True Friendship

“Becoming Friends by: Paul Wandell”

In the midst of this confused world Paul Wandell the writer of the book “Becoming Friends” were able to present a clear idea of the significance of Christ in the lives of every individual. Wandell presented how the church brings us closer to our self and to God. He merges the wisdom of Christ in relating to man and the way man relate with others. He made the human relationship called friendship as his basis of what Christianity really means.

Friendship is one of the greatest gift of God to man. For friendship is a relationship were in a human being becomes a “person” who is capable of knowing what he wants or what he needs. Friendship is a longing to be in communion with others a natural need of man for he is a social being. In friendship man become self-conciseness because in this relationship man chose to become part of the life of somebody and he take full responsibility with this choice as a product of his reflection. True friendship brings the individual to his fullness as man, for it brings out all the best possible things hidden in his being.

For me Wandell were right in developing the idea that Christianity is indeed a friendship simply because the two have the same goal and end for man. Christianity and friendship are longing to be connected to others and in the end attain happiness. Attaining happiness is to be honesty, be good, and learn to be equal for these elements give justice. Christ lived his earthly life with these three elements and we all accepted that we could only attain true happiness through and with Christ. Friendship and Christianity is a transcendental relationship both aim that man be able to transcend, to go beyond himself and grow and to attain his fullness according to the design of God. Friendship makes us connected to other person. Christianity faith brings us connected to Christ.

Pope Benedict XVI said that “our Christian faith is not the result of an ethical choice or a lofty idea, but the encounter with an event,”[1] As man we could not go immediately explaining the Divine but we do it by our own human experience and there we see God in that event a new way of understanding our life.

I think if we just learn how to be true friends by living out its responsibility will be a big help on how we live our Christian community. Let God really be part of our daily life let us see Him with our human activities like friendship.

Friendship is a sign of desire to be with others hopefully it leads us to desire to be with God that is why we have Church today to answer this natural need of man.

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[1] Pope Benedict XVI. Encyclical Letter Deus Caritas Est. 2005.

One of the things that I learned in my theological study about the ministry of the deacon in the church is that deacons are helper of the priest in administering graces in the form of sacraments to the people of God, in particular in the ministry of proclaiming the Gospel. At this moment I wish to ask my nine companions to stand-up and face the people, and may I ask the people to look at these ten young men very carefully as they stood in front of you. People of God these are your deacons who are sinful, imperfect, and unworthy to be called ministers of God. These ten men are the gifts of God for the whole Church.

24 hours a day and 7 days a week of being together, I could honestly say that we are sinful in many ways. We are imperfect compared to the others and unworthy to be in the altar of God. With all of these negative qualities we have, you might ask what make us stand-up here and ask for the gift of Ordination? Brothers and sisters it was our hope in the love of Christ that moved us to do this act of faith. We experienced his love and we keep on longing for it.

It was the love of Christ that impelled us to have the strength to say yes even with our imperfections for in our imperfection we relay all the more in the perfect love of God making us to realize that without him we could do nothing for we are nothing without his love. Our experience made us to believe that with the love of Christ, something will come out good from these imperfect, unworthy individuals. All we have to do is to believe and put all our hopes in the power and mercy of the love of Christ.

This is the first thing that we want to teach to you as deacons, “to preach what you believe and live what you preach.” We believed that Christ is the one who called us for this vocation. He was the one who first believed that we can do something for the Church and we just live this belief by submitting everything to his love.