Distinction Matter - Subscribed Feeds

In a recent essay, I argued that Americans—both secular and, increasingly, Catholic ones—experience a “flattened” sense of time. Time just simply “passes by” with little to distinguish it, with our increasingly attenuated civil holidays (including those shorn of their religious and/or historical content) trying to contend against a brutally “immanentized” approach to time. To remedy this…

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Andrzej Duda has admitted he discussed the issue with Washington

Poland is open to hosting US nuclear weapons amid the stand-off with Russia over Ukraine, President Andrzej Duda has said.

In an interview with the Polish daily Fakt on Monday, the leader acknowledged that the issue of bringing US nukes to his country, much closer to Russian territory, “has been a topic of Polish-American talks for some time.” The US currently has nuclear weapons stationed in five fellow NATO members: Belgium, Germany, Italy, the Netherlands, and Türkiye.

“I have already talked about this several times,” Duda continued. “I must admit that when asked about it, I declared our readiness.”

He argued that the reason for such a stance is that “Russia is increasingly militarizing” its exclave of Kaliningrad bordering Poland and Lithuania, adding that Moscow has also deployed its nuclear weapons in Belarus.

Russian President Vladimir Putin announced the decision to place tactical nuclear weapons in the neighboring state, which is also Moscow’s key ally, last year. At the time, he argued that the move had been triggered by Britain’s decision to supply Ukraine with depleted uranium ammunition. The president also pointed out that the US has kept nukes in Europe for decades.

Duda further explained that “if our allies decide to deploy nuclear weapons as part of nuclear sharing also on our territory to strengthen the security of NATO’s eastern flank, we are ready for it.”

He recalled that as a NATO member, Poland has certain obligations, and “in this respect, we simply implement a common policy.”

In response to Duda’s statement, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov noted that if the US does indeed place its nuclear weapons in Poland, the Russian military would “take all necessary countermeasures to ensure our security.”

Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said in January that Moscow views the nuclear assets of the US, UK and France as a “single nuclear arsenal aimed at the Russian Federation,” since NATO had declared it the “main threat.” He added that Russia takes this reality into account in its nuclear policy.

Moscow has repeatedly said that a nuclear war must never be fought, and that it has never threatened to use its atomic arsenal.

The Biden administration will “aggressively” implement a new strategy to protect the Jewish community, it has announced

The White House denounced an “alarming surge of anti-Semitism” at US college campuses in a statement on Sunday, against the backdrop of an escalating pro-Palestine protest at Columbia University in New York.  

More than 100 people have been arrested on or near the campus at Columbia since student demonstrations began on Wednesday. Protesters have set up scores of tents in front of the university, demanding that it boycott Israel-linked companies and publicly call for a ceasefire in Gaza. The death toll in the Palestinian enclave since the onset of the Israel-Hamas war on October 7 has topped 34,000, according to Gaza’s Health Ministry. 

In a press release on Sunday, the White House condemned the alleged calls for violence against Jews in schools, communities, and online. “This blatant anti-Semitism is reprehensible and dangerous – and it has absolutely no place on college campuses, or anywhere in the country,” the statement said. 

The New York City Police Department has arrested 108 people for trespassing after they refused to leave the makeshift encampment at Columbia. Students were among those arrested, and received suspension notices from the university, Fox News reported. 

Rabbi Elie Buechler confirmed to CNN that he had reached out to around 300 Jewish students, imploring them to avoid the campus while the protest continues. 

Universities in the US and elsewhere have come out in a show of solidarity with the protesters at Columbia. At Yale University and the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, students set up similar encampments, the Columbia Spectator college newspaper reported on Sunday. Student bodies at other institutions have also posted their support, including from the University of Melbourne, Bard College Berlin, Yale, and Harvard.  

The administration of US President Joe Biden has been supportive of West Jerusalem in its war against Hamas, following the militant group’s attack on Israel on October 7, which claimed more than 1,100 lives and saw scores of people taken hostage.   

