The Great Gatherer of Friends

I read the following from The Horse and His Boy by C.S. Lewis when I was seven years old, and my heart was lit up with a deep longing for joy in friendship:  

“… they walked with a swing and let their arms and shoulders go free, and chatted and laughed. One was whistling. You could see that they were ready to be friends with anyone who was friendly, and didn’t give a fig for anyone who wasn’t. Shasta thought he had never seen anything so lovely in his life.”

From this moment, Shasta, a young boy alone in a place he knows is not his real home, becomes so enchanted by the Narnians that the courage to seek another life awakens in him. 

Genuine, freely given, joyful, challenging, and inspiring friendship is among the beautiful things we have been blessed with on this earth, and this kind of friendship has a unique loveliness that can transform us and help lead us toward heaven.

International Day of Friendship is celebrated on July 30th, so here are a few stories of friends to honor some of the wonderful manifestations of friendship. 

Friends For Life

It’s great to make friends at any stage of life, but there is an irreplaceable sweetness in friendships that go back to our origins—through all the layers of memories, milestones, life changes, hopes, and dreams. These friends know us so well that they can reflect us like a mirror: a mirror that sometimes reveals things that are so close to us that they are only made visible because of our friends.

Saint Thérèse of Lisieux and her sisters were both family and religious community, but also literally lifelong friends. If it weren’t for the sisters of Saint Thérèse, it’s doubtful we would have The Story of a Soul with all the tiny details of memories, the kind sparked between people who have shared circumstances and witnessed the same things from their unique angles. 

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Friends In Times of Need

Friends who are there for us when clouds gather and the storm breaks overhead are a precious consolation and gift. 

An iconic tableau of this type of friendship is shown at the foot of the Cross. Three women who showed extraordinary love to each other in a time of need were certainly the “Three Marys”—Our Lady, Mary Magdalene, and Mary of Clopas, who literally stood by each other at the Crucifixion. Along with Saint John the Beloved, they supported each other through a nightmare that sent everyone else running in fear. Perhaps it is this exact moment that came to mind for Saint John when he wrote: “Perfect love casts out fear” (1 John 4:18). Their love for Jesus is incredible—but so is their loyalty to the mother of Jesus, expressed in their determination not to abandon her nor her Son. Friendship is tried in a fire as intense as sorrow, and suffering demonstrates how strong such relationships can be. 

Unlikely and Transformative Friendships

One of the most astonishing things that friendship can do is provide a direct bridge from heart to heart, giving safe passage over turbulent waters that other relationships find impossible to cross. A beautiful instance of this is shared by a school feeding charity called Mary’s Meals, of two young girls, Teresa and Tabitha: 

Teresa and Tabitha shouldn’t even be friends, let alone ambassadors for peace.

And yet the friendship built over a Mary’s Meals lunch has become a beacon of hope for a better tomorrow for the children of South Sudan, whose childhoods and futures have been marred by decades of war. The girls’ families are from opposing clans in different states, pitted against one another in a bitter battle for supremacy, all the while fighting to keep their families safe. These girls were destined to spend their lives not knowing the joy they could bring one another.

Last year, that trajectory changed for Teresa and Tabitha thanks to one powerful act of fate and many more simple acts of kindness.

In a world where differences and politics can often tear people apart, friendships like this are pure gold. 

Friends of the Soul

These friends call us on, causing charisms and interests to harmonize, and making us more like sisters and brothers. A classic example of this is two friends who were so interlinked in the pursuits of the soul that they now share the same feast day: Saint Gregory Nazianzen and Saint Basil the Great. Saint Gregory speaks movingly of his friend:

Our single object and ambition was virtue, and a life of hope in the blessings that are to come; we wanted to withdraw from this world before we departed from it. With this end in view we ordered our lives and all our actions. We followed the guidance of God’s law and spurred each other on to virtue. 

If it is not too boastful to say, we found in each other a standard and rule for discerning right from wrong. Different men have different names, which they owe to their parents or to themselves, that is, to their own pursuits and achievements. But our great pursuit, the great name we wanted, was to be Christians, to be called Christians. 

The beauty in friendships like this is awe-inspiring, and the lives of the saints are replete with friendships of this caliber. It’s one of the things that excites me about the universal call to holiness: we are made for great things, including great friendships!

The Final End of Friendship

One of the most captivating ways that I have heard Jesus described is “the Great Gatherer of Friends.” It makes perfect sense, as Jesus is the origin of all that is true, good, and beautiful—including friendship. 

I find as I write this that I can’t really honor my own dear friends in the way I long to. So often they have given me a glimpse of eternal joy and encouraged me to keep questing for my true goals— but as life goes on, often we find ourselves at a crossroads, led to travel different terrains. Sometimes it’s clear that this is also part of “taking up your cross” to follow Jesus: allowing our calling and responsibilities in life to guide our immediate focus. My deepest hope is that the Great Gatherer of Friends will bring us together again—not just on this earth, but taking us across the final border into our real Home with Him. I thank God wholeheartedly for His creation of friendship.

Bio: Maria Khell is a wife, mother, and writer, who delights in combining her deep love of writing, her faith, and a passion for international development. With two sets of relatives situated in Nazareth and Scotland, she lives with her husband and family somewhere between the two, in Belgium. She finds this very convenient for supplies of excellent olives, shortbread, and chocolate.