Christian Love as Source, Way and Fulfillment

00:00
00:00
Audio loading...

Welcome! You can log in or create an account to save favorites, edit keywords, transcripts, and more.

Serial: 
NC-00079

Keywords:

Suggested Keywords:

Description: 

Part of "Christian Love as Source, Way and Fulfillment of Christian Life"

(including discussion and questions of retreat participants)

Archival Photo

Photos: 
Notes: 

#set-christian-love-as-source-way-fulfillment

#preached-retreat

Auto-Generated Transcript

so our theme is christian love pythagoras said give me a place to stand and i will move the earth
in an uncertain or we can't achieve very much solidly but our thesis then i think it's a christian thesis is that a guppy mom is that solid place to stand where we can them to remove the earth symbolises we are more than conquerors through him who bugs us so
and we know that all things work to the good for those who love god for producer from his famous him to above in romans apart from his him to live in first corinthians so we're looking at love and specifically now love of neighbor
and this doesn't exclude the whole thing about love of god indeed it's all wrapped up together yeah we can't truly love our neighbor except in and through god's love of us as we've seen this has worked out very rigorously by some thomas theologians arguing that
the holy spirit in the trinity is not just enabling above between father and son in the trinity the holy spirit is that love substantially personified and so analogously with us the young whenever
there's a bond of love between two persons or more the holy spirit inspires that bond of love enables it but also use that bond of love at the deepest level so that's something to think about so were really rejoicing in that
experience of love whether it be friendship love or fumio paternal their spouse or whatever the deepest level of that is the holy spirit according to st thomas position whenever we're able truly to be we this is little image and likeness of trip
nutty and it's the spirit with blaming
i'm amazed by this astonishing range of the modalities of loud the expressions of love we've already noted that human life begins first of all in conception hopefully enough in a moment of time slug between man and woman and then with that love
have conceived up there is that maternal love communicated to the child perhaps in some mysterious way already in the womb and received by the embryo already in the womb so the feel your love of mother of enables above enables the
child to become person and then the our experience of paternal love of daddy usually one of the first words and then of as i become individuated self love hopefully in the best sense then up getting to know bruh
others and sisters if their their sibling love friendship love romantic love spousal love and then as we marry if that's our way than generating life than we share of eternal love paternal love and the thing goes on and there's community law there's love of
all of humanity all of creation of love of the enemy or particular test case and i love of god in all of this
so these this is sub so little brief you have this incredible range of the up any dimensions of love it in one way it's like the different sensors i think feeling a site taste touch of curie could give us all kinds of do
different use to the one reality there and so i think all these different ways of experiencing human love our paths into the one mystery another image imaging sometimes use this on a huge magnificent to pipework and in all these some
stops and all these sub registers it can give him bring us into all kinds of different musical tonalities or an orchestra with all the different instruments are a whole a palette of colors for a gifted artist or something like that but ah if we're
going to journey this way of love walk in love as christ loved us as a paul or one way to do what is just every now and then to work on one area or another of this sub monty splendor of mystery and up it's not so much a ladder is maybe a spiraled stir
turkey's so we can come back and recovery maybe our relationship with our mother maybe she's already deceased but for the christian that doesn't have ended all and to work on that and through prayer and quiet communion to people that love and then listened with a brother with a friend of
of elementary school with up those relationships it didn't quite work etc what we anticipate for the future et cetera it's an ongoing a discipline and asceticism and practice that never runs out of material and were attentive to the thing
ah
our the first love we perceive maternal love paternal love or so so decisive informing us every school of psychology i think insists on that you can go so very bad at the oedipal complex or lived
out or something like that up but it can go so very well and perhaps the one sure
and secret to guarantee that it goes well is this
a benevolent this of care and love of the child and this are kind of forgiving about that the child appearance gerald may use his psychiatrist turned spiritual writer and director he says we really don't have a clue how to bring kids up and
the so again a father and up psychiatrist he says we have all these books but they're really kind of coping in the dark but of this one thing i'm sure he says an important disposed with that hard commitment to the child or to the parents that somehow