In the run-up to the November US presidential election, some Democratic critics have condemned Biden’s continued backing of Israel, pointing to the ever-growing Palestinian death toll, Politico reported earlier this month. In particular, Biden’s team is said to be concerned about losing young and progressive pro-Palestine voters.

Death, the world tells us, is the final end of all things, and is the one universal law of which evasion is impossible; and this is true, not of the individual only, but of society, of nations, of civilization, and even, it would seem, ultimately of physical life itself. Every vital energy therefore that we possess can be directed not to the abolition, but only to the postponement of this final full close to which the most ecstatic created harmony must come at last.

Our physicians cannot heal us, they can merely ward off death for a little. Our statesmen cannot establish an eternal federation, they can but help to hold a crumbling society together for a little longer. Our civilization cannot really evolve an immortal superman, it can but render ordinary humanity a little less mortal, temporarily and in outward appearance. Death, then, in the world’s opinion, is the duellist who is bound to win. We may parry, evade, leap aside for a little; we may even advance upon him and seem to threaten his very existence; our energies, in fact, must be concentrated upon this conflict if we are to survive at all. But it is only in seeming, at the best. The moment must come when, driven back to the last barrier, our last defence falters …
and Death has only to wipe his sword.

Now the attitude of the Catholic Church towards Death is not only the most violent reversal of the world’s policy, but the most paradoxical, too, of all her methods. For, while the world attempts to keep Death at arm’s length, the Church strives to embrace him. Where the world draws his sword to meet Death’s assault, the Church spreads her heart only to receive it. She is in love with Death, she pursues him, honours him, extols Him. She places over her altars not a Risen Christ, but a dying One.

If thou wilt be perfect, she cries to the individual soul, give up all that thou hast and follow me. “Give up all that makes life worth living, strip thyself of every advantage that sustains thy life, of all that makes thee effective.” It is this that is her supreme appeal, not indeed uttered, with all its corollaries, to all her children, but to those only that desire perfection. Yet to all, in a sense, the appeal is there. Die daily, die to self, mortify, yield, give in. If any man will save his life, he must lose it.

So too, in her dealings with society, is her policy judged suicidal by a world that is in love with its own kind of life. It is suicidal, cries that world, to relinquish in France all on which the temporal life of the Church depends; for how can that society survive which renounces the very means of existence? It is suicidal to demand the virgin life of the noblest of her children, suicidal to desert the monarchical cause of one country, and to set herself in opposition to the Republican ideals of another. For even she, after all, is human and must conform to human conditions. Even she, however august her claims, must make terms with the world if she desires to live in it.

And this comment has been made upon her actions in every age. She condemned Arius, when a little compromise might surely have been found; and lost half her children. She condemned Luther and lost Germany; Elizabeth, and lost England. At every crisis she has made the wrong
choice, she has yielded when she should have resisted, resisted when she should have yielded. The wonder is that she survives at all.

Yes, that is the wonder. As dying, behold she lives!

– from Paradoxes of Catholicism (1913)

The post The Church will not die appeared first on The Catholic Thing.

Seven major Italian sees – Florence, Genoa, Milan, Naples, Palermo, Turin, and Venice – are now no longer led by a Cardinal. And in Rome, where last week Cardinal Angelo De Donatis, Vicar of Rome, was transferred to the curia as the head of the Apostolic Penitentiary (a kind of elephant’s graveyard), it may be Rome itself will not be headed by a Cardinal Archbishop.
 

The post Is Italy’s influence in the Church diminishing? appeared first on The Catholic Thing.

Bishop Robert Gruss of Saginaw, Michigan, has issued an apology for having referred to President Joe Biden as “stupid” during a talk earlier this month. Speaking of the so-called Catholic Biden’s pro-abortion activism, Bishop Gruss said, I’m not angry at him, he’s just stupid.” In his apology the bishop said he didn’t use the word in “a derogatory way.”
 

The post Bishop apologizes for calling Biden ‘stupid’ appeared first on The Catholic Thing.

