Posts Tagged ‘Christian Friendship’
Nurturing Christian Friendship with the Gift of Intimacy
A good Christian friendship is a gift from God. But like all areas of Catholic spiritual growth, keeping a Christian friendship strong requires some conscious, deliberate effort. One of the most important strategies for building strong Christian friendships is to give the relationship the gift of time. But the time you spend with each other…
Read MoreChristian Friendship: How Materialism May Be Ruining Your Friendships
(and we all do this to some degree) Cultivating and nurturing good Christian friendship is an important part of Catholic spiritual growth. To be truly effective at nourishing good relationships, we need to be aware of the influences and attitudes that can damage our relationships. One such negative influence is materialism. Now, I’m not just…
Read MoreLasting Friendships – Not Even Death Can Destroy True Friendship
Cultivating and nurturing good Christian friendship is an important part of Catholic spiritual growth. Unfortunately, there are some influences in our lives that make it difficult for us to even want to put the effort and energy into cultivating lasting friendships. Nurturing friendship is hard work! Depending on your age, it might surprise you to…
Read MoreChristian Friendship – Bound Together in Love
Like all areas of Catholic spiritual growth, keeping a Christian friendship strong requires some conscious, deliberate effort. One of the most important strategies for building strong Christian friendships is to give the relationship the gift of time. But another important element of any relationship is the existence of a common purpose. The stronger this common…
Read MoreChristian Friendship: Avoiding the Vice of Discord
The attempt to build a good Christian friendship is not an easy task. It takes not just time, effort, and persistence, but also the development of social virtues and avoiding social vices. Some of the social vices we need to avoid include Selfishness Materialism Shallowness Neglect One of the most damaging social vices is the…
Read MoreHow Neglect Affects Christian Friendship
Cultivating and nurturing good Christian friendship is an important part of Catholic spiritual growth. But there are some influences in our lives that make it difficult for us to keep our friendships healthy. Neglect is one of the deadliest friendship-killing influences – and unfortunately one of the most common. Life Happens . . . Hey…
Read MoreChristian Friendship – Do We Choose Our Friends?
“It is by chance that we met, by choice that we became friends.” — Henri Nouwen Two ancient pearls of wisdom seem to contradict each other. On the one hand, we hear that we should choose our friends wisely. On the other hand, there is a general belief that we don’t choose our friends.…
Read MoreSocial Skills – Don’t Let Selfishness Destroy Your Relationship (Danger!)
Cultivating and nurturing good Christian friendship is an important part of Catholic spiritual growth. To be truly effective at nourishing our friendships, we need to be aware of the influences and attitudes that can damage our relationships. This is one of the social skills we need to develop in all of our relationships. Selfishness is…
Read MoreChristian Friendship – How Friendship Feeds Our Faith
There are many benefits to cultivating a good Christian friendship, from making us smarter to making us better people to teaching us how to love. But there is one benefit of relationships that exceeds all others. As important as friendship is, it is not an end in itself. It cannot bring us perfect happiness in…
Read MoreChristian Friendship – Who Knew It Could Make You Smarter?
There are many benefits of friendship that make conscious, deliberate cultivation of good Christian friendship worthwhile. Friendship leads us to the enlightenment of intimacy. It also gives us much needed social support. Good Judgment Another wonderful benefit of friendship is the help that other people give us in making judgments about our lives. This help…
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