True Friendship

I am in the 3rd Week of the Spiritual Exercises. We are contemplating Jesus’ life during His final weeks. The past couple of weeks I have been praying with the stories of the Last Supper and the Agony in the Garden. There is much to be learned about friendship from Jesus' experiences.

This was Henri Nouwen’s Daily Meditation from March 23.  I love Henri. I have read just about everything he had written, and his "The Return of the Prodigal Son" changed my life.  I believe that this is the kind of friend Jesus must have been~ 

A friend is more than a therapist or a confessor, even though a friend can sometimes heal us and offer us God's forgiveness.
A friend is that other person with whom we can share our solitude, our silence, and our prayer. A friend is that other person with whom we can look at a tree and say, "Isn't that beautiful," or sit on the beach and silently watch the sun disappear under the horizon. With a friend we don't have to say or do something special. With a friend we can be still and know that God is there with both of us.

True friendship like this is a rare and wonderful thing. The pain of being betrayed or abandoned by a friend is one that cuts deep to the core. Jesus knew this. And I suspect most of us do, in some way or another.
Yet Jesus never stopped loving His friends, and, in the end,  He gave His life for them.

Could I do the same?