One of the sad aspects of the current Catholic hierarchy’s obsession with sex is that they give short shrift to friendship. I noted David Hume’s more balanced view of marriage over the weekend, but Hume isn’t the only thinker who sees how important friendship is in marital or non-marital life. One of my favorite authors is the tenth century Northumbrian monk, Aelred of Rievaulx. His little book on friendship is a classic and plays a central role in my own essay on the subject, “If Love Were All” in “Love Undetectable.” What Aelred also understood was how passionate deep friendship can be. Here he is writing about friendship. Tell me if you can find anything in here that woul;dn’t also apply to a deep and beautiful marriage:
“It is in fact a great consolation in this life to have someone to whom you can be united in the intimate embrace of the most sacred love;
in whom your spirit can rest;
to whom you can pour out your soul;
in whose delightful company, as in a sweet consoling song, you can take comfort in the midst of sadness;
in whose most welcome, friendly bosom you can find peace in so many worldly setbacks;
to whose loving heart you can open, as freely as you would to yourself, your innermost thoughts;
through whose spiritual kisses – as by some medicine – you are cured of the sickness of care and worry;
who weeps with you in sorrow, rejoices with you in joy, and wonders with you in doubt;
whom you draw by the fetters of love into that inner room of your soul,
so that though the body is absent, the spirit is there,
and you can confer all alone, the two of you,
in the sleep of peace away from the noise of the world,
in the embrace of love, in the kiss of unity,
with the Holy Spirit flowing over you;
to whom you so join and unite yourself that you mix soul with soul,
and two become one.”
All of that applies to gay couples as well as straight ones. Aelred did not share the vicious homophobia that entered the church in the twelfth century. Maybe soon Catholicism will recover some of its lost appreciation of same-sex love.
The Dish 