The Elder’s Answer – My son, friendship without God is like a vessel without water, which breaks at the first wind and nourishes no one. The Fathers have said that a true friend is the one who leads you to Christ, not the one who leaves you to your passions. The greatest quality of a friend is faithfulness in God, to remain with you in prayer, to rebuke you when you stray, to lift you when you fall, and not to let you forget the Name of the Lord.
The true friend is not the one who gives you sweet words, but the one who reminds you that life is a gift and that the heart must be an altar. In the technologized world, where friendship is made and unmade with a click, the greatest gift remains the friend who calls you to prayer and to the stillness of the heart. This is living friendship and the bond that does not die, because it has Christ at its center.
Apophthegm – The Elder said: Harder than finding a friend is to remain a friend in God. Friendship without prayer dies out like fire without wood, but friendship in Christ burns without being consumed.
Pustia Inimii 