List of points

You have had the good fortune to find real teachers, authentic friends, who have taught you everything you wanted to know without holding back. You have had no need to employ any tricks to steal their knowledge, because they led you along the easiest path, even though it had cost them a lot of hard work and suffering to discover it… Now, it is your turn to do the same, with one person, and another — with everyone!

Let us make a firm resolution about our friendships. In my thoughts, words and deeds towards my neighbour, whoever he may be, may I not behave as I have done up to now. That is to say, may I never cease to practise charity, or allow indifference to enter my soul.

Children of God! A condition which transforms us into something that goes far beyond our being people who merely put up with each other. Listen to what the Lord says: Vos autem dixi amicos! We are his friends who, like him, give our lives for each other, when heroism is needed and throughout our ordinary lives.

If the love of God is put into friendships, they are cleansed, reinforced and spiritualised, because all the dross, all the selfish points of view and excessively worldly considerations are burned away. Never forget that the love of God puts our affections in order, and purifies them without diminishing them.