On this occasion, I want to share with you something beautiful about friendship. We all want friends, we all need friends. However, today, the term “friend” has been distorted. Anyone is called a friend. I have 40,000 friends on Facebook, followers, people who give me likes. Some singers, who are not great at all because they say pure stupid things, have 8 million followers, whom some call friends. We go on Facebook and see “friends in common”; you and I can have 350 friends in common.
We know that true friends are few. Real friends, you have two, three, five. Sometimes it happens that your best friend is your dad. How interesting! Your best friend can be one of your children. Yes, he is my son, but also the one I travel with, the one I enjoy watching a movie with.
In life, it is important to have a friend who is both a mirror and a shadow. The mirror never lies, and the shadow never goes away. Remember these two words: mirror and shadow.
The Mirror Never Lies
How do you call a simple comrade a friend? A friend with whom I go out drinking, is that a friend? A friend with whom I do dirty business, a friend who separates me from God. Maybe you have one, maybe you are thinking of him right now. A friend who is a danger to my marriage, and I call her a friend. A Facebook friend who I have 3,000 km away, and I call him a friend. Sometimes it may be that yes, we were friends in person for 10 years, now life has separated us. I know that you can still call him a friend, but so many “friends” that we meet on the networks, are they really friends?
So, who is a friend? A mirror never lies. The mirror presents you with reality. What reality? You look in the mirror and see a pimple here, your hair is falling out there. The mirror cannot lie. Imagine a friend who tells you: “You are wrong. It is not that way. I am with you, I am with you, but I have to tell you the truth. It is not that way.”
The Shadow Never Goes Away
A friend is also a shadow that never goes away. Even if I do bad things, and you are my friend, you would not lead me astray. That is when you should be more of a friend, until you get me through.
How do I want to end this reflection? Very simple. Think about how many of your friends are. Not your classmates, not your comrades with whom you go out to dinner, which can be up to 100. I just had a meal with 140 “friends” with whom we graduated 40 years ago. Of those 140, 80 attended because some could not, others are already in the presence of God, and others because it was complicated for them. We got together 80 friends, some of whom I did not even remember their names. How do we call ourselves friends?
So, how does this reflection end? Think about who your true friends are. Three, four, five. First, are you a mirror and a shadow for them? And second, are they for you? Maybe you need to talk to them to be better, deeper friends.
Jesus said to the apostles at the last supper: “You are my friends. I have called you friends. I no longer call you servants; the servant does not know everything that he does and what he wants and what his master thinks. I have called you friends. I am with you as a mirror and a shadow.”
Pass this reflection on to everyone you know.
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