Choose deliberately rather than drifting: a spiritual friendship is not simply a friendship between two believers. Give it structure, or it will not survive ordinary life — meet at a set time, weekly or monthly; pray together aloud, however briefly, at every meeting; read the same book and talk about it; and ask each other two honest questions, one about prayer and one about sin, and answer them. Speak of your own failures before speaking of the other's. Keep confidences absolutely and without exception. Keep it chaste, and keep it open: a friendship that must be concealed from a spouse, a superior or a director is not this thing but its counterfeit — St Francis de Sales warns those living in the world at length against friendships that flatter and possess rather than convert. Let it serve the marriage, family, parish or community you already belong to and never compete with them. And accept correction from your friend when it comes: the willingness to be told the truth is what distinguishes this friendship from companionship.

St Francis de Sales treats true and false friendship at length in the third part of the Introduction to the Devout Life. Gaudete et Exsultate insists that holiness is grown in community and not alone, and Fratelli Tutti recovers the wider notion of social friendship.

Other

Salesian in its classical treatment; common to the whole Church

Regular meetings — weekly or monthly

other