Friendship and Confidence

By Fr. Conor Donnelly

(Proofread)

In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

My Lord and my God, I firmly believe that you are here, that you see me, that you hear me. I adore you with profound reverence. I ask your pardon for my sins and grace to make this time of prayer fruitful. My Immaculate Mother, Saint Joseph, my father and lord, my guardian angel, intercede for me.

“Then he said to his servants, ‘The marriage feast indeed is ready, but those who were invited were not worthy. Go therefore to the crossroads and invite to the marriage feast whoever you shall find” (Matt. 22:8-9).

Our Lord uses very interesting terminology. It's a feast, and we're all invited. The Gospel passages can be very superlative at times. It's not just a wedding snack or a little cup of tea or something, but it's a feast. It's a big thing.

In our Christian vocation, it tells us that we're all invited to that feast. In part of that Christian vocation, with our Baptism, we get an obligation, an invitation, to do apostolate—which is to be very aware of the marriage feast and to try and help many other people around us also to be very aware, so that they too are invited to the marriage feast.

It's great news. We have been invited. We haven't been excluded. That marriage feast has certain requirements: the wedding garment, the care of our soul, the lifting up of the spiritual temperature around us.

This is why we have been called. It's all about the marriage feast.

Our Lord said to the servants, “The marriage feast indeed is ready.” It's all prepared. It's all done. Nothing else is needed in the preparation.

We just need the guests. “But those who were invited were not worthy. Go therefore to the crossroads.”

A very dynamic word in the pages of Scripture is the word “go.” We have a vocation to go. It's very dynamic. We have a job to do, we have a mission to fulfill. We have been sent.

We have been placed in this particular part of society to go here with all the people that God has placed us in contact with. The reality of the marriage feast is to lead us to think about the length and breadth and height of all the people we know in the world.

God wants to touch each one of them in different ways with His grace, with His invitation. It's great news, full of joy, of optimism; very dynamic.

With great frequency it's important that we bring our apostolate to our prayer, to talk to our Lord about this great marriage feast that He has invited us to, and, with a human and supernatural enthusiasm, see how we can invite others to the marriage feast, spread this good news in all sorts of ways, because “…everything is ready. Go therefore to the crossroads.”

Our Lord tells the servants where to go, where He wants them: at the crossroads, where people meet, where there is interchange, the very centre of society.

Our vocation in the Work has that characteristic. We have been called to be at the crossroads. St. Josemaría was very clear. He wants us out in the street. He wants us meeting people. He wants us involved.

He wants us having contact with people in neuralgic positions in society, people who have influence. Each one of us in our own circle of friends will know what that means.

St. Josemaría used to say, “If you pour water on the top of a pyramid, the water will flow to the bottom of the pyramid.”

We liken that in our apostolate of selection, of daring: to look for people who have influence, people of virtue, people who can understand our spirit, people who show signs of understanding what the marriage feast is all about, so that they too might be willing to take up the call and pass it on to many other people, people who are leaders.

While we're interested in everybody—"out of a hundred souls we're interested in a hundred” (Josemaría Escrivá, Friends of God, Point 9)—we're also very specifically interested in those specific people that God has placed us in contact with, who could understand us a little more, who perhaps might have a vocation to Opus Dei, who can play a key role in this whole business of inviting people to the marriage feast, who can understand the importance of being at the crossroads, the crossroads of society where many ideas interchange, where there's a lot of influence, because we're here to lift up the spiritual temperature, to help good ideas to flow in the world.

Therefore, the apostolate of doctrine, of spreading good ideas, of encouraging people to read good things, to be careful with their soul, to build up their soul to be the soul that God wants them to be.

We're to go, we're to be at the crossroads. He says, “Invite to the marriage feast whomever you shall find.”

We're not just called to be there; we're called to be there with a specific purpose. “Invite to the marriage feast.” We have to be in interaction with people, we have to deal with them, we have to talk to them, there's to be communication.

The specific type of apostolate that God wants us to fulfill in the world is that of friendship and confidence.

If you ask many people how they came in contact with Opus Dei, probably none of them will tell you, ‘I saw a notice on a parish bulletin board’ because that's not the way that we advertise our activities, not what God has called us to do.

You'll probably find that most people will say, ‘I was invited by a friend’ or ‘Somebody in the office told me’ or ‘In my club or ‘Somebody that I meet in the supermarket’ or that sort of contact, because that's the way that God wants us to do apostolate—in our circle of friends, reaching out to the people that we know and that we meet.

