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PelagiathePenit
Guest
The bible is filled with passages on friendship. Which do you feel is the most true to you?
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J
Joie_de_Vivre
Guest
John 15:
Yes, even according to the Bible love of friends>love of spouse. Of course in this day and age with the idolatry of marriage what it is, it is an extremely contentious passage.
“Idolatry of marriage”??? You must be kidding me. If anything, marriage is undervalued in this day and age. I think you’re misunderstanding the “love of friendship” concept. The idea that friendship is the “most pure” love is correct. But it’s perfection is supposed to be within spousal love. Your spouse as your best friend with each spouse putting the other first.
After all…spousal love should be inclusive of Agape and not just consist of Eros.
For the record…my favourite passage regarding friendship is:
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Joie_de_Vivre
Guest
Do you have any Catholic sources to support such a viewpoint? I mean things like encyclicals, catechisms, works by saints, etc.
Do you have any for yours?
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Joie_de_Vivre
Guest
Which part do you want sources for?
The fact that marriage is a sacrament. There’s no “sacrament of friendship”.
The fact that husband and wife are the only ones capable of being co-creators with God and bring new life into the world. Thus becoming a physical “copy” of God in the world. As the love between Father and Son is the Holy Spirit, the love of husband and wife has the potential to become visible in a third person.
Also the fact that in Genesis the husband and wife are destined to become “one flesh”, this is confirmed by Jesus in the Gospel.
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Joie_de_Vivre
Guest
I have never seen a group for Catholic single people that wasn’t deliberately or de facto a way for people to find boyfriends/girlfriends, the rate at which people who are over 30 have people try to arrange dates even if the person doesn’t want it. The fact that people often treat those who do not desire to get married as though they are immature and selfish. Lay celibacy (excluding the clergy and also religious life such as professed brothers and sisters) is virtually never discussed and sometimes outright ridiculed. There is also the pervasive and obstinate refusal to recognize celibacy as superior to marriage which is rather problematic as per the Council of Trent and 1 Corinthians 7.
Yes, marriage is a sacrament, now if you check impediments to marriage lack of love isn’t listed. Rather interestingly in the Middle Ages people did take vows regarding friendship which were quite similar to marriage vows with the substantial difference in that they were forever as opposed to “until death do us part”. You see, in the medieval view while marriage ended at death (same as today) friendship was seen as transcending death, indeed it was thought that at judgement day that friends would stand before all and give witness to their friends’ fidelity in Christ.
So marriage is special because make baby?
Yes, one flesh, but not one spirit.
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PelagiathePenit
Guest
Why does everything have to become a debate?
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Joie_de_Vivre
Guest
People just don’t value friendship like they did a century ago.
Well I would imagine that most groups “marketed” toward single people specifically, would have a certain appeal to people who are seeking a spouse. That’s just human nature.
Often people, in this day and age, who don’t want to marry, actually are immature and/or selfish.
Yes, celibacy is a higher calling than marriage. But the reason it’s not said is not because marriage is idolized, but because the celibate life is undervalued.
If they were so important, then why didn’t the Church make them into a sacrament? Obviously the Church saw fit to elevate marriage.
Regarding love, it might not be an impediment to lack love, but true married love, when present, is infused with sacramental grace in order to help the spouses to fulfill their vocation.
According to St. Paul, it’s not just friendship that transcends death, but love. Love remains even after death, and one would assume that this includes married love.
Yes…it is.
I never said one spirit. Friends can’t really be one spirit either.
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Joie_de_Vivre
Guest
Or maybe they’ve seen what divorce does to the children and don’t want it.
Which is still marriage being overvalued relative to celibacy.
Honestly I do not recall, by what means the Sacraments were chose or if they were chosen, but I do know that friendship has historically been see as a sacramental.
Do you have anything that says that married love is any more a sacramental than that between friends?
Rather queerly historically marriage wasn’t seen as about love, indeed in Western thought a widespread belief in marrying for love as something other than foolhardy post-dates the Reformation by centuries.
How does breeding relate to love?
One might think friends can’t be one spirit, but then again Deuteronomy 13:6 mentions a friend as one’s own soul, 1 Samuel 18:1 has Jonathan and David’s souls knit together, in Oratio 43 Gregory speaks of himself and Basil that “We seemed to be two bodies with a single spirit” and that is in the Liturgy of the Hours.
Possibly, but I doubt most people think along these lines. In my experience, most people who delay marriage are doing so to maintain their current lifestyle.
Or marriage being valued in it’s proper way but celibacy not so much because of PC liberals who are afraid to emphasise that the celibate life really is a higher calling. I don’t think the value of marriage is to blame for that.
Yes, and maybe we need to bring that back a little, but marriage is not just a sacramental, but an actual sacrament.
The fact that it is aided by the sacramental grace of marriage.
I’d say it was wrongly regarded as having nothing to do with love. Theology of marriage was sort of neglected for a few centuries. It was only in the 19th/20th centuries that a theology of love and the body in marriage was further developed.
Well, sure, you don’t have to be in love to have babies together, but it certainly helps. In any case it is a symbol of the bond of love, that is ideally supposed to exist, between married persons that they can create a new life together.
