Making friends is difficult these days. Contacts multiply, but bonds are scarce; networks grow, but relationships weaken. But nothing fills the void of a lack of friends: you can have all the success in the world and believe the world is at your feet, and still feel very alone.
Friendship springs from the depths of the heart as a response to existential loneliness. With it, life becomes bearable; where it is absent, the emptiness is unbearable. Friends listen to each other, encourage each other, trust each other, complement each other, do not judge each other, and do not diminish each other. Saint Augustine said it in one of his sermons (299 D1): “In this world there are two things necessary: health and a friend.”
Friendship enriches every aspect of life. When there is a close relationship within a family, where experiences are shared, people listen, communication is high-quality, mistakes are acknowledged and forgiveness is offered, it provides a valuable learning experience for children, teaching them how to build healthy and friendly relationships.
At school, all members of the educational community can also benefit from the time given to them, attentive listening, and interest shown in each other’s dreams and anxieties. These friendly relationships foster respect, trust, and affection. The environment should teach students how to live together and find their place in society.
In a Christian, Augustinian, and Recollect style
Jesus was not a distant master. He promoted coexistence, took the initiative, engaged in dialogue, and reached out to the excluded—to everyone. His invitation to live in fraternity reveals his pedagogy of friendship: “For where two or three are gathered in my name, there am I among them” (Mt 18:19-20).
A tireless seeker of truth, when Augustine of Hippo found it he understood that he could not live it in solitude. It is only complete when shared; it is not an exclusive possession, but a common good: “We need others to be ourselves” (Commentary on Psalm 125,13).
For Augustine, friendship is a high form of love: free, personal, and selfless. As a philosopher, he distinguishes between false friendship (self-serving or harmful); incomplete friendship (closed to God); and true friendship, which shares spiritual goods, the great questions, and the sincere search for truth—a friendship he cherishes above all else: “Love your friend, but do not love his vices” (Sermon 49,6).
Augustine speaks of the relationship between friendship and brotherhood. We are brothers by nature, we share the same lineage; but friendship is a free choice, each of us decides who our friends are.
The Augustinian Recollection has a clear and demanding commitment to community life, not only because of the human need for fellowship, but also as a privileged path to living in friendship with God. The religious community is not simply an organization or a functional solution, but the fruit of a vocation, a response to God’s call to a specific way of life.
Community life is a school of friendship, where the fraternity that exists from the beginning, over time, progresses towards a more joyful and profound experience: “Having one soul and one heart directed towards God” (Rule 1,1).
A community needs rules and structures, the external framework for living together; but what is decisive lies in the internal framework: mutual care, a sense of belonging, teamwork, and shared responsibility. When this happens, Psalm 132 is fulfilled: “How good and pleasant it is when God’s people live together in unity!”
In the face of individualism and loneliness, the Augustinian Recollect life recalls that African proverb: “If spiders unite, they can tie up a lion.” Friendship, lived and nurtured, is a transformative force that can vanquish the ogre of sad and solitary selfishness. The Augustinian community is that space where friendship is learned and cultivated, without sacrificing an ounce of freedom: “In necessary things, unity; in doubtful things, liberty; and in all things, charity.”