it'll work out
ten number of course how both of these modalities of love are images of our relationship with god god as butter christ his mother we're rediscovering that whole range of imagery from scripture and in the mistakes of julian of norwich is particularly rich
cheer jesus his mother who generates us out of here's our birth pangs on the cross and then nurtures us with the milk of the sacraments and gaiters teaches us with the gospel and a cradles us in the bosom of his heart et cetera it's
a lovely range of images and recovering for us that whole gentle nurturing feminine side of jesus jerusalem jerusalem how many times i would have gathered you as a him mother hen gathers the chicks etc
and then of course the paternal image and this was obviously so decisive for jesus and so that his unique relation with the god as other as father and job as a saint paul insists all all paternity
comes from the divine eternity
in the biblical perspective it's not as if we from it our experience of our fathers project that up into the clouds and think of god as a big daddy it's rather the opposite somehow this primordial father who does a generate and create and sustain and defend all of creation gives the
name to all fathers on the earth so in phase two except that kind of copernican revolution of the thing and so to rejoice in maternal paternal love whichever way it's going up in this kind of fuller horizon of our love of god
god and god's love the bus
then there's brotherly sisterly love and that have at least for me it was absolutely decisive and a very comforting and supportive and this is such a fundamental model of what the christian relationship it's about there's something of equality in a bruh
the hood or sisterhood or should be not always if you get there again into sibling rivalry and up all the anger and hostility can be there but again the way out is to reef discover that done that brotherly sisterly love
as it turns out the about the most frequent characterization of the christian community in the new testament is that of brothers sisters on dealt foi there's all kinds of images as flock and as building and as fine and body the number
hours etc but the one that comes up again and and given to give his brothers and sisters and that's very important for us hears monks to rug claim this and to live this and of so again as we work on our nation sisters and brothers to see that that's a little
image of what our relationship is the christian community and what are we look forward to our relation for him forever in the kingdom with up with all the saved
and then up as we move into romantic love that starts really to give fire and energy and excitement to this category of love if we think of love just in its most up austere terms of benevolence willing the good of the other i think that's true theologically that covers
a whole range from love of enemy to love of spouse etc but it's a middle of a flat it's a little colourless but as we get into these particular expressions of love where love is reciprocated and enjoy etc then we find the excitement of this category and certainly romantic love it
is so where this happens and this can as we know going to be darkest destructive stuff or it can be truly of the way into heaven beatrice and dante kind of thing
and the canticle
the
early christians and the medieval saw the canticle as kind of summing up all of scripture
because summing up finding our relation of christ as spouse or relation with god of spouse and up and kingdom as wedding banquet so to ensure that in the patient of it john clinical sort of the early desert st says
that arab love serve as the bottle for your christian love and in fact the early greek fathers when they're talking about the most sublime christian love they don't use a guppy the greek term they use arrows which is the greek term for desire and passion that
that's so that's also one way that christian of god can be experienced and then despite its fullness of course be a marriage that incredible luck bond and mutuality that basic human
a unit that generates and sustains life and up so that basic image of what the kingdom years
so up again this is just a quick overview of the specifically
familial of forms of love and scripture uses each one of these experiences to explore what is christian community and what is our relationship with god
so we don't want to repress this human but to fulfill it through
kind of giving it it's it's inner life in christian love
ah then we have the love and breaks out of the family circle and can be so liberating for the young person and that's friendship love we choose our friends we don't choose mom and dad brother and sister of we choose our friends
and there's a really quality there and that there can sometimes be the most astonishing diversity but it comes out of the mystery of freedom
if the mother since to the kid go off and be friends with little johnny over there probably little johnny will be the one that the kid will not be friends will put up for some choice god knows why of that moment happens and up quite a lot of the mystics and some are like seen a or read that is
