• Our Life
    • Our Story
    • Our Day
    • Apostolates
  • Charism
  • Vocations
  • Blog
    • Subscribe
  • Giving
    • Donate
    • Growth
    • An Evening with the Sisters
  • Contact
    • Message us
    • Request a Prayer
    • Vocation Inquiry
    • Newsletters
Marian Sisters of Santa Rosa
Marian Sisters of Santa Rosa
  • Our Life
    • Our Story
    • Our Day
    • Apostolates
  • Charism
  • Vocations
  • Blog
    • Subscribe
  • Giving
    • Donate
    • Growth
    • An Evening with the Sisters
  • Contact
    • Message us
    • Request a Prayer
    • Vocation Inquiry
    • Newsletters

Blog

Friendship with God

7/28/2017

 
There is nothing on this earth more to be prized than true friendship. ~ St. Thomas Aquinas
Picture
Friendship is the basis of authentic deeper relationships, including the spousal relationship of a Sister with her Spouse. A woman called by God into spousal union with Him is first called to develop a sincere and affectionate friendship with Him. One does not simply wake up one morning and tell God that you are ready to be His bride - the espousals follows upon the maturation of affectionate, trusting friendship with the God Who Is Love.
St Thomas Aquinas gives us some characteristics of true friendship. First, he states that friendship consists in a mutual affection founded on a communication of goods. In the natural order, a friendship may be based on friends sharing of common interests, while in the supernatural order, this deep relationship is based on the communication of the persons involved. Every baptized Christian is called to render love for Love. Jesus has given the soul His All - He has given His life, labors, merits, His very self for all eternity in a loving plan for our happiness and salvation. In return, we are drawn by a tender attachment to surrender our all - our heart, affections, plans, desires, abilities, and selves to Him in an exchange by which we are the winners!
Picture
Picture
St. Thomas continues by stating that for friendship to be perfect, one friend must make all his happiness consist in living with the other. Jesus has amply fulfilled this by the love gift of His very self in the Eucharist, remaining for all time hidden in the tabernacle, His delight is to be with the children of men. Contemplating such a gift, the soul is moved to reply, one thing I ask of the Lord, for this I seek: to dwell in the house of the Lord all the days of my life. We desire and choose to leave our heart on the altar with our Eucharistic Love, allowing Him to form us in His image, bearing Him with us when we come and go about our duties, finding our happiness in being united with Him. 
Further, the last of St. Thomas' conditions for authentic friendship is to share, by the deepest sympathy, every pleasure and affliction of the one we love, and have but one heart with him. Christ took our human heart in the Incarnation and made Himself one Heart with us. The heart is the seat of the will, the will the source of love because it is by the movement of the will that one chooses the good of the other, ideally for the other's own sake. Jesus chose our creation, our salvation, and desires our eternal happiness. He has in becoming man taken on all our interests. He feels our sorrows and joys more keenly than we do ourselves and desires that we be united with Him in will that we may take His interests to heart and feel His joys and sorrows as our own.
Picture
Our Lord desires a life of friendship with each of us. He desires to give Himself and to receive us in return,
​to be with us always and to have us with Him always, to share our interests and to have us share His. When this relationship has been well developed and fostered in prayer, for as St. Teresa tells us prayer is nothing else than being on terms of friendship with God, He invites some souls to deepen this friendship into a spousal love where this exchange is ratified by vow and expressed in a life of loving contemplation and service as consecrated brides of Christ.
I am all Thine - give me Thy Heart in return!
Picture
​Most Holy Trinity, blessed and the source of all blessedness, bless your sons and daughters
​whom you have called to praise the greatness of your love, your merciful goodness and your beauty...we pray to you for all consecrated persons. Fill their hearts with the deep certainty of having been chosen to love, to praise and to serve. Enable them to savor your friendship, fill them with your joy and consolation, help them to overcome moments of difficulty and to rise up again with trust after they have fallen; make them mirrors of the divine beauty. Give them the courage to face the challenges of our time and the grace to bring to all mankind the goodness and loving kindness of our Savior Jesus Christ." ~ Vita Consecrata, 111

Comments are closed.
    Subscribe

    RSS Feed

    Categories

    All
    Advent
    Christmas
    Easter
    Events
    Feast Days
    Image Insights
    Lent
    Liturgy
    Mary's Hands & Heart
    Monthly Devotion
    Our Lady
    Our Lord
    Photo Journal
    Prayer
    Reflections
    Religious Life
    Saintly Sayings
    St Joseph
    True-devotion

    Archives

    December 2024
    November 2024
    October 2024
    September 2024
    August 2024
    July 2024
    June 2024
    May 2024
    April 2024
    March 2024
    February 2024
    January 2024
    December 2023
    November 2023
    October 2023
    September 2023
    June 2023
    May 2023
    April 2023
    March 2023
    February 2023
    January 2023
    December 2022
    November 2022
    October 2022
    September 2022
    August 2022
    July 2022
    June 2022
    May 2022
    April 2022
    March 2022
    February 2022
    January 2022
    December 2021
    November 2021
    October 2021
    September 2021
    August 2021
    July 2021
    June 2021
    May 2021
    April 2021
    March 2021
    February 2021
    January 2021
    December 2020
    November 2020
    October 2020
    September 2020
    August 2020
    July 2020
    June 2020
    May 2020
    April 2020
    March 2020
    February 2020
    January 2020
    December 2019
    November 2019
    October 2019
    September 2019
    August 2019
    July 2019
    June 2019
    May 2019
    April 2019
    March 2019
    February 2019
    January 2019
    December 2018
    November 2018
    October 2018
    September 2018
    August 2018
    July 2018
    June 2018
    May 2018
    April 2018
    March 2018
    February 2018
    January 2018
    December 2017
    November 2017
    October 2017
    September 2017
    August 2017
    July 2017
    June 2017
    May 2017
    April 2017
    March 2017
    February 2017
    January 2017
    December 2016
    November 2016
    October 2016
    September 2016
    August 2016
    July 2016
    June 2016
    May 2016
    April 2016
    March 2016
    February 2016
    January 2016
    December 2015
    November 2015
    October 2015
    September 2015
    August 2015
    July 2015
    June 2015
    May 2015
    April 2015
    March 2015
    February 2015
    January 2015
    December 2014
    September 2014
    August 2014
    July 2014
    June 2014

Picture

Navigation


  • Home
  • Our Story
  • Giving
  • Blog
  • ​Donate
  • Contact
  • ​Privacy

Stay Connected



Copyright 2024 Marian Sisters of Santa Rosa
Website by Fitz Designz