MEDITATION ON THE LIFE OF ST JOHN
I. Here is the intimate friend of Jesus, the one who rested on his chest at the Last Supper, and whom the divine Savior made part of his greatest secrets. The first condition of a true friendship is to have no secrets for the friend. Is your heart open for Jesus? Don’t you take any resolution without consulting it? At all times you can penetrate his heart through the lovely sore on his side; And He cannot do it on yours, full as it is totally of creatures! I love you, oh my God, and I want to love you always more (Saint Augustine).
II. The second quality of friendship is to share with the friend what is possessed. Now, Jesus, during his life, God gave everything to Saint John and, when he died, he gave his mother. “My son, he said, here is your Mother.” Saint John had given himself completely to Jesus, had abandoned everything to follow him. Give yourself all the same to Jesus, if you want to be his friend. Who do you use your heart for? The world is unworthy to possess it. What have you given Jesus in return for his tenderness? Have you consecrated your body, your will, your intelligence, in a word everything you are and everything you own?
III. In short, the third quality of friendship is similarity: love makes friends similar, if they are not already similar. It was also this love that made St. John like Jesus, also made him the spiritual son of Mary. Jesus will love you, if you resemble Him. To achieve this, it is necessary, not that you lie visibly on the heart of Jesus, but that Jesus come to your heart, and that you have no will other than His. Have the same tastes and the same disgust; there is true friendship (Saint Jerome).