is the highest expression of human and christian love we can discuss to beat that later but you can have brotherly love or sisterly love that don't attain to the fullness of friendship love or you can have maternal love paternal love feel your love but they really mature when they also be
come friendship love someone like cs lewis would argue
and so this is the way will be in the kingdom will all be friends one of another this is jesus is great pascoe give to us i call you no longer servants but friends so according to some again it's the most universal form of love
it's not constricted by blood ties or anything like that and of it's opened i rejoice truly when my friend finds another friend and another and another i don't rejoice that much if my spouse finds another pet spouse ins
subset of startling exclusivity there but friendship is universal and so that's one of the great are models it's incredible value we were discussing about teenagers and how to what how to speak spirituality with them well the way
in the early christians did it to the roman greek culture which cultural value friendship above all if you read plato if you read aristotle this is when the human experience is most fulfilling and rewarding when it attains to friendship
so the early christian community said instead if you become christians that experience of friendship isn't repressed it's fulfilled and this is what luke is doing when he gives these descriptions of the early community really apostolic community which are the a greek roman definitions of friendship they were
from one heart and one mind in one spirit says luke with this was the kind of in the air greek definition of what friendship is friendship is when there is one heart and mind and spirit between two or more so and luke is saying is you're human values yes your splendid
and you'll find out their repression against but their fulfillment up in the christian community
then specific modalities of love of neighbor love of the needy neighbor this has a particular urgency and here are theme of love cakes can be just seem kind of sweetness and light can get us in the hard area of politics scripture is very info
adding that if anyone deserves our love and if there's any test case for the authenticity of our love it's what we're doing for the needy to help them to change their situation so first john three we know love by this that christ
lay down his life for us and we ought to lay down our lives for one another switch all the way and even unto death this business with love how does god's love abide in anyone who has the world's goods and sees a brother or sister in need and yet refuses help little
children let us love not a word or speech but in truth and action so we've got to walk the talk and that gets us into preferential option for the poor and duff liberation spirituality and all that mother teresa says that the christ that way
we encounter in the poor is precisely the christ we encounter in the eucharist so to have opened our vision to this dimension
and then that top that to get case love not only our friends who reciprocate love not only our brothers and sisters or mommy or daddy etc but love our enemies if you only bought those who love you what reward is there in that you need even the young pharisees do
the same so up this is the challenge
the great anglican isaac watts says this is the singular glory of our religion it is hard to find something quite like this yeah up judaism of something like this can be found perhaps in buddhism or hinduism but it's most astonishing
why do we love our neighbor why do we love our enemy there's all kinds of theories that it's well to ultimately win them over so they will be enemy to safeguard as so that they will destroy us
and kind of shame them heap burning coals on their heads kind of thing but the deepest sight of scripture of the new testament seems to be this is just the way god loves god makes the sun to shine on the just and the unjust and the rain on everyone and so god
hard lumps are unconditionally and so should our love be and this is the love of jesus who receives a kiss of judas and praise for his cruise fires on the cross
and wind up only mother church looks at a up
case of beatification and canonization for martyrdom this is a basic criterion did the christian who was killed pray for those who are doing it or was it simply that the christian was so bashing them either verbally or emotionally or physically or something that they then responded wrath and kill him well that's
not martyrdom martyrdom is that fullness of offering to the father that's expressed in love of enemy and then it becomes redemptive we see that in the first martyr in the book of acts stephen and praise for those who one stone him to death including a song
oh then another interesting i think modality of christian love is the love of all generations there said particularity that concreteness of the love of the person next to us and that's that's very urgent but that doesn't exclude that we love also have everyone in the little village or to
town and everyone in the a rural grilling and everyone in the past and everyone here the future that really expanse of rising chesterton talks about that i'm kind of tyranny that we usually exercise in terms of our own little group of
