Friendship – Even at Christmas

Fr. Joel Tabora, S.J.

University Mass
17 December 2005

As Christmas approaches this year, we come together as a University Community within the Jubilee of the First Companions of the Society of Jesus. Hopefully by now everyone understands that as a Jesuit institution we are celebrating 500 years after the earthly births of St. Francis Xavier and Blessed Peter Fabre and 450 years after the heavenly birth of St. Ignatius of Loyola under the aegis of their companionship, their friendship in the Lord. It is a grace that deserves thematization; it deserves our conscious attention. We do not get to heaven in atomized solipsisms, each isolated from each other. We do not escape into a desert to find our salvation; nor do we climb up and live isolated on a pillar to work out our sanctification alone. I think we have also moved beyond models of religious life where personal silence, personal asceticism, personal sanctification are pushed in contradiction to community and friendship and companionship. The present Jubilee stresses that the founding members of the Society of Jesus were not just visionaries and missionaries and counselors of souls; they were companions, they were friends in the Lord. They were not only men for others in mission, they were men with others in friendship.

One aspect of companionship might be to consider what Bro. Renel engaged us in during the recollection which preceded this Mass. Companionship, certainly, invites us to reflect on and appreciate the relationships in our family, the relationships with our father, our mother, our sisters, our brothers; the relationship with our spouses, our children, and our children's children, as these impact on our personal spirituality. As Juanito Penera, the artist of our windows of the King told me before doing Window X, “If finding God in all things is at all possible, it must begin in the family.” And if finding God is possible in my life it is often possible through the providence of my father, the kindness of my mother, the industry of my brother, the gentleness of my sister, even if in our family not all is perfect and it is in God that we find our way to one another.

On the other hand, companionship invites us to reflect on the friendships that we enjoy in our community. In our school, eight thousand interact and work together to make this entity called Catholic, Jesuit and Filipino University function on two different campuses. It is hardly possible that we be friends to eight thousand people. Yet coming to Ateneo every day it is also hardly so that eight thousand people remain anonymous and isolated and indifferent to me. There are some I work with more than others; there are some on whose work my work depends, and others who depend on my work. There are some I function well with, others I don't get along with. There are some I dislike, and others I really like. Some I laugh with, but they are not friends; others I suffer with, and they are friends. Who my friends are and to whom I am friend belongs to life's wondrous mysteries. It is not a relation limited by social class or hierarchy or gender or age. My friend is 17 or 97, a superior, inferior or peer, male, female, macho, effeminate, straight or gay. My friend is the person I am at ease with, the person I choose to eat with, or have coffee with, or play tennis with, or drink beer with. My friend is the person I fall for, or the person I stand for. It is the person whose needs I respond to with a light heart; it is the person who helps me without diminishing me. My friend is the person with whom I can share my dreams, my ideals, my convictions, my fears, my darkness, my lights, the person whom in countess conversations I encourage to be happy, to be loved, to be fulfilled. It is the person I choose to listen to, the person I say sorry to, the person I say “Hi” to with an inner smile! It is the person whose defeats sadden me, and whose triumphs elate me. There is little more certain than a friend; there is nothing in a friend that can be taken for granted.

At Christmas time we think of many gifts – too often too material, too petty, too cheap or too expensive. This Christmas let us think of our friends, in whom small tokens are precious, and precious gifts always but tokens. Let us think of the mystery and miracle of their presence in our lives, and our presence in theirs. They are among the most precious of God's gifts.

And if among our friends, we find that friendship is shared in the Lord , or friendship thrives also because of a shared love for the Ateneo de Naga and what it stands for, so that our community of eight thousand is more and more a community of friends in the Lord , let us be specially grateful!

The Gospel at this University Mass announces the coming of the Lord to Mary. The Lord enters our world as companion to us in history, as friend. He is Emmanuel, God with us. He enters as our companion through the consent of Mary, through our consent. As we reflect on the grace of companionship and friendship in our lives, ultimately reflecting God's companionship and friendship for us, let us consent to letting God's friendship glow in our friendships and letting God's companionship with us be the soul of our companionship with each other.