Today was a beautiful January day in Connecticut. It was a most pleasant day to take a walk in Chatfield Hollow State Park (Killingworth, CT) with fellow friends who follow together in Communion and Liberation –an ecclesial movement in the Church. It’s been years since I’ve been in Chatfield Hollow. It was a melancholy day since we were together with our friends Razib and Nur and their son who are moving to California taking up a new mission in life in academic research and Evelyn who is headed back to work in Germany.
Our walk together reminded me of the feast day this past week of the Cistercian abbot Saint Aelred of Rievaulx who wrote extensively of friendship, particularly spiritual friendship. In fact, I had received a week ago a scientific biography of Aelred. Friendship is what binds us together in and for life. I am thinking of the classic definition by Cicero (De Amicitia 6.20): “Friendship is agreement in things human and divine, with good will (benevolentia) and charity (caritas).”
I am grateful for the friendship I share with so many, very particularly the friendship I share in Communion and Liberation.