of bump contemporaries were going to decide what we're going to do what we want you regardless of west to follow us and clean up after us or all those had collected wisdom and insight and suffering of those who have preceded us but to open our hearts up in benevolence income
patient to all have gone before and all who are coming after that gives quite a different a range of law that is catalysts city of love loving them capitalism yeah it's been since and also bug in the best since them
and also then love of all creatures of yes there are a true christian love of animals many theologians today are saying absolutely yes
yeah i'll do animals truly love simba philosophers theologians or say truly yes that they can be for us models of fidelity of through thick and thin of an unconditional love that can put us to shame sometimes but just the beauty of creation
den abruption to your they should and would tell a whole theology of thumb evolution that there's this energy that's driving all of the universe to higher forms of complexification higher forms of consciousness what is that energy driving
it all up to higher forms that energy terms radio energy or love oxo in its kind of most primitive forms and it slowly attain to consciousness and self-awareness and mutuality in the human person but that doesn't just start with
humans as we see with the the tender apparently carrying nurturing of of other dog for the puppy through something like that so this is a even larger exciting horizon of this theme of love that someone like ten yard offers at some
of the ecological theologians today provide that up
we must think of love kind of in universal cosmic terms there's a lovely quote of two yard about all of the achievements of science but we must keep moving forward to up
true come to grips with that final energy source it will transform everything he writes some day after mastering the winds the waves and tides and gravity we shall harness for god the energies of love and then for the second time in the history of the world
we will have discovered fire so it's a wonderful so this as something of the young range of possibility of love of neighbor in the most done extensive from horizon
will conclude now with some thoughts about love of god in the sense of our love of god but especially because god first loved us and it's all wrapped up in one month we can only love god in it through the the grace of the spirit that enables that love as
and against the spirit is that bonded ignace with god at the deepest level
i it's in christ through the spirit that we cleave to the godhead so our love of god is trinitarian and brings us into that your life of
god which is five
so we start with that first and great commandment we've been building up to it but jesus tosses it out first and we've got to now try to recover its priority it's primacy
this is the first and great commandment you shall love the lord your god with all your heart mind soul and strength
ah as you might know this is the shema jesus didn't just make this up this is the central teaching of israel this is the prayer that each do is to recite at least twice a day and it it's the whole wisdom tradition of israel it's the whole covenantal tradition it's all prophetic
tradition we shall have no other gods but god in love and so we have to break all the other idols so you can really sum up all of the judeo christian proclamation in this one not in this one commandment
this exigent dominican speak miss written to magnificent volumes on a guppy in scripture he says this is the soul and life of all the doctrine of scripture is shima few young the first commandment of our lord this is the one thing necessary
ah apart from all the good things we do or don't do
this has more value one act of love of god than anything else especially in the sense of god's love us but also of our loving god of a sublime mystic like channel cross he insists on that
are you talking about mary and martha the active in the contemplative and he's saying we need both certainly but if by contemplative you mean pure love this is where you should abide if and when you're called to these moments of pure love as we all are there's martha and mary in all of us
until the sole reaches the state of union above she should practice love in both the active and contemplative life yet once she arrives at woman said true love she should not become involved in other works and exterior exercises might be of the slightest hindrance of the attendant and ten
dungeness of love toward god even though those other works be a great service to god for a little of this pure love is more precious to god and the soul and more beneficial to the whole church even though it seems when is doing nothing that all these other works put together
so this is the claim of mistakes which again could slow but not only will we start and the way we journey kind of the energy and the walk in love but of the highest of what we can achieve as human beings
and up either we believe it or not tough said thomas acquaintances to love god freely in this lies the fullness of human salvation
oh and again mistakes like the author the clouds sake you told me in and through love that we possess god as god there's something in the movement of love which is the movement again of myself to the other embracing the other as other than to get me quite beyond
