LETTER FROM A FRIEND

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FRIENDSHIP AMONG DOMINICAN SAINTS

What is friendship?

Friendship

*two lives joined in love and lived as one.

*each friend is fully open to the Lord and open to other friends it always lead to a cluster of many friendship.

CHARACTERISTICS OF FRIENDSHIP:

THE MINISTRY OF FRIENDSHIP

FRIENDSHIP OF St. Dominic and Bl. Cecilia

Blessed Cecilia was a young woman, not yet twenty, when she received her Dominican

habit from St. Dominic at Rome and witnessed the foundation of the monastery of San Sisto. In 1223 she went with three other sisters to the new monastery of St. Agnes in Bologna to help train Blessed Diana and her

community in the Dominican life. She remained a member of the Bolognese monastery until her death. Among the

treasures Cecilia brought from Rome were her recollections of the Holy Founder

Cecilia was not a trained historian, but a beloved daughter looking back over fifty years to the time of her youth when she

personally knew a beloved Father who was now canonized, his sanctity tried and

proved. She permits us to see clearly the loving concern St. Dominic had for the

temporal and spiritual welfare of his daughters. Was it not like a father, coming home from Spain, to bring spoons as a gift for each of the sisters"? She shows his zeal

for souls.

Through her eyes we watch him preaching to the people, visiting and ministering to the recluses who lived near the walls of Rome.

He instructs them, consoles them, heals their diseases, brings them Communion. Cecilia is painting the picture of a soul. It was a great soul, a saintly soul. Can we

blame her if, in her enthusiasm, she embellishes when she sings his praises,

when she tells us of his warm, kindly, tender, human heart?

Bl.Diana d’Andalo and Bl.Jordan of Saxony

 Blessed Jordan of Saxony entered the Dominican order in 1220 and became St Dominic's successor as Master of the order in 1222. He worked and travelled tirelessly in that task till his death by shipwreck in 1237. Blessed Diana d'Andalò was a close friend of St Dominic and made her religious profession in his hands in 1219. Four years later (two years after his death) she established the Dominican convent for contemplative nuns in Bologna, under the auspices of Jordan, with whom she developed a warm friendship. His letters to her are among the most personal documents to survive from the order's early years, and a testament to warm and deep friendship among the saints.

COMPILATION OF THE LETTERS OF

JORDAN TO DIANA.-the beautiful love of the two Dominicans was revealed in the

letters Jordan wrote to Diana. These letters have been famous literature for over 7

centuries.

 Paris 1229    Dear Diana,                          I cannot find the time to write you the long letter your love would wish for and I would so gladly send. Nonetheless I do write, I send you a very little word, the Word made little in the crib, the Word who was made flesh for us, the Word of salvation and grace, of sweetness and glory, the Word who is good and gentle, Jesus Christ and him crucified, Christ raised up on the cross, raised in praise to the Father's right hand: to whom and in whom do you raise up your soul and find there your rest unending for ever and ever.     Read over that Word in your heart, turn it over in your mind, let it be sweet as honey on your lips; ponder it, dwell on it, that it may dwell with you and in you for ever.     There is another word that I send you, small and brief; my love, which will speak for me to your love in your heart and will content it. May this word too be yours, and likewise dwell with you for ever.     Farewell, and pray for me,     Jordan   

-the tenderness and humanity of these letters reveals that the austerity of Dominican life and the urgency of its mission did not stifle affective life, even if it tempered it.

-United as one in love, they succeeded in loving a multitude of their fellow men and working together effectively for their salvation.

- Jordan is much older than Diana and treats her as his spiritual daughter, but he also puts great trust in her, relying on her understanding and encouragement especially in his deep grief over the loose of his friend Henry.

FRIENDSHIP OF CATHERINE AND RAYMOND.

-are drawn together in special faith and love by a charismatic grace their love for each other is a remarkable embodiment of the covenant in Christ’s Blood.

-warmth of affection is an integral element of their special bond in divine love.

-truly “knit together in love” (Col.2:2)

-the depth of Catherine’s affection for Raymond was manifested in her copious tears when she said good bye to him at St. Paul’s church outside the walls as he set out on a journey.

Elements of a healthy friendship between St. Catherine of Siena and Bl. Raymond of Capua

“You doubted me thinking that my affectionate love for you was

diminished…in reality my love for you is increased…I shall not stop working for you whenever your

faults are shown to you, rejoice, and thank the Divine Goodness which has assigned someone to labor

over you, who watches for you in his sight.”

“My very dear father, I beg of you to pray insistently that you and I

together will bathe ourselves in the Blood of the humble Lamb, which will make us strong and faithful.”

“I keep myself in peace, because I am certain that nothing happens without the mysterious design of

God.”

St. Albert and St. Thomas

We can understand why Thomas Aquinas was so taken with his older confrere's desire to explore, his willingness to dialogue, and to take bold stands. Such shared values --

integrated and held in balance by a clarity of faith and consuming love of neighbor -- put them both on the cutting edge of theological development and made them "risk-takers"

in their service of Church and society.

A few years ago the late Father James A. Weisheipl, O.P., explored Thomas's relationship to his friend and teacher. While Thomas derived much from his

master, as his writings show, the reverse is not true. Albert, it seems, did not keep up with his student's

work until after Thomas death, when he took it upon himself to defend what had been their common stand against traditionalist critics. By then well advanced in age, Albert had Thomas' works read to him, so the story goes. Thus it is only in Albert's later works,

written mostly after Thomas' death, and the scripture commentaries in particular, that Thomas' influence is

apparent.

St. Antoninus and Fray Angelico

Antoninus applied for admission to the Dominican Order at age 15, and

was accepted a year later. With Fray Angelico and Fray

Bartolommeo, the one to become famous as a painter, the other as a

miniaturist, they were sent to Cortona to make their novitiate

under Blessed Lawrence of Ripafratta.

In 1445, when Pope Eugene IV was seeking an Archbishop for Florence, Fray Angelico, who was a friend of the Pope, suggested St. Antoninus. The Pope named him Archbishop of Florence and he entered the city in great pomp, as was the custom.

St. Martin de Porres

St. Rose of Lima

St. John Masias

There were at the time four convents of the Friar Preachers in Lima: the College of St.

Thomas; the house of St. Rose, where Sister Rose of St. Mary had died just five

years before; Santo Domingo or Holy Rosary, where the holy lay brother, Martin

de Porres, was performing such astounding miracles; and the convent of St. Mary

Magdalen, which was small and poor. John decided to enter St. Mary Magdalen and, in 1622, he received the habit of a lay brother

there.

CONCLUSION:True friendship is an

authentic love and it includes reverence for the other not

simply as persons, one capable of loving

relationship, but as person God wants him to be.