friendship’s sake

Dec 11, 2016

I have spent the weekend in the Philippines (Manila and Cebu) and today head home to NZ. The brief visit was an opportunity to meet with friends in both cities and to journey together in faith. The simple purpose of the visit: friendship, the kind of friendship without which life is not possible.

Fifteen hours of flying from NZ is rewarded in these encounters. One day an hour’s Uber trip for dinner with three friends, then 4 hours each way through Metro Manila traffic for a one hour visit richly rewarding the the time and effort in our focus on Christ present in reality.

The photos give only a word or two of the rich text that is the lives of these people of faith.  I am grateful to receive this gift.

fullsizeoutput_52c

fullsizeoutput_52d
img_7099

img_7100

img_7101

fullsizeoutput_530

fullsizeoutput_532

img_7109

Entrance to the home of the Servants of Charity

fullsizeoutput_533

Entering the Monastery of the Augustinian nuns at Bulacan

fullsizeoutput_535

The road to the Augustinian monastery – not the best.

 

fullsizeoutput_538

Accompanying friends to visit the graves of their parents.

“So what is friendship? Friendship in its minimal state, is the encounter of one person with another person whose destiny he or she desires more than his or her own life. I desire your destiny more than I desire my life.  The other reciprocates this and desires my destiny more than his or her life.  Friendship is like this, and the proof that this is true is that you’d want anyone you’d meet in the diversity of circumstances to understand this, so that everyone would embrace each other. Those who do not experience this must humbly ask the Lord and the Blessed Mother to make it understood to them, because without this, not even the relationship with God is true.”

Is It Possible to Live This Way?  Vol.1 Faith – Luigi Giussani

giussani

0 Comments

Submit a Comment

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

Latest Posts

in the field

in the field

Such wise people have reflected on their life experience enough to know that while a peaceful and perfect day is welcome, we are most connected with others and therefore with God (we could also say most connected with God and therefore with others), when we live a struggle together.

FFF the book

FFF the book

Every day I am with people who may have once been baptised but now feel a distance between themselves and the Church and God. We are these people, as are too many of our family, friends, neighbours and workmates. This book therefore is for us.

church beauty

church beauty

We call things beautiful when they reveal to us their inner essence, their reality as understood in the mind of God

All Souls

All Souls

By looking at the graves, before which countless memories return, we remember how they lived, what they loved

revolutionaries

revolutionaries

On this feast of All Saints in 1541 Michaelangelo‘s Last Judgement was unveiled on the rear wall of the Sistine Chapel.