my concept concepts and thoughts so i can't possess god as god in all my deepest thinking about god but i can possess god is god in this cleaving to god in love
our love of god is often very impure with know that st bernard says we start with loving god for us for what we get out of it but that's all right this is the love of the child of the mother and father it's pretty much need love and god in god's green benevolence accepts the
this
cs lewis he has this wonderful book on the for loves he said when he was plotting a book he struggled thought he'd start out by bashing what he calls need love and exalting gift love but then he realized more and more that are an issue become a little children and up all these petitions of the lords
prayer at center and the god of expections and sustains and inspires and responds to need love
so cs lewis's sometimes the straightest way to a place is not the safest way to journey but we have to do all these are curves and tours as highly one along the way here if we tried to straighten out highway one we be real trouble and but if we have the humility to go in and out and up and down we will
get there and so that's the journey of our love with one another and in a special way
in our love of god
ah there's all kinds of rich of theology here and we are all called to be a theologians and so too well
by theologians meaning simply as son set up and some says faith seeking understanding and up so we try to see what is this christian faith we've got with all these different doctrines about eucharist to church should marry him sir joseph and only water and dumb home
the rest of it how does it all hold together well one way to see that is in terms of this
one central reality young thug of a guthrie love ah this is why everything is god didn't create out of some kind of need to prove something to mommy god or some of some kind of that achievement obsession or something
thing i've got to show the others but it's just out of the pure abundance of god's creative love and so is for this that the generative act
of of love is created as a little image of this mysterious intensive love within the trinity the dubbed generated all of creations as an expression of this love
sometimes says we can't give any other reason for creation than that but the the good is effusive of itself just wants to share itself which is wants to an outpour that's a characteristic of the good a brunel benevolence of love so again all of creation is
is this revelation this self manifestation of god's compassion
and then why what is sin soon as when i break this arbitrary war that arbitrary rule and but the the jews came up with some six hundred thirteen different of commandments to deal breakers of an effect but it's basically some kind of betrayal of love if it's truly sin
and then i think that makes sense sin was what distance the prodigal son from the father's house
and then what is redemption it simply turning around coming to himself and journeying back and being embraced by the father the father always loves the sun but the sun is able to experience embrace when the sun freely returns to the father's house so the father's love is a constant this unconscious
shown above it's not that god's stopped loving us just gets very very irritated with us if we do this sooner that sin know it's just the this or that sin puts up that obstacles so that we can't receive that love as we should
so it's not a god whereas his emotional ups and down to her emotional ups and downs of but it's that we are free and part of this are awesome
a gift of freedom is our capacity to in one way or another in so many ways say old gods say no to our neighbor
ah
and so that's a theology of what sin is all about that i think makes sense what would help me about this would be a definitive know to the father and definitive staying there in that distant land with the young pigs and the cornhusks et etc and years
earning for the father's house but somehow are maliciously intentionally determining not to return out of hatred for god and he took herself and cetera
oh don't see he would never do that we could discuss the head but that's what hell would be a distancing oneself from the communion of love which is the kingdom so given this baldness given the situation that we all find ourselves and when we are another distant from the kingdom of thus
the incarnation god cannot keep distant from of the person in trouble just as apparent he had just keeping an indifferent did distance from a child is getting into trouble but it will immediately draws near establishes again i'm solidarity in communion and
that's what incarnation is all about that's explains jesus was coming to us god so loved the world or that he said his only begotten son
ah so this is the theology of incarnation are you go all the way through the geology of christ's suffering and death again of not to pay off some kind of debt or duplicate god's anger something there's all kinds of ways and theologians have explained or how isn't that this cross saves us this
zero of soteriology if you want to get fancy theologically well i think the deepest of theology of how the cross saves us is in such an emphatic witness of god's love of jesus is love and there's nothing like love to call us back