A minute after midnight on April 18, the US reimposed coercive economic measures designed to cripple Venezuela’s oil industry. Later that day, the US Senate Foreign Relations Committee approved a new sanctions bill on Nicaragua. Meanwhile, Cuba protested the US’s six-decade blockade as talks resumed between the two countries on migration. Also on April 18,  … Continue reading "US Reimposes Illegal and Inhumane Oil Sanctions on Venezuela"

The post US Reimposes Illegal and Inhumane Oil Sanctions on Venezuela appeared first on Antiwar.com.

In the early hours of April 19, Israel carried out its anticipated response to Iran’s April 13 aerial attack on Israel. Though the details are not known at the time of this writing, Israel appears, like Iran, to have done what it felt it needed to do to send the message it needed to send … Continue reading "Palestine and Iran: American Hegemony as Self-Interest"

The post Palestine and Iran: American Hegemony as Self-Interest appeared first on Antiwar.com.

One is a minor point: if we live in a digital simulation, how is it that analog long playing records and non-digital pictures exist?

The other is more along the lines of a mind-blowing drug-induced-seeming speculation: If we live in a simulation, the creators of the simulation could have made it that there is indeed a God, a heaven and afterlife, near death experiences, life reviews, souls for humans and other sentient beings, telepathy, precognition, remote viewing, mediums in our “reality” and all the other things scientistic atheist simulation lovers abhor. Who says our alien creators wanted us to be atheists? Since church going theists are happier and healthier than other groups, I think we should believe in God because they provided us with one. (Sarcasm)

With yesterday’s feast of Pentecost, our reading of Acts suddenly ends and hence we miss some important stories of Paul’s journey to Rome. This is perhaps another reason to restore the Pentecost Octave, which was dropped in 1970. Doing so would give us eight more days in which to savor the Acts of the Apostles. Among the stories we miss is that of the storm and subsequent shipwreck of St. Paul, who was under armed guard while on the way to Rome. To make up for the loss to the lectionary, let’s consider the story here and learn its lessons. It is beefy enough to take two days to savor. Because this reflection is long, I’ve created a PDF of it (here) for you to print out and read later. I know that reading long posts on the screen can weary the eyes!

It is interesting that St. Luke devotes an entire chapter (27) of Acts to describing the storm at sea that St. Paul endured. The level of detail is high, signaling to us that such details are important. The Holy Spirit has something to teach us here about how we get into trouble and how we can get out of it.

Storms in life are often beyond our control. Perhaps they come from nature and the sudden vicissitudes of this world. Sometimes God permits storms in order to test and strengthen us. Sometimes, too, others drag us into storms and we suffer on account of their poor decisions. Some storms come from our own foolishness and poor choices.

In the story we are about to examine, St. Paul is dragged into a storm by the stupidity and poor choices of a military official and a ship’s crew. Paul was under arrest and being sent to Rome for trial before Caesar. Therefore, he was in the custody of a military officer. Of all the people in this storm, St. Paul is the only one who is innocent of the foolishness that made them endure it. In the end, only he can show the proper way out. The storm we are about to study shows in great detail what can happen to us as individuals and as an overall culture when we defiantly and proudly resist God’s will and common sense. This is a storm that has a lot to teach us about ourselves. Let’s look at a storm that Scripture calls a Euroclydon (a Nor’easter). You can read the full text of Acts 27 here.

I. The Coming Danger – God sends many warnings: from the natural order, from the Church, and in our own consciences. Note how often these are systematically ignored.

Whys and Wherefores – And when it was decided that we should sail for Italy, they delivered Paul and some other prisoners to a centurion of the Augustan Cohort, named Julius. And embarking in a ship of Adramyttium, which was about to sail to the ports along the coast of Asia, we put to sea, accompanied by Aristarchus, a Macedonian from Thessalonica. The next day we put in at Sidon; and Julius treated Paul kindly, and gave him leave to go to his friends and be cared for.

St. Paul was under arrest and had appealed his case to Rome. He was put in the custody of a Roman centurion named Julius, who seemed a decent enough man but was a poor judge of both weather and the professional qualities of a ship’s captain. This appeal to Rome was Paul’s right as a Roman citizen. God had told him that he would testify in Rome and to have courage. Such words would be necessary for Paul to cling to, for he was about to be dragged into a very foolish journey by those who simply would not see the danger despite repeated warnings. This probably sounds familiar because it is of course part of our human condition to act foolishly and recklessly and refuse to recognize danger. It is also an unfortunate characteristic of our Western culture, which has steered us into a great oncoming storm.

