When John Donne offered his meditation on human solidarity, he framed it in explicitly theological terms: the funeral bell that tolls for my fellow Christians also tolls for me, because we are members of the same Mystical Body. In Donne’s memorable image, we are all chapters in the same book written by the same Author.
Death, on this account, is simply the translation of one of those chapters into a better language. In due course, we can expect God’s hand to “bind up all our scattered leaves again” into the heavenly library. On that day, we shall discern more clearly than we do now that no man is an island, for all the chapters are interwoven.
Donne’s reflections invite us to consider the deep interconnectedness of the human family in general, and of the Church in particular. When we do this, it is striking to observe the critical role that holy friendships play in the lives of those who best embody the Gospel call to perfection. Indeed, when we examine the hagiographies, we discover that, more often than not, the canonised saints of history were friends with other canonised saints.
Already in the pages of Sacred Scripture we see this truth playing out. The intimate bond between David and Jonathan is perhaps the most famous example, but by no means the only one. We can presume that Caleb and Joshua, as well as Daniel and his companions, were close collaborators in their respective life missions. We can think, too, of Ruth and Naomi in the Old Testament, and of the various women followers of Christ in the New. Surely there was – and is – much beauty and joy in the friendship between St Mary Magdalene, St Joanna, St Susanna and the other female disciples.
Our Lord Himself was no stranger to human friendship, as evidenced in His special affection for the Beloved Disciple, and for the devout family of Bethany: “Now Jesus loved Martha and her sister and Lazarus” (John 11:5). When we turn to St Paul, the list of friends is seemingly endless: Luke is described as having remained with him during his final imprisonment; St Mark is recognised for being “very useful in serving me” (2 Tim 4:11); Ss Priscilla and Aquila are praised for having “risked their necks for my life” (Rom 16:4); St Silas is highlighted as one who repeatedly accompanied him on his travels.
Then we also have the various figures whom Paul names as his fellow workers in spreading the Good News, such as St Clement (Phil 4:3), St Titus (2 Cor 8:23) and St Epaphroditus (Phil 2:25). Nor can we forget St Timothy, whom Paul lauds in the most affectionate terms: “I have no one like him” (Phil 2:20). To be sure, there were times when Paul’s fiercely choleric temperament resulted in his falling out with men like St Mark or St Barnabas. And yet, it seems that St Paul’s gift for friendship also allowed him to reconcile with those same men at a later date.
Moving beyond the New Testament, we find that the leitmotif of Christian friendship continues unabated. St Ignatius of Antioch corresponded with St Polycarp, and an ancient tradition connects both these men with St John the Apostle. St Polycarp also met St Irenaeus when the latter was still a boy. Irenaeus would later recall the impact Polycarp’s preaching had on him, including the stories the elderly bishop shared about his interactions with the Apostles.
In the 4th century, St Martin of Tours sought a Christian mentor after being discharged from the Roman military, and he found this in St Hilary of Poitiers. Around the same time, St Ambrose was evangelising St Augustine, whose mother was St Monica. Augustine’s lifelong friend and fellow convert, Alypius of Thagaste, would also go on to become a canonised saint. Augustine also found the time to correspond with St Jerome, who was in turn a close companion of St Paula, who became one of the first abbesses in Church history.
We should also remember the great Cappadocian family made up of parents, St Basil the Elder and St Emmelia, together with 10 children whose names include St Basil the Great, St Gregory of Nyssa and St Macrina the Younger. Basil the Great’s friendship with another Cappadocian paragon, St Gregory Nazianzen, is legendary; the two studied together in Athens and later worked together to produce some of the richest theological works in history.
Elsewhere in the early Church we have St Athanasius, who sat at the feet of St Anthony the Great and later wrote the definitive biography of this pioneer of Christian monasticism. Over in Constantinople, St John Cassian was ordained a deacon by none other than St John Chrysostom. And in Italy, St Benedict of Nursia would soon be blazing the trail of Western monasticism together with his twin sister St Scholastica. Just a short while later, St Gregory the Great was sending his dear friend St Augustine of Canterbury to begin the conversion of England.
Fast forward to the Middle Ages, and we have the friendship between St Bernard of Clairvaux and the great Irish archbishop, St Malachy. On a journey to Rome in 1148, Malachy fell ill while passing through the Abbey of Clairvaux in France, and he is said to have died in the arms of his devoted Bernard. Bernard would later choose to be buried beside his friend.