in our freedom if you just drag the person back or just put a guilt trip on them that's not truly redemptive
but greater love has no one than this than to lay down one's life for one's friends this can indeed raise us up
so julian emerged as christ has joy in his passion and death because of his love for us that's the narrow way that becomes redemptive for us because it's the undeniable
proof for faith of that
of all the way as jesus says the the false shepherd of gets out of there with the wolf comes but the good shepherd stands and is with the sheep even unto death
and then when his redemption what his resurrection for christ and for us will christ to loves us all the way and loves the father all the way even unto death as some of the village and say this kind of challenges god it's puts it up to god so that god then
has to intervene and raised up christ and raise up all of us otherwise a sin and death a victory in the cross which wanted to be this definitive defeat of jesus and his little movement that's why the powers to be nailed him there and this summer
as is proof that power and one that the law and one that the roman empire in one so of jesus gave his all at that point of god has to intervene to rub raise us up so so say young
wonderful passage about that in ephesians but god who is rich in mercy out of the great love with which he loved us even when we were dead through our trespasses made us alive together with christ raised us up with him and seated us with him in the heavenly places in
christ jesus so here love is that deepest motive in god to raise up a beloved son can be the beloved son of in the in the tomb and in none group of death and raises up in christ it sleep force a draw
join us in to bite as the father's love of the sun sooner or later drew the sun back to the father's house that dub remembrance of already in the old testament zephaniah three it's certain he will renew us with his love so that's how it happened
guns and then what is what is the church they are we to understand church this institution that lays down all these rules and done keeps us on the street narrow to it wants to be this primarily as community of love your son
this dynamic of our brothers and sisters together adjourning together are in the one bob of of the bridegroom of far brother of our friend of our spouse christ
ah what he then where are we going where we journey well that's to the kingdom what is the kingdom and there again the imagery of some bright the bride and bridegroom together at the wedding feast that's perhaps the most exalted or imagery for what the kingdom years
and done
up
finally that because that's what divine trinity is this is the ultimate sublime ministry mystery and ministry of in some ways the trinity seems the mystery so most green book from us and we could happily live our life on without much change without fear even being a trinity but for the fully
christian life of we discover ourselves enfolded in the trinity and everything becomes trinitarian and of is lived out in this trinitarian wife and the different mystics and writers and text of scripture work this out into for ways because it's a great mystery but what however you work it out it's finally
this mystery of a copy lot of the father who explodes and about in such a full way that the sun is generated and then the jenner the sun reciprocates in this love with such fullness the mutual bond is person his spirit and it in that
intense dynamic ah it were caught up with in any little act of love and especially in the deepest love of god and neighbor
they quote of from julian of norwich that's kind of famous but i think beautiful ah you might know julian was as wonderful english medieval mistake and she had this whole series of showings or of revelations about suffering and sin and death and
of all of it and she wrote it in two versions and that's the big book on the revelations are showing so julian with the very end she says well i wanted to know how the whole thing hangs together once the ultimate meaning of it all this is the eighty six chapter
of the long text of the showings she said i desire many times to know in what was our lord's final meeting and it was said finally to me what do you wish to know your lords meaning in all this know what well love was his meaning
who revealed it to you love what did he reveal to you bob why does he reveal it to you for them remain in this and you will know more of the same but you will never know different without end
so i was taught that love is our the meaning and i saw barry certainly in this and in everything that before god made us god loved us in which love up the sustained us and which love never abated and never will and in this love god has done all god's works
and in this love god has made all things profitable to us and in this love our life is everlasting in our creation we had a beginning but the love in which we were created was in god from without beginning in this love we have our beginning
and all this shall we see in god without end amen
to this hike and and my presentation and now we can open up to any kind of discussion comments questions objections she might have but always lovingly

