This past week was a time of reconnecting with lots and lots of friends I hadn’t seen in a while. 

Of course, the main reason for my being away all week was for our annual Priest Convocation, when all the priests of the Diocese of Richmond gather for a chance for some good solid fraternity and formation together as a presbyterate. This year, we met down in Virginia Beach, and it was great as always… I got to reconnect with so many of my priest friends who serve on the other side of our geographically HUGE diocese.

But then on my way back home from priest convocation, I also made a couple of other pitstops.

First I stopped by Our Lady of Mount Carmel in Newport News, which is where I spent my pastoral year as a seminarian — and I had the chance to say hello to a handful of old friends who still work at the parish and the school there.

Then I drove a little further along 64 and stopped by Williamsburg where I checked in with a bunch of families I had become really close with during my 2 years at St Bede.

And as all of these visits were happening, I began to feel sort of overwhelmed by just how much support the Lord has provided me with over the years…

So many good people.

So many friends.

So many holy intercessors.

So many folks, without whose help, I know I would long ago given up.

So that’s what I inevitably began to think and reflect on when I came to our first reading this Sunday… this incredible story from the Book of Exodus.

Moses stood atop a hill, overlooking the valley where Joshua was leading the Israelite armies against Amalek and his warriors. As long as Moses kept his hands raised up in intercession, Israel had the better of the fight. But whenever he got tired and allowed his hands to droop down, Amalek and his army started to win.

So, two men — Aaron and Hur — came to Moses’ help. They propped up a rock for him to sit on, and then they stood together with him atop the hill: One on one side, and one on the other. And they physically supported his arms so that he could keep them raised until the battle was finally won.

This is of course a classic image of the power and necessity of constant intercessory prayer —  We believe and are convinced that our prayers are efficacious. We believe that our prayer moves mountains. That the battle is ultimately won not by worldly power or influence, but rather by praising God and turning to Him with all our hearts in trustful surrender. 

Just think of all the cloistered communities, all the religious sisters, and all those little grandmas with their rosaries who are at this precise moment literally holding us up by their invisible prayers…!

So yes, this story of Moses is clearly a good reminder that (as Jesus teaches us in our Gospel today): We must pray always without becoming weary! 

But, I also want to propose that this story of Moses being supported by Aaron and Hur side by side atop the hill — is also a fantastic image for Christian friendship.

In his book “The Four Loves,” CS lewis points out that friends are always to be pictured “side by side” — not “face to face” — because, as he says, they are looking, not at each other, but at the same truth together… they care deeply about the same thing together — they pursue the same goal, the same activity, the same interest together.

Now this could be as simple and ordinary as sharing a love for the same video game, or the same sports team, or the same hobby… But it could also be as deep and profound as sharing the same faith, the same spirituality, the same passion for seeking God’s will.

And that’s just what we see on display in Moses, Aaron, and Hur — they are facing this great battle together, side by side. They are united by a common aim and goal. They are doing what good, virtuous friends do: 

They make sure that Moses keeps on going. They keep him on mission. They remind him of his identity and urge him onward. They don’t make excuses for him. They hold him accountable. They don’t give him permission to give up or despair when he starts to feel worn out and exhausted…

At the end of the day, we all need friends like THAT if we’re going to stay faithful to the Lord.

In the book of Sirach, the Bible says that “faithful friends are a sturdy shelter; whoever finds one finds a treasure.”

St Thomas Aquinas once wrote that “there is nothing on this earth more to be prized than true friendship.”

St. Alered of Rievaulx goes so far as to say that: “Without friends there is absolutely no pleasure in life.”

We each need to cultivate good holy Christian friendships —  We need solid, virtuous, Catholic friends in our life, who will hold us accountable when we want to give up. Because the fact of the mater is:

We will want to.

You will reach a point when you are tempted to give up on your faith.

To stop going to church.

To give up on your marriage.

To give up on your calling in life.

So… we absolutely need to surround ourselves with the kind of people who know us… who we can really share our hearts with. Who are on fire for the Lord and who can help keep us on fire as well.

Think of a bonfire — it only goes on burning if the logs stay stacked together. The minute you spread out the logs and isolate them… the fire goes out, and the embers begin to cool down.

This is true for our faith as well:

None of us can ever hope to become holy alone. We cannot become saints on our own. The canonized saints are very often canonized along with their BEST FRIENDS… people who walked with them, side by side, supporting each another, and pushing each other forward.

We need friends like that — who also love Jesus, who live and behave as if He’s a real Person who is actually alive. We need friends with whom we can have spiritual conversations…who can help keep us on the straight and narrow path. Who will proclaim God’s word to us both when it’s convenient AND when it’s inconvenient… when we want to hear it AND most especially when we don’t want to hear it.

Those sorts of friendships aren’t always easy to find, of course. If you happen to have one or more friends like that, count your blessings and thank God for those people.

But the sad reality is: Our world tends to make us more and more isolated without really even noticing it… Individualism is the name of the game, and more and more people report that they feel sort of distant, unseen, and plain downright lonely. Social media claims to help us make more and more friends…more and more connections in our own little algorithmic echo chamber… but do we even know anyone really? I recently heard a YouTuber claim that only 1 out of 4 young adults today report they have even ONE close friend.

Building good, solid community can be extremely taxing due to everyone’s crazy schedules filled with so many activities. Deep friendship takes hard work, sacrifice, and personal investment…It takes risk! — What if I’m rejected? What if they don’t want to be my friend??? These and so many other fears and lies can makes us feel sort of drained and anxious just at the thought of trying to make new friends…

But… BE NOT AFRAID! — It’s totally worth it.

Take the risk. 

Reach out to someone.

Become a friend! — Support their arms when they get tired. And don’t be afraid to allow someone else to help you when you’re exhausted and broken down yourself. 

You are not alone.