Warnings – And putting to sea from there we sailed under the lee of Cyprus, because the winds were against us. And when we had sailed across the sea which is off Cilicia and Pamphylia, we came to Myra in Lycia. There the centurion found a ship of Alexandria sailing for Italy, and put us on board.

So here are the initial signals of danger: the wind against them and a poor time of year to sail, chancy conditions at best. It was common in the winter months to stay off the Mediterranean and remain at port and to make longer journeys by land. The sea was very dangerous at this time of year and whatever sailing did take place was done very near the coast. Despite the danger signals, the centurion does not appear to be alarmed; he is determined to get the task done.

Worsening – We sailed slowly for a number of days, and arrived with difficulty off Cnidus, and as the wind did not allow us to go on, we sailed under the lee of Crete off Salmone. Coasting along it with difficulty, we came to a place called Fair Havens, near which was the city of Lasea.

More danger signals! Now the centurion’s determination becomes defiance. This is typical of many a sinner. He sees the warnings but decides that he will not be just another statistic; he will be able to escape the dangers. Cultures think this way too. Defiance is the sad result of hearts that are growing hard and wills that are growing stubborn. With necks of iron and foreheads of brass, sinners sally forth and cultures set out on campaigns of self-destruction.

II. The Continued Defiance – In the verses that follow, there is quite the list of the elements of a poor and rash decision. Let’s see what Scripture teaches us about the diagnosis of a bad decision. Together, these elements contribute to a foolish defiance and a failure to heed warnings. There are five elements:

Precipitousness – As much time had been lost, and the voyage was already dangerous because the fast had already gone by.

In other words, they are at a critical time. The window for safe sailing, if it even still exists, is closing fast. It’s now or never! But hasty decisions—made more out of concern for time than what is wise or right—are usually poor ones. This is rampant in our culture today. Urgency seems to permeate most things. News crews love to create a sense of crisis and urgency. Suddenly everyone has opinions on what must be done … and quickly! Sob stories and other emblematic but highly selective crisis situations are put before us by the media and politically savvy organizations. Swift and draconian decisions are often demanded. Sometimes unhappy mobs protest and legislators respond by making hasty fixes to what are complex problems. Careful deliberation is underappreciated. There is a failure to recognize that rushing often leads to the development of poor “solutions.” But in our culture, most people follow the priority of the urgent more so than that of the important.

Preferring worldly wisdom – Paul advised them, saying, “Sirs, I perceive that the voyage will be with injury and much loss, not only of the cargo and the ship, but also of our lives.” But the centurion paid more attention to the captain and to the owner of the ship than to what Paul said.

Yes, what does this religious zealot know about sailing or weather? Never mind that Paul had sailed before and had known rough seas and shipwreck. What does this preacher have to offer? The captain and the owner of the ship are the experts. Today, many say that the Church has nothing to offer, that priests cannot speak to marriage, family life, or sexuality; only scientists, doctors, and other professionals can really have anything valuable to offer. To be sure, all these experts do have much to offer, but it is dangerous to rely on them alone to set a course for this world. Worldly wisdom can still, at best, procure for us a worldly grave. True wisdom pierces the heavens and seeks the voice of God, who alone can save us. Disregarding the voice of faith is perilous indeed.

Passions Preferred – And because the harbor was not suitable to winter in …

Now here is a serious issue as well. Too often we allow our passions to trump our better judgment. They want to risk the storm to get to a “nicer” port. They want to spend the winter in comfort and so they take foolish risks. Here, too, in an age dominated by an excessive need for comfort, many are willing to take terrible risks, make foolish decisions, go into debt, risk disease, and even act illegally. Some are willing to steal, use drugs, enter dangerous relationships, and the like. All for the hope of the comfort that such things might—just might—provide. Yes, our passions, individually and collectively, inspire a lot of bad decisions and lock us in defiant attitudes that refuse to recognize the obvious.

