This is true friendship: a profound bond where not only our own destiny is at stake, but the destiny of the other as well, their own story. Friendship is a free good, a lost good – an authentic relationship where each person, supporting the other, continually finds themselves in the end. The friend in difficulty I was driving to work when I spotted a former university colleague on the road. I gave him a lift, and on the way he told me about his problems. Because of Covid, he had lost his job as a waiter. And the accommodation where he lived was without hot water and electricity because he had not paid his bills. I spontaneously invited him to take a shower at my place and wash his clothes whenever he needed to. He gladly accepted. One day he came as usual. He was not well, but he did not have the courage to tell me. After two days, I learned I had Covid. When this friend found out, he realised that he was the one who had infected me, so he didn’t feel like coming back to wash at my place. However, I reassured him that I had nothing against him, and we started seeing each other again. If I found the strength to go out to meet this brother of mine, it was because as a Christian I feel called to stop and see the needs and wants of my neighbour, to help him and love him as Jesus tells us in the Gospel. Steve, Burundi A marriage in crisis From Brazil, the home of her ‘great love’, Brigitte had written to me that her husband, who had become an alcoholic, had abandoned her and their three children. With my husband’s consent, I decided to visit her. Although the trip was a heavy expense for our finances, the desire to be close to this long-time friend prevailed. I found Brigitte devastated, disappointed, disoriented. She wondered why her fate left her far from her homeland and relatives, alone, a failure in every sense. We talked about the possibility of a return to France. But she did not see the total estrangement from their father as positive for the children. I could understand her. While I was there, I contacted the publishing house where I work, which had some French translation work for her. But the real gift for Brigitte, and for me, was remembering our younger years. Thinking back to our questions about faith and the desire to build a more human world, she seemed to reanimate that dream. At last, she herself had found the most concrete way to commit herself to others, a way towards rebuilding. I left refreshed. J.P., France

Edited by Maria Grazia Berretta.

From “Il Vangelo del Giorno”, Città Nuova, year IX, n.1, March–April 2023.