Costion Nicolescu
(† June 12, 2025)
When two people truly meet, it is a celebration. True, complete encounters are so rare! Only God can bestow them upon you. You must only be awake, be in active anticipation, have ears to hear and eyes to see, a mind to discern and, above all, a pure heart.
Every person we meet is for us a calling, a question, and a trial, coming from God. We are required to solve the problems raised by every encounter under the given conditions. We cannot evade with a series of "ifs." What answer will we give regarding those we meet? At judgment, we will undoubtedly be asked about what we have done with ourselves in this life, how much we have wasted and how much we have borne fruit, but perhaps more insistently we will be asked about those whom God has placed in our path for companionship and the possibility of traveling together. Our failures will undoubtedly be imputed to us. The conditions under which we are required to fulfill may be of all kinds: some extremely favorable, others downright adverse. The latter, once overcome, will make the fulfillment all the more filled with joy.
Love without freedom is impossible. Love cannot be a golden cage in which we imprison the one we love. But the greatest freedom is precisely that of loving. And the pinnacle of love and freedom is friendship. There is no more important calling in this world than that to friendship. The rest, all sorts of necessary good deeds, will naturally follow. We have Christ's calling: “A new commandment I give you: To love one another! Just as I have loved you, so you must love one another.” (John 13:34); to which His testimony is added: “No longer do I call you servants, for a servant does not know what his master is doing; but I have called you friends, for all things that I have heard from My Father I have made known to you.” (John 15:15). Among friends, all things are shared in fellowship without diminution, but, on the contrary, with increase.
The loving man, the beloved man, will bear richer fruit, his work will be more devoted and more willing to self-sacrifice. Life, perhaps also a certain bookish experience, teaches man that reciprocity in absolute love is an altogether exceptional thing (it is a gift that only God can offer you, your efforts consisting at most of infinitely patient and gratuitous work) and that it is more important for a being to love than to be loved. We treasure the loves that rest upon us; they are strengthening provisions for our entire life, generators of supreme meaning. But closer to us is the treasure of true loves that we generously pour out upon others. What endless joy, then, even in our simplest, most humble gestures of love! For they are abundantly and healingly charged. But how much we still need the testimony of love! Three times Christ asks Peter: “Do you love me?” (John 21:15). Did He not know, He who is Omniscient and all-knowing, did He not know very well that His disciple loved Him? However, having fully assumed the things of man, Christ needed this triple confession. We, all the more so.
True love (I always insist, "true," for there is also apparent love) is not given "in exchange" ("I love you so you will love me!", "I love you because you love me!"). It is required to come as an outpouring (if possible, reciprocal) of gifts. In fact, God is the One who loves through us. We only associate ourselves with Him. This must be known and assumed.
It is a science to give appropriately, without leaving the other with the burden of feeling indebted, but it is a science, at least as great, to receive, to help the giver fulfill the sacrifice of his soul.
Where should all this be learned? At home? In schools? From books? At church? Probably in all these places, more or less. But true love is best learned from true love. Like the candle at Easter, friendship is lit and given from friendship. Starting from Christ's friendship for each of us. Each friendship is unique; it must be defended, nurtured, lived, despite all vicissitudes. And then you have already entered Paradise. Eternally embracing and eternally embraced.
When two people truly meet, it is a great celebration. A celebration on earth and a celebration in heaven. This is where all our learning should begin and never end. Hallelujah!
From "A Book for Lovers Who Want to Become Friends", Sophia Publishing House 2014