Friendship among souls who love God is a very strong stimulus to perfection.

           

            "The friendship between these two saints is a very beautiful and important aspect. In fact, when two pure and inflamed souls of the same love of God meet, they acquire from the reciprocal friendship a very strong stimulus to walk the path of perfection. Friendship is one of the noblest and loftiest human sentiments that divine grace purifies and transfigures, "Pope Benedict XVI told the general audience at the Vatican on September 15, 2011, when he spoke of the friendship and love that existed between St. Francis of Assisi and St. Clare of Assisi.

         The beauty and truth of the encounter of free souls who understand that the new commandment of love is something that elevates all feelings to the purest and true that is capable of provoking a renewal of all human behavior, offering an energy that infects and reaches to all who are around. The saints are the great benefactors of humanity, says the Holy Father.

           In this way we can see and understand the beauty of the life and friendship of St. Gilbert with various saints of his time. It was a deep friendship with St. Thomas Becket, archbishop who pursued by the king was protected in the houses of the gilbertina order and accompanied safely by one of his monks, the deacon, also saint Avertino who led the archbishop to France.

           We see the friendship and love that lifted the souls of both Saints Gilberto and Elredo, the author of a beautiful treatise on the value of friendship compared to a love that surpasses all human capacity for understanding, an attitude that liberates and heals all fears and ground the human relationship in the ingrained love of our God.

             St. Gilbert was still a close friend of St. Bernard of Clairvaux with whom he spent more than a year in Citeaux to together resolve the question of the houses of St. Gilbert and the life of his religious. How much friendship and love did not nourish them to look together in the light of the Holy Spirit for this great work that God stirs in their hearts. How they would not have been the conversations and debates of both glimpsing all the goodness and tenderness of God in favor of his kingdom by the order of Sempringham.

              They were certainly intense moments of prayer, sharing, dialogue and, above all, of trust and love for each other so that together they could reach a decision in favor of the Lord's saving plans for the English people.

              At this time still in France, St. Gilbert can live with the great archbishop of Armagh, Ireland, St. Malachi, great apostle of faith in the Irish lands. How could it not have been these meetings that kept the two gathered in the love of Christ!

              Finally, how not to mention the meeting with Blessed Pope Eugenio III ... How they would not have happened their meetings and, mainly, the moments of life in common that they could maintain. It is God who in his love for the saints prepares an experience of heaven still on earth so that ordinary men can overcome themselves and glimpse the kingdom of God in their hearts totally turned to heavenly things.

             These are moments so strong that everyone becomes so close to the Lord that he touches their hearts to a joy that surpasses the whole dimension of the human being as a perfect creature of God. It is the saints who change the world for the better, transforming them in a lasting way.

              It is the saints who teach us that the commandment of love is a human reality when we are able to overcome the human affections that only enslave us.