1.1a Who Do I Want To Be With?

What Does A Good Friendship Look Like? Compassion Empathy Listening/attentive to other’s needs Communication Relationship Unconditional love Accepting each other as we are Seeing God in one another Common interests

God has given each one of us the freedom and responsibility to shape our own relationships. God hasn’t told us how these relationships are to be shaped. God has only told us that our relationships should be shaped and rooted in love.

We all have different personalities and therefore need different things from relationships. Each friendship must be shaped by the needs and the personalities involved. Some friendships need to be in a big group while others need to be one-on-one. From a Christian perspective, it is not the way we spend time with each other that makes the friendship special but rather the attitude that friends have for each other.

In being with one another we are called to take on the attitude of Christ. Jesus humbled himself to be the kind of friend that others needed. We need to stop and ask ourselves “What would Jesus do?” Jesus shows us that in friendship we must balance our needs with the needs of others.

In being with others, we all have to give up a little in order to truly be with the other. From a Christian perspective, a good friend is willing to be with another person in a way that respects the other’s dignity, feelings, values and needs. This is someone whose whole attitude says, “You are important to me.”

Why do we sometimes hurt our friends? Sometimes it is not because we mean to hurt them, but because we don’t stop and think about how our actions will affect others. In order to become a good friend we must develop habits of good friendship – we need to become virtuous people.

What are virtues? Attitudes and habits that help us choose good, even when we don’t stop to think first. They help us to take control of our lives, channel our emotions and to avoid doing things we will regret. They are developed through education, prayer and practice.

Virtues 3 Theological Virtues: Faith, Hope, Charity 4 Cardinal Virtues: Prudence, Justice, Fortitude, Temperance