Populism – … the majority advised to put to sea from there, on the chance that somehow they could reach Phoenix, a harbor of Crete, looking northeast and southeast, and winter there.

Yet another common problem is thinking that the results of a poll will always lead to the right decision; it will not. It will tell you what is popular but not necessarily what is right. Very often the crowds are wrong; they are not pooling their wisdom but their ignorance. Jesus warns, “Woe to you when all speak well of you, for thus their fathers treated the false prophets.” Today there is almost a religious demand that polls should direct all things. Many are practically indignant that the Catholic Church’s teachings do not reflect the views of the “most” Roman Catholics. But the Church does not exist to reflect the views of her members. She exists to reflect the views of her head and founder, Jesus Christ. At the end of the day, what is popular is not always right and what is right is not always popular. Polls and votes are usually poor ways to discover what is right. And as we shall see, it is certainly not a good way to predict the weather!

Presumption – And when the south wind blew gently, supposing that they had obtained their purpose, they weighed anchor and sailed along Crete, close inshore.

Very often, because there are not immediate negative consequences to a bad choice, people leap to the conclusion that they have decided well. In this instance, despite repeated warnings (from St. Paul) and the difficulties of sailing at a bad time of year (e.g., contrary winds and little progress possible), one breeze from the south causes them to presume that there will be no consequences. Presumption is a sin against hope. Hope is the confident expectation of God’s help in attaining eternal life. Presumption is taking something up ahead of time (pre (before) + sumere (to take up)). But who hopes for what he already has? Hence presumption tosses hope away on the pretext that one can get what one wants now, on one’s own terms. Those guilty of presumption think that no harm will ever befall them. The speeding teenager thinks he will never crash but then wakes up paralyzed. The drunk driver thinks he will never be caught but then sees the red flashing lights in his rearview mirror. The sexually promiscuous person boasts of having “safe-sex” but then contracts an STD. Just because consequences do not always happen immediately doesn’t mean that presumption is a good idea.

III. The Cost of Disobedience – Sin and disobedience are very costly. Satan promises ease, comfort, and pleasure today, but the bill comes due tomorrow! Let’s see what this storm teaches about the cost of sin. Five descriptions of the cost are given:

Control Lost – But soon a tempestuous wind, called the northeaster, struck down from the land; and when the ship was caught and could not face the wind, we gave way to it and were driven.

St. Augustine famously taught regarding sin, For out of the perverse will came lust, and the service of lust ended in habit, and habit, not resisted, became necessity (Conf 8.5). Habitual sin leads to bondage, to a loss of control, to being driven. The first cost of sin and disobedience is the increasing loss of control, the increasing loss of freedom.

Crushing Labors – And running under the lee of a small island called Cauda, we managed with difficulty to secure the boat; they took measures to pass ropes under the ship to hold it together; then, fearing that they should run on the Syrtis (sands of North Africa), they lowered the anchor, but were still driven.

We see that their defiant pride has now humbled them with heavy work, not just the work of sailing, but of even holding the boat together. Sin leads to heavy burdens. Consider the man who has been promiscuous and now sees his income drained by child support paid out to several different women. Consider the glutton who has gained 100 pounds and must now work for months, even years, to lose the weight. Consider the spendthrift who has run up the balance on his credit card and must now work for years to pay it off. Sin makes for crushing, burdensome work.

Compounding Losses – As we were violently storm-tossed, they began next day to throw the cargo overboard; and the third day they cast out with their own hands the tackle of the ship.

As already stated, sin and disobedience inevitably lead to dissipation. So now they are throwing their precious cargo overboard. Suddenly the riches of the world are not enough; they are now even part of the problem! Perhaps with us it is our money that is dissipated, or maybe our strength, or our health, or our family. But when you stay in sin and disobedience, you can expect the losses to compound.

Ceding Lights – And when neither sun nor stars appeared for many a day, and no small tempest lay on us, all hope of our being saved was at last abandoned. … And fearing that we might run on the rocks, they let out four anchors from the stern, and prayed for day to come.

