A person without a soul friend is like a body without a head.
—attributed to St. Brigid of Kildare
Indeed we each need one special friend, who may be called a friend of the soul. We must open our souls completely to this friend, hiding nothing and revealing everything. And we must allow this friend to assess and judge what he sees.
—Pelagius
The Letters of Pelagius: Celtic Soul Friend
In 1994, I found myself on pilgrimage in south Wales just after Easter. Though it was April, and as a Texan I am used to April being warm; the time in Wales was chilly and wet. Daffodils did dot the countryside, fields of yellow shining through the rain. Yet I kept wishing for a little warmth, a little sun.
The warmth came in the form of fellow pilgrims I met in Wales, from open hearts and kind faces. Together, we visited ancient sacred wells and churches where the faithful have been baptized since the 5th and 6th centuries. We worshiped in community and we reflected on the life of faith as a pilgrimage, a daily walking with one another and with Jesus. In the two weeks together, we pilgrims became friends. One sister pilgrim and I found ourselves telling each other of our prayer lives and of our families, our sorrows and our joys. We shared moments of lovely transparency and quiet confession.
Then one day, during a lecture, the Welsh Anglican priest and scholar Patrick Thomas told us about soul friends. Quoting St. Brigid, a sixth century saint of Ireland, Patrick said to us, “A person without a soul friend is like a body without a head.”
Patrick told us about the value of a particular kind of friendship among the Celtic Christians. The Irish word anamchara or the Welsh word periglour both mean “soul friend,” a special way of befriending that intentionally honors and nurtures the life of the soul. In Celtic Christian tradition, a soul friend is so essential that not having one is like not having a head! In other words, without a soul friend, I cannot rightly see, hear, perceive, discern, discover, or know. Without a soul friend I cannot tell if a context “smells” awry. I cannot “taste” goodness. I will stumble along creating habits of thinking and behaving that could become destructive.
The Celtic Christians were clear that walking a path of faith is well nigh impossible without a true friend and companion. In the 15th chapter of the Gospel according to John, Jesus tells the disciples, “You are my friends if you do what I command you.” (Jn. 15:14) He has just commanded them to love one another as he has loved them. Following this stunning invitation from Jesus, the Celtic Church encouraged this relationship formed in Christ.
Soul friendship is distinctive because it is marked by this kind of love—a love that is centered in prayer and joy, in sharing the bread of life in its various forms and in mutual disclosure. In the early church in Ireland, Wales, Scotland, Brittany, Cornwall and the Isle of Man, the practice of soul friendship was a practice of mutual encouragement, of confession and of penance. Each person was called to tell the truth in love. A soul friend is a person who will allow me to tell the whole truth of myself, and to encourage me to seek healing and restoration. A soul friend also has the fine gift of being able to share in joy, a gift that our highly competitive culture does not call forth. (I am remembering the utter delight of a soul friend of mine upon hearing that I’d had a poem published. Herself a writer, she both knew what that meant to me, and she allowed herself to be a conduit of joy in the poem’s wider acceptance.)
John O’Donohue, Irish author and poet, has noted that the Celtic Christians were distinctive in recognizing that “Friendship is a creative and subversive force.” (Anamchara: A Book of Celtic Wisdom) A soul friend will be a hearth where we may sit in silence and be warmed. A soul friend will be a place of belonging and rest. And a soul friend will help to kindle the divine fire within the soul.
Soul friendship is a way of kindness, of mercy, of mutual vulnerability. A soul friendship is marked by a kind of deeply respectful intimacy and familiarity that our society has all but forgotten. I have been gifted with several soul friends over the years, and I am always struck by a soul friend’s ability to say gently what my soul may know, but I’ve not brought to speech. I am struck by a soul friend’s intuitive awareness and attention to my own inner tides of sadness and joy, grief and hope. I know that having a soul friend makes me more fully human, allows me to become the person God calls me to be.
Imagine this: Think what our culture and society would look like if we undertook the practice of soul friendship. Imagine what we might become if friendship were the foundation of all of our relationships, encounters and policies. Imagine that we might become the humanity we are intended to be—befriended by God through Jesus, and befriending one another in all times and all circumstances.
