The Language of Friendship

The Language of Friendship

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Walking Together

So often this journey through life
can feel like a daily struggle,
a race to accomplish more,
buy more, be more.
Today we pray for the wisdom
to take a step back and look
at the bigger picture.
The true meaning of our journey
is not about earthly things but about
matters of the heart
and longings of the spirit.
We open our arms to those companions
who join us on this pilgrimage of love.
We recognize that we are not meant
to walk this road one by one,
but side by side.

Walking Together: Discovering the Catholic Tradition of Spiritual Friendship by Mary DeTurris Poust, Ave Maria Press, 2010.

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The Spiritual Disicpline of Solitude

Spend Some Time in Solitude

Solitude is one of the most precious things in the human spirit. It is different from loneliness. When you are lonely, you become acutely conscious of your own separation. Solitude can be a homecoming to your own deepest belonging. One of the lovely things about us as individuals is the incommensurable in us. In each person, there is a point of absolute nonconnection with everything else and with everyone. This is fascinating and frightening. It means that we cannot continue to seek outside ourselves for the things we need from within. The blessings for which we hunger are not to be found in other places or people. These gifts can only be given to you by yourself. They are at home in the hearth of your soul. . . .

In everyone's inner solitude there is that bright and warm hearth. The idea of the unconscious, even though it is a very profound and wonderful idea, has sometimes frightened people away from coming back to their own hearth. We falsely understand the subconscious as the cellar where all of our repression and self-damage is housed. Out of our fear of ourselves we have imagined monsters down there. Yeats says, "Man needs reckless courage to descend into the abyss of himself." In actual fact, these demons do not account for all the subconscious. The primal energy of our soul holds a wonderful warmth and welcome for us. One of the reasons we were sent onto the earth was to make this connection with ourselves, this inner friendship.

— John O'Donohue in Anam Cara

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Prayer for Friends

May you be blessed with good friends.
May you learn how to be a good friend yourself.
May you be able to journey to that place in your soul
where there is great love, warmth, feeling,
and forgiveness.
May this change you.
May it transfigure that which is negative, distant,
or cold in you.
May you be brought in to the real passion, kinship,
and affinity of belonging.
May you treasure your friends.
May you be good to them and may you be there for them;
may they bring you all the blessings, challenges, truth,
and light that you need for your journey.
May you never be isolated.
May you always be in the gentle nest of belonging
with your anam cara.

— John O'Donohue in Anam Cara

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Share Your Love

One of the great powers of love is balance; it helps us move toward transfiguration. When two people come together, an ancient circle closes between them. They also come to each other not with empty hands, but with hands full of gifts for each other. Often these are wounded gifts; this awakens the dimension of healing within love. When you really love someone, you shine the light of your soul on the beloved. We know from nature that sunlight brings everything to growth. If you look at flowers early on a spring morning, they are all closed. When the light of the sun catches them, they trustingly open out and give themselves to the new light. . . .

A person should always offer a prayer of graciousness for the love that has awakened in them. When you feel love for your beloved and the beloved's love for you, now and again you should offer the warmth of your love as a blessing for those who are damaged and unloved. Send that love out into the world to people who are desperate, to those who are starving, to those who are trapped in prison, in hospitals, and into all the brutal terrains of bleak and tormented lives. When you send that love out from the bountifulness of your own love, it reaches other people. This love is the deepest power of prayer. . . . When there is love in your life, you should share it spiritually with those who are pushed to the very edge of life. There is a lovely idea in the Celtic tradition that if you send out goodness from yourself, or if you share that which is happy or good within you, it will all come back to you multiplied ten thousand times.

— John O'Donohue in Anam Cara

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E-Course on John O'Donohue

You may notice that I have been quoting many of John O'Donohue's writings recently. That is because I am presently doing a 40 days online retreat with Spirituality and Practice.

Practicing Spirituality with John O'Donohue
Led by Frederic and Mary Ann Brussat

The late John O' Donohue was an Irish Catholic priest, poet, scholar, and bestselling author of two books on Celtic spirituality, two collections of poetry, a book on the spiritual practice of beauty, and a volume on blessing as a way of life. Although he lived in Ireland, he led workshops and retreats in America. He made quite a name for himself with his lyrical, enthusiastic, and buoyant spoken-word audiotapes for Sounds True. To listen to him speak was to be transported to a realm of deep feeling. He peppered his talks with poetry from Rainer Maria Rilke, William Stafford, and many others.

Over his short but stunning writing and teaching career, O 'Donohue consistently tapped into the rich mine of Celtic spirituality and stories. In Anam Cara (Gaelic for "soul friend") he showed us how Celtic wisdom speaks across the centuries to the challenges we face today. In Eternal Echoes, he probed the multiple meanings of yearning and the path of the heart in times of separation. Beauty: The Invisible Embrace gave us a sweeping and vibrant survey of this often underplayed spiritual practice. His final book To Bless the Space Between Us presents ways to use this ritual as a way to connection, healing, and transformation.

Anam Cara-Soul Friend

In the Celtic tradition, there is a beautiful understanding of love and friendship. One of the fascinating ideas here is the idea of soul-love; the old Gaelic term for this is anam cara. Anam is the Gaelic word for soul and cara is the word for friend. So anam cara in the Celtic world was the "soul friend."

In the early Celtic church, a person who acted as a teacher, companion, or spiritual guide was called an anam cara. It originally referred to someone to whom you confessed, revealing the hidden intimacies of your life. With the anam cara you could share your innermost self, your mind and your heart. This friendship was an act of recognition and belonging. When you had an anam cara, your friendship cut across all convention, morality, and category. You were joined in an ancient and eternal way with the "friend of your soul."

The Celtic understanding did not set limitations of space or time on the soul. There is no cage for the soul. The soul is a divine light that flows into you and into your Other. This art of belonging awakened and fostered a deep and special companionship. In his Conferences, John Cassian says this bond between friends is indissoluble: "This, I say, is what is broken down by no chances, what no interval of time or space can sever or destroy, and what even death itself cannot part."

— John O'Donohue in Anam Cara

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