No two people can become “one spirit”. Their souls being “knit together” is just poetic language.
I really think that if you are trying to find a justification in scripture, for marriage being lesser than friendship then you’re barking up the wrong tree. Scripture is equally as full of symbolism relating to romantic love as it is friendship.
Most of society already downgrades marriage, it’s sad that Catholics are doing that too.
If you’re worried about the divorce rate, the solution is to promote indissolubility of marriage.
Usually because people have differing opinions on things and perhaps enjoy the theological discussion.
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PelagiathePenit
Guest
Maybe American culture where romantic love is prized above all else. I think friendships last longer than marriages or can be deeper than romantic love.
Yeah, but there’s a reason that romantic love is prized. It’s because the human heart longs for love like that.
Also, romantic love and friendship can go hand in hand. They’re not mutually exclusive. That is the reason that marital love, specifically, is superior to friendship alone. Married lovers are supposed to be friends, companions, confidants, and lovers.
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Joie_de_Vivre
Guest
Define “maintain their current lifestyle”
So why don’t conservatives point it out? Why do conservatives have an attitude that virtually everyone should marry.
Friendship vows
Brother, as we before pledged our troth,
Both with word and deed,
From this day forward nevermore
To fail the other in good times and in bad,
[But] to help each other in time of need.
Brother, be now true to me,
And I shall be as true to you,
Insofar as God allows me.
Marriage vows:
I (name) take thee (name) as my wedded wife,
To have and to hold from this day forward,
For better, for worse, for richer, for poorer,
In good times and in bad, in sickness and in health,
Till death separates us, if Holy Church will ordain it:
And thereto I plight thee my troth.
Note, in both they would exchange identical objects.
That’s marriage, not “married love” whatever that is.
This whole marriage should be passionate love only dates to the 18th century.
But is that love romantic?
Marital love is in the Bible, but as romantic love? If one claims marriage is built on love then people will always try to argue that if they no longer love each other the marriage should be ended as that is a logical conclusion.
So why does the term romance come from a type of nonphysical relationship? Why does the conception of romance have more to do with historical friendship than marriage? Do you know why the phrase romantic friendship is a modern term? Because previously it was just friendship. Friends were to be considered ones companions, confidants and the person(s) with whom one was intimate with (not to be confused with a euphemism for sex). You know the phrase “'Tis better to have loved and lost than never to have loved at all.”? It was written about a friend. The human heart does long for intimacy and affection, unlike today that need used to be met by friends not sexual partners.
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ConfusedLucy
Guest
There does seem to be an attitude that a person is either paired up or lonely. I wonder if it’s our lifestyles of moving around more that hinders the building up of strong friendships.
In my own life I can think of two long distance friends who were both very lonely, isolated, unhappy and didn’t get out much and then met girlfriends and their lives completely turned around. Don’t get me wrong I am happy for them but also a bit sad that it took a romantic relationship to make their lives better and that they couldn’t have achieved the same by making friends.
In my own life I can think of two long distance friends who were both very lonely, isolated, unhappy and didn’t get out much and then met girlfriends and their lives completely turned around. Don’t get me wrong I am happy for them but also a bit sad that it took a romantic relationship to make their lives better and that they couldn’t have achieved the same by making friends.
Getting back to the OP’s original question, this is the Scripture verse my husband and I chose to have read at our 25th wedding anniversary Mass three years ago.
Sirach 6: 6-17
6
Let those who are friendly to you be many,
but one in a thousand your confidant.
7
When you gain friends, gain them through testing,b
and do not be quick to trust them.
8
For there are friends when it suits them,
but they will not be around in time of trouble.
9
Another is a friend who turns into an enemy,
and tells of the quarrel to your disgrace.
10
Others are friends, table companions,
but they cannot be found in time of affliction.
11
When things go well, they are your other self,
and lord it over your servants.
12
If disaster comes upon you, they turn against you
and hide themselves.
13
Stay away from your enemies,
and be on guard with your friends.
14
Faithful friends are a sturdy shelter;
whoever finds one finds a treasure.
15
Faithful friends are beyond price,
no amount can balance their worth.
16
Faithful friends are life-saving medicine;
those who fear God will find them.
17
Those who fear the Lord enjoy stable friendship,
for as they are, so will their neighbors b
Sirach 6: 6-17
6
Let those who are friendly to you be many,
but one in a thousand your confidant.
7
When you gain friends, gain them through testing,b
and do not be quick to trust them.
8
For there are friends when it suits them,
but they will not be around in time of trouble.
9
Another is a friend who turns into an enemy,
and tells of the quarrel to your disgrace.
10
Others are friends, table companions,
but they cannot be found in time of affliction.
11
When things go well, they are your other self,
and lord it over your servants.
12
If disaster comes upon you, they turn against you
and hide themselves.
13
Stay away from your enemies,
and be on guard with your friends.
14
Faithful friends are a sturdy shelter;
whoever finds one finds a treasure.
15
Faithful friends are beyond price,
no amount can balance their worth.
16
Faithful friends are life-saving medicine;
those who fear God will find them.
17
Those who fear the Lord enjoy stable friendship,
for as they are, so will their neighbors b
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