Friendship

This post quoting St John Chrysostom on Friendship is from the blog 'The Ebb and Flow of Consciousness':

May we all experience friendship such as this.

Icon of St Peter and St Paul

So dear a thing is a good friend, that times and places are loved on his account. For as bodies that are luminous spread their radiance to the neighbouring places, so also friends leave a grace of their own in the places to which they have come. And oftentimes in the absence of friends, as we have stood on those places, we have wept, and remembering the days which we passed together, have sighed. It is not possible to represent by speech, how great a pleasure the presence of friends affords. But those only know, who have experience. From friends we may both ask a favour, and receive one without suspicion.

For, in good truth, a friend is more to be desired than the light; I speak of a true one. And wonder not: for it were better for us that the sun should be extinguished, than that we should be deprived of friends. It is better to live in darkness, than to be without friends. And I will tell you why. Because many who see the sun are in darkness, but they can never be even in tribulation, who abound in friends. I speak of spiritual friends, who prefer nothing to friendship. Such was Paul, who would willingly have given his own soul, even though not asked, nay would have plunged into hell for them- With so ardent a disposition ought we to love. And where is it possible that such a one should be found? Nay, it is not possible because we have not the will, since if we were willing it is abundantly possible.

Saint John Chrysostom. "The Homilies of S. John Chrysostom on the Epistles of St. Paul the Apostle to the Philippians, Colossians, and Thessalonians." Trans. J. H. Parker. Library of Fathers of the Holy Catholic Church Volume 14. Harvard University, 1843. 354, 355.