True Friendship

I was reading from the Sermons of St. Francis de Sales on Our Lady this morning.  Now that is a book that is on my must-have list.  If you question whether you have a true friendship, I don't mean friends, I mean that true, deep friendship of the saints.   Try measuring it up to this beautiful quote:

For if the bond of charity so bound and united the Christians of the early Church that St. Luke assures us that they were of one heart and one mind [Acts 4:32], with how much greater reason may we not say and believe that the Son and the Mother, Our Lord and Our Lady were only one soul and one life?...

But as to her soul, it was inseparably united to the soul, heart and body of her Son, so that the blows which the blessed body of the Savior received on the Cross caused no wound to the body of Our Lady, but they gave a mighty counter-blow to her soul, so that the prophecy of Simeon was verified. Love is accustomed to receive the counter blows of the afflictions of the beloved.
St. Francis de Sales