January 7 – Best Friends Forever

We looked yesterday at the idea of being “friends” with God. Those who bore that epigraph were faithful and wonderfully obedient, almost always. God’s own friends, without any cringing, they feared the God they loved.


When we read the lives of literary monks and nuns, this curiosity strikes us; they spoke of God as if He were a Best Friend, a close and right-fitting associate, but far more than recounting how He might please them, they lived to please Him.


Many believed that while others could not live in quiet, in seclusion, and with long daily hours of unbroken worship, they could, and so they did. They wrote to tell us, all can be His dear friends.


Here in Cor Unum, our hearts cry out, “Why should nuns have all the fun?”


There is nothing to compare with the practice of “giving” God a full morning or evening, or a lunch break or a long weekend, and having Him give over-brimming joy and peace in return.


It is nearly impossible to draw near to God without enjoying His sense of humor and His cheerful mercy, for when we draw near to Him, as He has said, He draws near to us.


Try it this weekend. Find a large pocket of time, and go away alone to be with your Best Friend. Oh, do not spend the hour or the afternoon telling Him your faults. Mention them only if they intrude upon your mutual joy in one another's company, and then leave them behind. He knows us so well, and enjoys us anyway! At least, He should like to enjoy us, if only we came before Him for the sake of His pleasure more than ours . . . more than our guilt and shame. Was not the death and resurrection of His Son enough to change the subject, forever?


Do come. Let us find Him and find one another there, in quiet, in love, in peace, in friendship, in Cor Unum, the monastery of the heart.