The ancients steered by the stars and the sun. This self-inflicted storm has darkened the lights. All the navigation points are lost, and the way back (out of sin) is difficult to find. Sin clouds our intellect and makes it difficult to see our errors, let alone the way back. Many people are in such darkness that they actually celebrate what God calls sin. How do some of us become so blind and confused? Yet another cost of sin and disobedience is a darkened intellect. St. Paul says, they became futile in their thinking, and their foolish minds were darkened (Romans 1:21).

Cowardly Leaping – And as the sailors were seeking to escape from the ship, and had lowered the boat into the sea, under pretense of laying out anchors from the bow, Paul said to the centurion and the soldiers, “Unless these men stay in the ship, you cannot be saved.”

So much for all the expert sailors, the captain, and the centurion, all of whom ignored Paul and the obvious warnings of a coming storm! Now they are seeking to jump ship, to escape in lifeboats and leave the passengers behind. Do it is with many sinners today who seek to escape the consequences of their acts. Some escape to drugs and alcohol; some just hide or blame others. Rarer are the sinners who admit their fault and take responsibility for what they have chosen and done. In a therapeutic culture it is easier to blame others: “It’s not my fault; my mother dropped me on my head when I was two … I’m not depraved. I’m deprived.” A lot of this amounts to escaping in a lifeboat and leaving the others to experience the disaster. Where are the “experts” who gave us such awful advice during the sexual and cultural revolution? Most of them headed for the lifeboats and left the rest of us (who were foolish enough to listen to them) to go down with the ship.

Yes, the cost of sin and disobedience is high.

This storm really has a lot to teach us. It shows how easily we ignore the coming dangers and continue, in defiance, to make poor decisions. Then, it shows the costs of foolishness. Life really is a lot easier when we obey God!

But the storm is not done teaching us yet; God uses it to instruct us and to call us to discipleship. More on what St. Paul teaches tomorrow …

The post “And no small tempest lay on us …” – The Story of a Storm That St. Paul Endured and What It Has to Teach Us About Sin appeared first on Community in Mission.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu claims that all proposals to reach a new hostage deal have been rejected by the militant group

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has vowed to increase pressure on Hamas and threatened to “land additional and painful blows” in an effort to have the remaining Israeli hostages held in Gaza released.

Some 129 Israelis are believed to still be in captivity, following the incursion of Palestinian militants into the Jewish state on October 7, when over 1,100 people, mostly civilians, were killed and more than 200 were taken hostage.

A short-lived truce in November last year saw 105 hostages released in exchange for 240 Palestinian prisoners, but further negotiations stalled over Hamas’ demands for a permanent ceasefire and complete withdrawal of Israeli forces, which Netanyahu dismissed as “delusional.”

In a pre-Passover video message on Sunday, Netanyahu said that the absence of the hostages over the holiday would “only strengthen our determination to bring them back,” explaining that all Israeli proposals to secure the release of the hostages have been “rejected outright by Hamas.”

“Instead of retreating from its extreme positions, Hamas builds on division within us. It draws encouragement from the pressures directed at the Israeli government. As a result, it only tightens its conditions for the release of our hostages,” Netanyahu continued, in an apparent reference to anti-government protests calling for new elections and demanding that the authorities do more to reach a new hostage deal.

“In the coming days, we will increase the military and diplomatic pressure on Hamas because this is the only way to free our hostages and achieve our victory,” he added.

More than 34,000 Palestinians have been killed since the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) launched a bombing campaign followed by a ground invasion of Gaza, according to the latest figures provided by the Hamas-run Gaza Health Ministry.

READ MORE: Blinken reveals US stance on potential Israeli invasion of Rafah

Netanyahu maintains that Israel cannot achieve its goal of “total victory” without launching an offensive on the southern Gaza city of Rafah, where around 1.4 million displaced Palestinians have sought refuge since the beginning of the war.

The potential invasion of the densely populated city has caused alarm in the international community. US Secretary of State Antony Blinken has warned of “terrible consequences” if Israel goes ahead with the plan.