it was kinda rushed towards the and
projector
yeah yeah
yeah oh good yeah that'll be for sale and adoption elizabeth
why not have women
why i have increasing
perhaps it's the arena i my
that's so often
i'm find the children the child
standing play fire
i mean
the boy
family guy asking forgiveness and
love
and then i i i think is danny
yeah
look one
the he was funny
he's alive
the absolutely most her different phases of this one
the unions have this whole thing of active imagination specifically with a dream but with anything else because the dream is ours we can take it the way it is what we can also development and explore further potentialities strike it gets point rich interment
that's what that basically all the fathers and mothers company scripture do so i think that's absolutely true
here in time
a out and shepherd
the i a pension
now what am i
i am said you know who knows how to judge a book of revelations never say
christian your say much
yeah if you feel like you did before
a progress report and and also just doesn't happen and a half feet up or to say no when i said was homeless or smashed that
how he says
salvage as self as get it's okay to still her thing for how soundless can you be without
ah
and same time or another
you know that that continually moving toward a more suppose that zantac be more loving
he noticed that in new delhi
legacy moves
arsenal boss knows his intellect
does not in the smoke
for an intensity of the those concern you cannot sum of my
thomas quince was said
will be good or something
it would seem reasonable levels in his past
respond more more
this respect from of center and that's without a economic number
and ah
paul even tells us in women's
at least one person wins the prize
what is a race
it's shocking to learn what we're own called was going to remember not not the damage week
love years somewhere in the cold war zone
it straight up do now
so like the one he comes first the one of those
hello to strike
encourage tell it to
thank you
this thing of friendship is so universal and that may be one of places god is in a hidden way even when people aren't acknowledging that and i also romantic involvement central
i know a a priest to minister to eight victim snow and he would go to those dying in some and work through it and really come to a deep of abandonment to god with others who was a great deal of anger there and duck he was working with one man who was close to death and meant insisted he now
ever know god
add the priests have you ever known love and the man said that certainly in the preset well then you know god and this was a kind of a breakthrough for the man but if there's any true love out there again their guardians whatever particular limits etc in mind i have enough
is meted expression but this
being with the other and for the other not just for what i get out of it but also for the other this this is where god and binds yes you know my has the privilege of witnessing
response french between our daughter
janet netherlands take a great project
use spray cheese
and
i find it personally great privilege to have
been able to witness this the death
it is to win
each other and how it manifests itself through a sprinkled
when she knew died
and happened and highlights even it
my daughters
spiritual life have i understand god's love her
oh people in general
god i am acutely aware of present god was he is this particular friendship
which from my daughter is she they lived three thousand miles apart put something else
a are and that was like seventy once was six months
i fell for him
ha ha i learned on not a bow what friendship is particularly
this particular compound this particular function
it was so it was a beautiful pussy
now i can be a powerful experience it gets us who just everything and it is universal i don't know how many of you saw that film stand by me but it's about friendship at the pre teen level how that can sometimes be the most powerful experience of a person's life and then the teenage
print think will bath and but they can can also go very good and then the elderly and sometimes a deep friendship between the oldest in the community in one of the youngest or brother philip who just died of the person closest to him was the person who had just arrived very recently in their develop
this tender friendship that was just astonishing that bridge the years in the background etc so one
st arid is wonderful book on friendship he says god god is love can we also say god is friendship and whoever abides in friendship abides in god he says yes we can see that because it's the same thing because friendship is is very high expression of love so we can
a god is friendship the the bond of love between first second and third person is this friendship love
so when we counter friendship where can i come some kind of little glimpse of water ultimate reality is all about
yes ah you may have commend about passover being exclusive
instead exclusive all and that a man and a woman
exclude their relationship i guess other sexual connections and so therefore from time immemorial the church as not welcomed can you home
on against i am here but love is just love ya s includes and as it gets into friendship then the spouses were delighted with the other spouse has many more friends and cetera i think what are the signs if it's not going to well there's lots of jealousy there and
the desire of one spouse to have the other spotted exclusively for them in every respect minutes but to rejoice in them the expansion of love also
that's what is lost last shaft to when consider
what's exclusive to them and what where when the i need to be includes yeah
the changes with asia
when
you going into not commanded
a life vest alone like the husbands of other
but she was real know
then ah i said robert l up i have the exchequer actually
after class a class act hospital and when i stopped by
look what they're at l o a plan that out i thought oh make it at but my point here at the out of earth and that and share of ancient ship may get thrashed by enemy
hour and i i go now that's a lot by and was struck me how beautiful and what patients
so i am a given
oh and i like that
he added to the or and how each wine and way and
you're absolutely right and mary ellen brushwork just a miracle in brother philip cause he came from a very tough also somewhat angry and bitter german catholic family and catholicism was basically about rules and you couldn't always keep the rules and sin and guilt and
anger etc and up particularly women were dangerous and but much of his early years here was to go over it up when he would approach for him and to what kind of truth them out because he were dressed properly in this kind of
but he caused a great deal we we wouldn't have imagined eight years ago even that he could have been transformed in his character as he was basically through that incredible chivalrous love of muriel and his nurse who met him came to love him would come
all the way every weekend from a palo alto just to minister to him and to us a totally free after having worked the whole week of a nurse so kind of a postman's it's really you
and when she looked at him
oh and this is our fear that this weekend
this so he was absolutely transform from with them and freely the precisely through this generous feminine and boundless love each member of approach is an n
yeah i'm happy
salvia masha me when i like in december
sad stuff this one pushing guess you know chair incentives she used to the and nourished and then the she caught her catch them like
hail stones are now handled happens on at my lap and let it hasn't she has tremendous pain and suffering but i think one of the central joyous for if not these central choi was being there with philip administering to him so and we think she's a living
saved between how and life
yeah and i'm so transpired and he
well absolutely so itself parable of it's how we might do even conclude with brother philip and very elegant luke these three thank you
cash show him