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O'Malley's Best The Gift of Friends What grabbed me reading this gospel this time was the four men at the corners of this paralytic's mat--their indomitable kindness. It didn't occur on the Sabbath; otherwise, a pack of nit-picking Pharisees would have been on site fast as horseflies to point out Jesus' imperfection. Therefore, it had to be after a full day's work, dawn-to-dusk, for each of the men And how lucky this paralytic was that, with all his friends' own private worries about their wives, families, debts, the four had an open space in their awareness and concern even to notice their crippled neighbor's plight-much less rise to the challenge of doing something about it. One of them probably suggested it to the other three, and they said, "What the hell, it's worth a try." So they lugged him through the town, which must have taken some time and effort, since everybody else had beaten them to Simon's house. But I suspect what roots the episode in most of our minds is that detail about removing the roof tiles to lower him down, not just the faith of these friends, which Jesus mentions, but their inventiveness and persistence, their refusal to yield to any obstacles to their kindness. Those four men embody what true friendship means. All of us know what that reality is when we see it, but I suspect few of us could actually detail what's involved in genuine friendship without a bit of pondering. So I mulled awhile on what I hoped for from a friend. I recall one evening watching "Wheel of Fortune" which had finished too early, so Pat Sajak was trading profundities with that Delphic Sybil, Vanna White. He'd heard she was about to be a godmother and asked what that office might entail. She smiled all the way to both earlobes and gushed, "Oh, to be there for them." I found that somewhat short of enlightening. Surely the godmothers of folklore and legend did more than that-wait around like a 911 number for the hero or heroine to be in a fix, and remember to call, and have 50 cents for the phone. I suspect the very, very first element in truly loving is being attentive. Being aware of our loved ones the way a mother is sensitive, even in her sleep, to the slightest mis-breathing of one of her children. A true friend knows there's something wrong even when their friend or child or spouse says nothing--especially when their friend or child or spouse says nothing. That becomes more and more difficult the more engaged and busy and productive our lives become. Other pressures become so hideously important that they seem to blot out all other sensitivities. The bills, or the boss's dismissiveness, or deadlines, or even the newspaper or the ironing or "24" can seem so imperially demanding of our attention at the moment that we lose perspective. So that, I think, leads to another element in true friendship: the readiness to rise to the neighbor's need--the mind-set and heart-set that says, "Okay, right now, I know that your need is really more important than mine." I suspect that defines love just about as well as it can be: yielding. As St. Paul says so cleanly: "Love is patient, kind, not jealous nor conceited, nor ill-mannered, nor selfish, nor irritable, nor grudge-grasping. Love never gives up." All vulnerable. At that point, I realized that--while I was pondering what I hoped for from a friend--I was also surprising myself by discovering what a friend ought to be able to hope for from me. But there was still another lesson in that episode. The hateful scribes ask a critical question when Jesus responds to these four friends' kindness with a kindness of his own. "Who can forgive sins," they grumble, "except God alone?" And the answer is simple: I can. In my privileged role as a priest, I can expunge any guilt others have for insulting God. But any one of us--with no other ordination than a painfully exposed heart--can forgive whatever guilt accrues from hurting me, from embarrassing me, from taking me for granted, from seeming to hold me less important at the moment than yourself. If you've briefly forgotten that our friendship is more important than any hurt feelings, I'm trying my best right now not to forget that. At every Mass, the words of consecration of the wine say, "This is a cup of my Blood, the Blood of the new and everlasting covenant. It will be shed for you, and for all, so that sins may be forgiven. Do this in memory of me." Besides consecrating and offering Christ's blood in his memory, I wonder if he isn't also asking each of us to forgive sins in his memory. I can't help but think that he is. The gift of forgiveness is the gift love gives. |
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