Half a century later, we see the extraordinary spiritual partnership between St Francis and St Clare. We know that Francis also crossed paths with St Anthony of Padua, and popular tradition holds that he met St Dominic in Rome during the Fourth Lateran Council. In the ensuing decades, we have the remarkable intellectual bond between St Thomas Aquinas and St Bonaventure, who worked together for several years at the University of Paris, and who died in the same year.
In the 14th century, St Raymond of Capua served as spiritual director and confessor to St Catherine of Siena. Later on, in the Reformation era, St Thomas More developed a strong relationship with St John Fisher, and both were martyred in the summer of 1535. This time period also saw St Ignatius of Loyola befriending St Francis Xavier in Paris, prompting Francis to join the Jesuits and later become one of the greatest missionaries in Christian history. St Peter Faber was also among Ignatius’s closest companions. A generation or two later, St Edmund Campion benefited from having a future canonised saint – his fellow Jesuit and fellow martyr, St Nicholas Owen – as his personal manservant during his mission to England. Meanwhile, over in Spain, St John of the Cross was busy serving as spiritual director and confessor to St Teresa of Avila.
During the Counter-Reformation, we have St Aloysius Gonzaga, known to the Italians as San Luigi, who received his First Communion from St Charles Borromeo in Milan in 1580. Just for good measure, Aloysius could later boast of having St Robert Bellarmine as his spiritual director and the one who gave him the last rites. Borromeo also had contact with St Felix of Cantalice, and together with Bellarmine, these men formed a close friendship with St Philip Neri. Neri even appears to have served as Bellarmine’s confessor at times.
Bellarmine also corresponded with, and greatly admired, St Francis de Sales. Francis enjoyed a profound spiritual friendship with St Jane Frances de Chantal, and together they founded the Order of the Visitation. Francis also knew St Vincent de Paul, who would later preach at his funeral. Upon Francis’s death, Vincent took over as the spiritual director for Jane. At the same time, Vincent had a special relationship with St Louise de Marillac, with whom he co-founded the Daughters of Charity.
In the 18th century, St Alphonsus Liguori was the religious superior to St Gerard Majella within the Congregation of the Most Holy Redeemer. Alphonsus also worked with St Paul of the Cross to revive a spirit of preaching and popular devotion across Italy. In the 19th century, St Joseph Cafasso was a mentor and spiritual director to St John Bosco. St Bartolo Longo was a patient and friend of the Italian doctor St Giuseppe Moscati. The Little Flower, St Thérèse of Lisieux, was the daughter of two canonised saints, Louis and Zélie Martin. St John Henry Newman was received into the Church by Bl. Dominic Barberi, and he was personally acquainted with Bl. Pius IX.
In the 1940s, a young Fr Karol Wojtyła travelled to a friary in San Giovanni Rotondo, Italy, where he spent several days with St Padre Pio, including having the mystic hear his confession. In 1962, Bishop Wojtyła obtained a miraculous healing for a friend through Pio’s intercession. Later in life, Pope St John Paul II developed a warm friendship with St Teresa of Calcutta. And in 1950-51, the saintly Fr Benedict Groeschel lived in the same friary as Bl. Solanus Casey.
If these various examples tell us anything, it is that holiness breeds holiness, and saints give rise to saints. Sirach reminds us: “A faithful friend is a sturdy shelter: he that has found one has found a treasure” (6:14). But we make a mistake if we assume that finding such a treasure is the fruit solely of our own efforts. CS Lewis made this observation in The Four Loves:
“[F]or a Christian, there are, strictly speaking, no chances. A secret Master of the Ceremonies has been at work. Christ, who said to the disciples ‘Ye have not chosen me, but I have chosen you’, can truly say to every group of Christian friends ‘You have not chosen one another but I have chosen you for one another’.”
As Lewis himself discovered both in his intellectual kinship with the great Catholic novelist JRR Tolkien and in his correspondence with St Giovanni Calabria, the history of the Church is not the story of isolated pious souls. Rather, it is the epic tale of holy men and women whose lives God has woven together so that their friendships might become a pathway to – and an image of – the eternal marriage feast.
