Friendship with god

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Often appears with: the passions and the emotions · sustaining grace through prayer · spiritual reading and conversion · prayer and worship · moral precepts in old law · justice as a virtue · holiness and virtue · guarding against occasions of sin · friendship and loyalty · fate, destiny, and necessity · conversion and faith · assurance and fear about prayer

Usually: argument (2) · temptation (1) · detachment (1) · exhortation (1) · skepticism (1)

Quotable

“mental prayer is nothing else, in my opinion, but being on terms of friendship with God, frequently conversing in secret with Him Who, we know, loves us.” Teresa of Ávila, Saint, The Life of St. Teresa of Jesus, of the Order of Our · insight

“Now since likeness is the reason of love, according to Ecclus. 13:19: "Every beast loveth its like"; there cannot possibly be any friendship of man to God, Who is supremely good, unless man become good.” Thomas, Aquinas, Saint, Summa Theologica, Part I-II (Pars Prima Secundae) · insight

Summa Theologica, Part I-II (Pars Prima Secundae) primary

Thomas, Aquinas, Saint · c. 1265–1273
PART I-II ("Prima Secundae") > i.e. into imperfect men, "the bottles break, and the wine runneth out," i.e. the precepts are despised, and those men, from contempt, break into evils worse still. (22/91)

In Article 2 of Question 99, Aquinas argues that the Old Law includes moral precepts, since friendship with God requires human goodness and holiness, citing commandments like “not kill” and “not steal.”

on Heb. 12:11: "Now all chastisement (*disciplina*)," etc., says: "Discipline is an exercise in morals by means of difficulties." Therefore the Law which was given by God comprised moral precepts. *I answer that,* The Old Law contained some moral precepts; as is evident from Ex. 20:13, 15: "Thou shalt not kill," "Thou shalt not steal." This was reasonable: because, just as the principal intention of human law is to …

The Life of St. Teresa of Jesus, of the Order of Our Lady of Carmel primary

Teresa of Ávila, Saint · c. 1562
Chapter XXV., § 4, St. Teresa, speaking of the difference between the Divine and the imaginary locutions, says that a person commending a matter to God with great earnestness, may think that he hears whether his prayer will be granted or not: y es muy posible, "and this is quite possible," but he who has ever heard a Divine locution will see at once that this assurance is something quite different. Mr. Lewis, following the old Spanish editions, translated "And it is most impossible," whereas both the autograph and the context demand the wording I have ventured to substitute. > Chapter VIII. (3/6)

Teresa develops her case for mental prayer by personifying God’s friendship with those who draw near, warning that fear is unhelpful, and describing prayer as the door to graces and protection against Satan.

deserve it. And as to him who has not begun to pray, I implore him by the love of our Lord not to deprive himself of so great a good. 7. Herein there is nothing to be afraid of, but everything to hope for. Granting that such a one does not advance, nor make an effort to become perfect, so as to merit the joys and consolations which the perfect receive from God, yet he will by little and little attain to a knowledge…