It’s common to the point of cliché to hear engaged couples or newlyweds speak about how excited they are to marry their best friend. Others balk, citing the need to maintain friendships outside a marriage, lest one burden one’s spouse with expectations he or she cannot bear, or arguing that there’s no such thing as a “soul mate.” Nonetheless, in his discussion of the indissolubility of marriage in the Summa Contra Gentiles, Thomas Aquinas writes that “there seems to be the greatest friendship between husband and wife, for they are united not only in the act of fleshly union, which produces a certain gentle association even among beasts, but also in the partnership of the whole range of domestic activity.” Friends share life together, and the fact that husbands and wives share their entire lives—not the fact that they have strong feelings for each other—would seem to make them best friends. By examining Aquinas’s understanding of friendship, chiefly in his Commentary on Aristotle’s Nichomachean Ethics, we can gain insight into the connection he makes between strong friendships and strong marriages.

In the Nicomachean Ethics, Aristotle begins his treatment of friendship by arguing that friendship is a good that all must pursue if they seek to live a happy life. And friendship—at least in its perfect form—is not an incidental good that we pursue in order to gain other things, such as wealth and power. Rather, we seek friendship because it is a participation or sharing (communicatio) in the life of another. Friendship, as Aquinas captures it, is an exchange of love that takes place in repeated acts of goodness from one friend to another. Because it is a habitual act of free choice, friendship is a kind of virtue. Thus even when friends are not performing acts of friendship—such as when they are apart or when they are sleeping—they can be said to be friends because they habitually “live together pleasantly and do good for one another.”

But this degree of pleasure and good is not equally present in all forms of friendship. Every act of friendship is an act of love that seeks an object. We are only friends with someone for a reason. Hence Aristotle identifies three kinds of friendship based on the three objects of acts of love, or reasons for friendship: friendship for the good as such, friendship for the pleasurable, and friendship for the useful. To translate these into practical terms, we could think of them as being friends because there is something intrinsically good and delightful about a person, being friends because someone is funny or attractive or thrilling, and being friends because a person can provide something helpful. In the second two, a person loves a friend for what is incidental. They are friends by way of resemblance. Those in the first category, friends for the good, are friends essentially—for what a person is. Therefore, only those who seek friendship for the sake of pursuing the good, and with good people, can know true friendship.

In a virtuous friendship, a virtuous person loves his friend because he is similar to himself. He loves him as another self, and he feels for his friend what he feels for himself. Such a friendship begins with feelings of goodwill, a disposition in favor of someone based on their natural attributes. Goodwill continues in friendship, but it is joined by acts of beneficence and by concord in mind and heart. This is possible because the friends are alike in virtue. Their virtue impels them to make repeated acts of love and, because virtue is a permanent habit, these acts of love become a permanent, lasting friendship.

The resonances here between a friendship of virtue and a healthy marriage should be apparent, and this is also the case in terms of friendship’s frequency, its cultivation, and the number of people who can compose a friendship. First, because virtuous people are rare, virtuous friendship is rare. As Flannery O’Connor famously wrote, “a good man is hard to find.” Second, virtuous friendship requires time and discernment: a person needs to find out who is virtuous and wants to be a friend. Third, virtuous friendships can be with only one person, for three reasons. First, Aquinas says, the kind of superabundant love present in virtuous friendship is, by nature, designed for one person, as is evident in sexual love. Second, friends are extremely pleasant to one another, and this is difficult to maintain with more than one person. Third, friends become closer with each other by habitual association, but this is hard and can only happen with one person. Friendship, in short, is difficult. It may be natural, but it requires time and effort, and it is infrequent because of its exclusivity and the rarity of virtue.

If, however, one’s friend remains virtuous, the friendship results in a twofold benefit. First, friends enjoy a friendship because they enjoy each other. Each is another self to the other, and each delights in the other. Just as the good man rejoices at the good he performs, so he rejoices in that of his friend. Because he loves the good and because his friend contains the good, the virtuous man loves his friend’s very existence. He wants to live together with him, to share himself with him, and to receive him in turn.

