“…No one has greater love than this, to lay down one’s life for one’s friends.”
“You are my friends if you do what I command you…”
“I have called you friends, because I have told you everything I have heard from my Father…”
2. Meditatio
Friendships Being Formed Today on the Same Playground I Found Friends Some Sixty Years Ago
I cannot honestly say I am an especially good friend to my friends. Other than Kim, I can go months, even years, without speaking to those closest to me. I rarely tell them everything. Yet when we meet again, it is as though no time has passed at all. Friendship, like an old creek bed in drought, suddenly remembers where the water once flowed.
As I think about my oldest friendships, I realize nearly all of them were planted in the soil of St. Mary’s Parish in Amarillo. Friendship there was formed not merely by personality, but by proximity to the altar. Brian is perhaps the clearest example.
We first met as boys at St. Mary’s School, two children seesawing on the playground while Heaven quietly prepared sixty years of history beneath our feet. When my family moved to The Glenn, we drifted apart. Then Providence, which delights in circular roads, reunited us at another St. Mary’s in College Station while attending Texas A&M. We became roommates. We became adults. Brian met Laurie there. Then life scattered us again like sheep over many hills.
For decades we hardly spoke.
Yet every so often, after Mass back at St. Mary’s in Amarillo, we would meet again as naturally as if we had merely stepped outside for coffee. No explanations necessary. No accounting for the lost years. Friendship had remained alive beneath the silence like roots beneath winter ground.
Now both of us have somehow become shepherds. Brian among the hills of Missouri, and I here at The Glenn among sheep, dogs, fences, dust, and gates. Abraham himself would probably laugh at the absurdity of it all: two boys from a Catholic playground growing into old pastoralists with Livestock Guardian Dogs and stories.
In a few weeks Kim and I will drive north to Missouri to deliver an LGD puppy and renew a friendship begun nearly sixty years ago. It occurs to me that perhaps this is how divine friendship works too. I wander. I lose track of time. I become distracted with fences and failures and ordinary worries. Yet every Mass is Christ meeting me again outside St. Mary’s saying, as though no time has passed at all,
“Come. Walk with me, friend.”
3. Oratio
Lord Jesus Christ, Friend of Abraham, Friend of fishermen, Friend of sinners, teach me how to remain in friendship with You.
Forgive me for the many times I vanish into silence, forgetting to speak with You except in emergencies. Forgive me for acting more like a distant employee than a beloved friend.
Thank You for the strange and faithful companions You have placed throughout my life— those who remain connected to me through memory, laughter, prayer, and shared altars.
Bless Brian and Laurie. Bless Kim. Bless every friend who has quietly helped carry me toward Heaven.
And when I wander far from You, meet me again gently at the gate of the Church, as though no time has passed at all.
Modern people often speak of friendship as though it were a hobby, like golf or collecting stamps. Yet friendship is one of the few things that proves eternity has leaked into time.
A friend is someone who reminds me who I am when I have nearly forgotten myself.
Christ calls His disciples friends immediately before laying down His life. That is because friendship is not proven by constant conversation but by sacrifice. The modern world imagines friendship is maintained by uninterrupted communication, but old friends often understand something deeper: friendship can survive silence if it was rooted in truth.
The Church herself is a friendship that has outlived empires.
St. Mary’s Parish became, without my realizing it, a sort of earthly Emmaus where friendships were formed through shared prayer, shared Eucharist, shared childhood, and shared foolishness. The teeter-totter of first grade became mysteriously connected to sheep pastures sixty years later.
That is the sort of thing only God could write.
And perhaps Heaven itself is simply this: discovering that all true friendships were secretly friendships in Christ all along.
5. Actio — In Light of Laudato Si’ and Synodality
The history of our friendship with God is always linked to particular places which take on an intensely personal meaning; we all remember places, and revisiting those memories does us much good.
We express our heartfelt gratitude to all who have made this work possible. We entrust the dissemination and use of this volume to the intercession of Saint Francis of Assisi and Saint Hildegard of Bingen — both remembered for their profound sense of nature as a revelation of God — as well as to Saint Joseph and Saint Monica, together with Blessed Luigi and Maria Beltrame Quattrocchi, patrons of the family. H.Em. Card. Michael Czerny S.J. H.Em. Card. Kevin Joseph Farrell Prefect Prefect Dicastery for Promoting Dicastery for Laity, Integral Human Development Family and Life 4 October 2025
Pope Francis writes in Laudato Si’ that “everything is connected.” Synodality is not merely committees and meetings; it is learning again how to walk together as companions rather than competitors.
Action:
This week I will treat friendship as holy ground. I will reach out intentionally to one old friend—not to accomplish something, not to debate something, but simply to remain connected.
Like Abraham beneath the oak tree, I will make room for hospitality.
And I will remember that every parish, every shared meal, every road trip, every pasture fence, and every awkward conversation may become part of God’s slow work of creating friends for eternity.
6. Song Pairing 🎵
🎶 “That’s What Friends Are For” – Dionne Warwick and Friends🎵
“That’s What Friends Are For” is a 1985 charity single recorded by Dionne Warwick and credited to Dionne Warwick and Friends—featuring Elton John, Gladys Knight, and Stevie Wonder. Originally written by Burt Bacharach and Carole Bayer Sager, the song became an anthem of compassion and hope, raising funds and awareness for AIDS research.
A song that understands friendship is less about constant presence and more about faithful return. Like old friends meeting again after Mass, true friendship resumes as though grace itself has been keeping the conversation alive.
Circle of Friends (1995) is a romantic drama film directed by Pat O’Connor and adapted by Andrew Davies from Maeve Binchy’s Circle of Friends. Set in 1950s Ireland, it explores friendship, love, and class through the intertwined lives of three young women attending university in Dublin. The film gained attention for its sensitive performances, especially Minnie Driver’s breakout role.
A story reminding me that friendships formed in youth often become the hidden architecture of an entire life. Long after ambitions fade, the people who walked beside us remain among God’s greatest gifts.
8. Poetic Verse
We met on a teeter-totter at St. Mary’s long ago, two boys learning balance without knowing Heaven was watching.
Now gray gathers in our beards and sheep graze different hills, yet Christ still meets us after Mass calling us friends.