“Mark this,” says St. Paul, “he who sows sparingly will also reap sparingly, but he who sows bountifully will also reap bountifully. Let each one give according as he is determined in his heart, not grudgingly, as if by compulsion, for God loves a cheerful giver” (2 Cor. 9:6-7).

If Our Lord has called us to do apostolate in this way, then we have a special grace for that. It means we have to try and come to be good at being friends with people. Be a bit of an expert.

That's something we can always be growing in: keeping up with our friends, making new friends, breaking out of our shell, finding new people, meeting them, getting to know them. And all the time, going deeper in that friendship.

We're sort of the aristocrats of friendship. Real experts.

The Second Vatican Council in Gaudium et spes says, “The joys and the hopes, the griefs and the anxieties of the men of this age, especially those who are poor or in any way afflicted, these are the joys and hopes, the griefs and anxieties of the followers of Christ. Indeed, nothing genuinely human fails to raise an echo in their hearts.”

The Church is inviting all the laity to be very good friends of people. These are “the joys and hopes, the griefs and anxieties.” We're called to be involved in other people's lives, know what's going on in them, walk in their shoes.

And that involves communication. It means you have to talk to people, one on one.

Friendship has been described as letting down the drawbridge of our heart, letting other people see what I have in my heart; the candle that God has lit there; the truth, the beauty, the love, because Christ is there: the ideals, the hopes, the joy.

When we let down the drawbridge of our heart, hopefully other people look into our heart and they see what's there, and they see that ‘you have something that I don't see, that I don't have.’

That begins to make them to want it, and so they let down the drawbridge of their heart. Then there's a heart-to-heart communication.

That's what friendship is: communication, sharing. “No longer do I call you servants,” said Our Lord in St. John, “but I have called you friends” (John 15:15).

We learn how to be good friends by being friends with Jesus. “Our apostolate starts in our prayer” (cf. Scott Hahn, Ordinary Work, Extraordinary Grace).

St. Josemaría said, “In the first place, prayer; in the second place, mortification; in the third place, very much ‘in the third place,’ action” (J. Escrivá, The Way, Point 82).

Before going to the crossroads and doing the inviting, we'll be spending time in prayer, talking to “the Lord of the harvest” (Matt. 9:38) about the harvest that He wants us to work at—the harvest of souls, of vocations, mission, purpose.

From bringing our friends to our prayer, we get ideas: what I need to say to this person, what will attract them, and how to invite them to this particular activity, or to get involved in formation, or to take their Christian vocation a little more seriously.

Sometimes those conversations can cost a little bit, because they're deeper conversations. We talk about serious things.

I heard of somebody once who was chatting with her friend and began to talk about sport or the weather or something, and the other friend said, ‘No, no, no, don't talk about those things. I can talk about those things with anybody. But when we talk, you talk to me about serious things. Let's talk about the real McCoy. Those serious things you've talked to me about on the other occasions. That's what I want to hear.’

That’s the sort of thing we have to talk about with our friends—the deeper things—why we are here on this earth, the purpose and meaning of our life, what life is all about; those questions that Pope John Paul has in many of his encyclicals.

Where have I come from? Where am I going? What is my life all about? (cf. John Paul II, Encyclical, Fides et Ratio, September 14, 1988). Because people need those answers.

Everybody is looking for the answers. Even though they might give the impression that that's not the reality, that is the reality, and we are here to talk to them about those things.

Sometimes, to bring up those topics can cost a little bit.

Somebody had a get together once, a lady who was in the army. I think she was in the cavalry, and in the cavalry, they used to do such things as skydiving. She had done quite a bit of parachuting.

The question she asked Don Álvaro was, ‘Father, when I'm at 35,000 feet, and I'm at the edge of the plane, and I launch myself out from the plane into mid-air, often it doesn't cost me a thought.

“But when I'm sharing a cup of tea with a friend of mine, and the moment comes to launch myself into their soul, into their heart, sometimes that costs me a bit of an effort. How can I have the same daring when I'm having that cup of tea with my friend, as I have at 35,000 feet?’

That was a very nice question. I can't remember what the answer was, but certainly it was a very good question. It sort of synthesizes the spirit of the Work, something that we also may have felt at certain times: the concept of daring in our apostolate.

There comes a moment when we have to “launch out into the deep” (Luke 5:4). That daring in selection may mean that we need to talk to people who are better than we are—maybe, older than we are, more prestigious than we are, and more influential.

That can take a bit of daring, a bit of effort. But that's the sort of apostolate that God wants us to do. Launching out into the deep. Being selective. Looking for people who are better than us.

“No one lights a lamp and puts it in a cellar or even under the measure, but upon the lampstand, that they who enter in may see the light” (Luke 11:33).

