teaching and to the fellowship, to the breaking of bread and to prayer. Everyone was filled with awe, and many wonders and miraculous signs were done by the apostles. All the believers were together and had everything in common. Selling their possessions and goods they gave to anyone as he had need. Every day they continued to meet together in the temple courts. They broke bread in their homes and ate together with glad and sincere hearts, praising God and enjoying the favor of all the people.
And the Lord added to their number daily those who were being saved."
Acts 2:42-47