Knowing Your Friend

During Lent Jesus wants to come closer to us. He calls us to his Kingdom, to contemplate his way of being and to follow him. During this time, we become aware that we are called by God, invited to know his Son, Jesus, more closely.

Studying the spirituality of St. Ignatius of Loyola, I have learned that we all have internal battles to fight, especially those of evil desires and temptations. Ignatius said that we must choose between that of good and that of evil. We are called to this struggle, especially in Lent, where we face the vices and bad habits we have accumulated during the year.

For Ignatius, Jesus is both a powerful God and a weak, vulnerable human. Jesus as a human, learns to be a man. He grows, walks, learns from his parents, works with his hands, and wonders about his vocation. He goes through a fully human life and development, like all of us do.

In his humanity, Jesus consoles his friends in their sorrows. He is very compassionate. He is a man who is very close to those who suffer. He endures conflict, he is weak and needy, and he seeks compassion in his Passion and death. In the Incarnation, God becomes man to take on the suffering of humanity. Jesus is born poor to share in and experience the suffering of the poor. In his hidden life, Jesus, like so many refugees and immigrants today, escapes violence. Throughout his ministry, by being with the marginalized and identifying with the poor, Jesus accepts the scorn of the powerful.

Adding all this together, it strikes us that, with Jesus, we can have a mutual friendship. The love of Jesus consists of communication on both sides. Each person gives and receives. Jesus makes us his companions. He comes down to our level. Our Creator God wants to be like us and wants to be with us through our fears, anxieties, and doubts.

When Jesus dies on the Cross, he dies as our friend. In these days of Lent, we unite ourselves to his suffering and we mourn for our brother, our friend unjustly killed. Through our liturgies, we have seen him born at Christmas; we have followed him in his life as he grew, taught, laughed, worked and suffered. We have seen him look at us, smile at us, pronounce our names, and walk with us. We realize that he is always present. Could it be that we have fallen in love with Jesus? Yes, madly! Jesus is our friend in whom we can place our trust. This is what Ignatius discovered and this is the grace he wants us to receive when we approach Jesus through prayer, the Sacrament of Reconciliation and the Eucharist. Jesus is a human God, alive and present.

How do we see Jesus? Who is he for us and who are we for him? Do we take care of this relationship? Do we try to know him and get to know him better?  These days of Lent are for this: to know more about who we are and to know more about this Friend who presents himself suffering, crucified for the sins of each one of us.

Let us not be afraid to approach Jesus, dejected, suffering, or badly wounded, because this suffering is to give us life, to save us and to give us eternity. We all carry faults, we all have defects, and we all move away, but Jesus is looking at each one of us, just as we are, and he wants to be the center of our activities and of our thoughts during these days. He communicates from heart to heart.

During this Lent, may we get to know Jesus better, to better understand his way of being; and, together with his Mother, may we feel sure that he is with us, that he is our friend and that he walks by our sides.