In our apostolate, there's also a concept of leadership. God wants us to be out in front, to be a leader, to be putting that lamp on the lampstand, so people can see.

Often, out of every ten people we talk to, there'll be one person there that God is wanting us to fish. And it might be number nine or ten. We've got to go through the other eight before we find that cherry.

Somebody said once, ‘Sometimes you can be shaking the cherry tree, and shaking it and shaking it, and nothing falls. And then one day you're just sitting down beside the tree and pop! A cherry falls out of the tree.’

Our apostolate is a bit like that. Souls pop up from nowhere.

Our Lord has said, “My chosen ones do not work in vain” (Isa. 65:23). When we go all out, we do as much apostolate as we can. God doesn't let our nets be empty. The fruits come.

But He wants us to show Him with our deeds that we are serious, that we're putting every possible effort to go there to the crossroads to meet people.

The crossroads are very symbolic. “Everyone who acknowledges me before men, I also will acknowledge before my Father in heaven. But whoever disowns me before men, I in turn will disown before my Father in heaven” (Matt. 10:32-33).

We've been given this goal of the wedding feast, and we've been given a certain amount of time. Time is a treasure, a talent.

We have a certain amount of time to promote this wedding feast. But we don't know how much time we have. That's not specified.

Therefore, every day is important. Every hour is important. Every opportunity is important. You've got to seize the opportunities.

Sometimes we have to create the opportunities. But every day and every hour brings opportunities.

We have a very dynamic approach to life. Our apostolate fills our every hour with purpose, with meaning, with joy, with enthusiasm, with vibration because ‘I have a mission to do. I have people to meet. I have people to follow up.’

Therefore, everybody who comes in contact with our life has a place in our heart.

The person we met in primary school, or secondary school, or met in the street one day, or came in contact with, maybe through our village or a local village or something, or a sports occasion—we try and get people's contacts, their phone or their email, because that can be a great instrument of apostolate to spread good ideas, spread articles.

Send them things we hear about. Nowadays, there are so many webinars taking place on a lot of doctrinal topics. There's an immense amount of formation available in Zoom and in so many other things. These are all opportunities.

Who can I send this to, how can I bring them in contact, how can I spread this idea?

St. Josemaría said, “We have to go after each soul to win it for Christ. Treat them all with affection. Drown them all in love for Christ.”

Very focused, very specific. Our apostolate of friendship and confidence is an apostolate of one on one, one by one.

In one of the biographies of St. Josemaría, in The Man of Villa Tevere, it says he visits them, he writes to them, he invites them over.

He shows concern for their health and for their projects. He knew about the happy and sad incidents in their families. He squeezes time out to help them in some small or great necessity. He does them favors when he can. And when needed, he stakes his honor for them. In short, he knew how to love them.

This is the way that St. Josemaría did apostolate, the way that he practiced friendship: authentic, profound, serious.

People have to sort of detect that, that we are their deep, profound, serious friends. They can come to us, when their heart is breaking, when they have a serious problem, and they know they will be understood and received and encouraged.

That's the way the heart of Christ was. “Jesus called his disciples together and said, ‘I have compassion on the multitudes, because they continue with me now three days and they have nothing to eat. And I will not send them away fasting, lest they faint on the way” (Matt. 15:32).

Our Lord was concerned for them. He had a heart. Our heart has to go after each one of our friends. That's why we bring them to our prayer.

A very good sign in our mental prayer is when it's full of apostolate. If we go to talk to Our Lord, the Lord of the harvest, about the souls that we are dealing with, He must be very happy, because that's why He died on the cross: for souls.

If we are asking Him, ‘Lord, what will I say to this person? What will I say to that person? Give me an idea to meet new people and let me see how I can make the means of formation more effective and more productive, how the corporate apostolic works. What can I do to bring these things forward, to have greater impact?’—when we come to talk to Our Lord about the apostolate, about souls, it's as though the conversation takes off.

It's like you meet somebody who loves basketball, and you start talking about basketball, or hockey, or volleyball, or netball, or something. That's their topic.

Our Lord's topic is apostolate. If we go all the time to our prayer and say, ‘Lord, help me to pass my exam’ and ‘Help me to do this and help me to do that’ and ‘Give me this and give me that’—maybe, our Lord might get a bit tired of that type of requesting all the time for ourselves.

But when we ask for our friends, ‘Help them to see this, to see that.’ That's why, “In the first place, prayer; in the second place, mortification; in the third place, very much ‘in the third place,’ action.”

As Don Álvaro said, “Many do not know what friendship really is. They do not know the difference between a friend and an acquaintance.