In addition to the joy of living with and knowing a kindred spirit, the virtuous person takes delight in friendship because it helps him to become more virtuous. Because of our natural affection for ourselves, we cannot judge our own actions well. Since we cannot study our own actions, we need to study those of “another self” whom we love as we love ourselves.

Two friends, therefore, love what is good in each other. Through their friendship, they become goods to each other. Each wishes the other good for the other’s sake, not for his own. This mutual love, Aquinas argues, makes friendship something even above a virtue, because “the act of one is not sufficient but the acts of two mutually loving one another must concur.” Friendship, therefore, is not only a matter of pursuing one’s own virtue but of wanting to help one’s friend become better, too. In finding another self, the friend has found a way to work for virtue in more than himself.

If this is the structure of good friendships, let me suggest four ways in which the sharing of life between a husband and wife can make marriage “the greatest friendship.”

1) A good marriage is founded on the good that the spouses perceive in each other. It allows spouses to delight in each other, to rejoice in each other’s good and in the mutual enjoyment of the good that they share.

2) A good marriage begins with feelings of goodwill and attraction, then is joined to beneficence, doing good to each other, and a concord of mind and heart. Marriage entails doing and willing the good for your spouse constantly—even when you don’t feel like it—and making your spouse’s good your own. And marriage requires and enables enough agreement between spouses so they can live together in peace, even if they do not share the same religion, politics, or other convictions.

3) A good marriage can help you become more virtuous. This is both joyful and very difficult. More so than anything else in life, marriage and children show you just how self-centered you are, and they train you to become centered on the good of another. For Christians, marriage is the path to sanctity that God has prepared for the spouses. And sanctity and virtue, as difficult as they are, allow us to flourish and to more perfectly live a life animated by God’s love.

4) A good marriage entails building and sharing a good life with another person—both the diverse goods that we enjoy together in this life and ultimately our enjoyment of goodness itself, life with God in the next. To put it another way, Christian marriage is a shared pilgrimage to life with God in heaven, and that ultimate goal helps spouses keep in perspective the joys and sorrows they experience.

In the Supplement to the Summa Theologiae, compiled by Aquinas’s students from his lectures and writings after his death, Aquinas shows how grace builds upon and expands the friendship of marriage in making the natural union into a sacrament. Aquinas considers the argument that marriage is not a sacrament because the sacraments derive their efficacy from Christ’s Passion, and since marriage involves pleasure, it does not conform us to Christ’s Passion, which was painful. In response to this argument, Aquinas writes: “Although Matrimony is not conformed to Christ’s Passion as regards pain, it is as regards charity, whereby He suffered for the Church who was to be united to Him as His spouse.”

This is one of those moments when Aquinas’s prose is like a prism that refracts a ray of light into an array of colors, or like a doorway into the vast expanse of a Gothic cathedral. Aquinas is saying that in marriage, the spouses give themselves to each other and lay down their lives for each other totally, just as Christ did for us on the cross. It is that total and faithful self-gift that allows marriage to be an image of Christ’s self-gift for the Church.

Three things follow from this. First, the married couple’s own self-gift becomes the path by which they imitate Christ and become Christ-like. Second, in the sacrament of marriage, God gives us his love so that we can love as he does. Third, marriage is also the place in which we should receive God’s love through the self-gift of our spouse. God shows us what his love looks like by how our spouse loves us.

Conceived in this way, it makes sense for someone to say that he has married his best friend. The friendship of husband and wife is founded on an attraction or thrill, but that thrill has roots in the goodness of the other spouse. It should grow into a series of actions that make both spouses better, that cement their delight in each other’s good in a life of mutual beneficence and sacrifice. Empowered by grace, their marriage becomes an icon of God’s love—however imperfectly—and a means of their growth in that love toward its full flowering in the beatific vision. We could add to Aquinas that not only is marriage conformed to Christ’s Passion as regards to charity, but it is also conformed to the Resurrection: it can be healing and transformative, giving joy now and in the life to come.

This article is adapted from a talk given for the Thomistic Institute at Clemson University.

Image by glogoski and licensed via Adobe Stock.