“Friendship is a relation of affection, of knowledge, which leads one to open his heart. At that point, one can hand down the word of God. Friendship leads the Christian to bare their soul to their friends in order to communicate God to them.

“When there is friendship between two persons, one gets to a level of intimate conversation. Because all of us need to tell somebody about our joys and our sorrows.

“And who do we talk to about these things but our friends? Things that gladden us, and seem splendid to us, that may be the butt of jokes to strangers, but a friend understands them.

“Hence, friendship means opening our hearts to others, so that they themselves may do the same with us. In this way, we can give them spiritual help. We will alleviate their sorrows.”

Friendship is not meeting someone on the matatu or the bus and asking them, ‘Where are you going? What do you study?’ That can be the beginning of an acquaintance, but it should eventually turn into a friendship.

“Be truly friends,” he says, “which is not the same as saying, ‘I know so and so, who studies in my college and works with me.’ That is being colleagues.

“Neither does it mean there is friendship when one says, ‘I know so and so, and I am inviting them to a recollection or to some courses.’ No, that is being an acquaintance.

“To be friends is much more than that. It means seeking interpersonal dealings. It means confiding one's pains and sorrows. It means reaching intimacy with Our Lord always in the midst.”

In order to be a friend, we have to overcome selfishness. We have to get out of our ivory tower. That is why Our Lord says, “Go to the crossroads.” Go! To get out of ourselves.

We might have a very great friend, and that friend might never have come to any means of formation. But still we are their friend, and we are their friend for always. We pray for them. We concern ourselves with them. Remember their birthday.

We are not just friends with people because they think the way we do, or they come to everything we invite them to. They might just be yes people, say yes to everything.

But still, with our friends, even though they might be far away from everything we live by, we reach out to them, we tell them things, we inform them about the marriage feast.

If we want to be good friends with people and find new friends, it means we need to make good use of our meetings with people. Discover ways of getting along with others.

Use opportunities to find new contacts. Manage to communicate with them. Show genuine interest in them, in what they say or do or feel; to have a deep respect for others, being careful about how we act, so as not to harm them, but also to try to positively help them.

We try to avoid an excessive closing in on ourselves. To see the need we have of other people, and our duty to help them. To develop an unselfish solidarity based on charity, not merely on utilitarian motives.

To overcome shyness. We all may be a little bit shy. Shyness can be part of pride.

In friendship we have to try and forget about ourselves, go out of ourselves, “go to the crossroads,” to recognize that everyone, by definition, is interesting.

We have to discover the secret of their heart; what makes them tick. That means we have to know how to ask questions. Develop the knack of telling other people interesting things in a nice way. Be a good conversationalist.

It may require an effort to think out questions or topic of conversations, being someone of broad general interest.

St. Paul says we have to be all things to all men. It's a great goal for our life.

He says, “For though I am free of all men, I made myself a slave to all, that I might win them all” (1 Cor. 9:19).

Interesting word, “win.” We have to win souls. It takes effort.

Look at the people who ran and won in the London Marathon; and even didn't win, but came up in the first five or ten. They win, they put the effort there, they’re focused. They are not just here to run the race; they’re here to win. Be in the first ten.

“To the Jews I became like a Jew, in order to win Jews. … To the weak I became weak that I might gain the weak. I became all things to all men, that I might save all” (1 Cor. 9:20-21).

“All things to all men.” It's a wonderful horizon. In our talking and communicating, we try to find a balance between talking too much and talking too little, or not thinking enough; participating in outings or immersions or all sorts of things.

The Gospels show us Our Lord is a model and a friend to His disciples, giving them as much time as necessary, caring for them, praying for them, obtaining for them the strength to be faithful, even to the point of giving their lives for them, for the salvation of the world.

We help our friends first and foremost with our own behavior, then with our advice, and with the influence that a close friendship provides.

We’re told, “When the servants went out to them into the roads, they gathered all whom they found, both good and bad, the marriage feast was filled with guests” (Matt. 22:10).

Our Lord is very concerned about the marriage feast. He wants us to be very concerned, to make it the goal of our life, a wonderful goal, wonderful ideas, wonderful things to spend ourselves thinking about, loving, dreaming.

We could ask Our Lady, Queen of Apostles, that she might help us to be all the time more concerned about the marriage feast, and have a thirst and a hunger to grow in our apostolic formation, so that we might go about inviting all those people to the marriage feast more effectively, at a later time.

I thank you, my God, for the good resolutions, affections, and inspirations that you have communicated to me during this meditation. I ask your help to put them into practice. My Immaculate Mother, Saint Joseph, my father and lord, my guardian angel, intercede for me.

In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

MVF