A true friend is more precious than a pure diamond

Fr Jason in his column this week, Let the Busy World Be Hushed, has an important message about friendship ahead of Palm Sunday...

The Second Star of Africa is the second largest cut colourless diamond in the world, weighing 530 carats. It makes up the centrepiece of the Royal Sceptre (which symbolises the worldly power of the monarch of the United Kingdom) that most recently was presented to King Charles at his Coronation.

The jewel once formed part of a much larger rough-cut diamond discovered in the Cullinan mine in South Africa in January 1905, weighing an enormous 3,106 carats. It was named after Thomas Cullinan, the owner of the mine. In 1907, the Transvaal Colony government bought the Cullinan diamond and the Prime Minister of the Transvaal, Louis Botha, presented it to Edward VII to help mend relations between Britain and South Africa after the Boer War.

The Cullinan Diamond was thereafter divided up and produced stones of various cuts and sizes, the largest of which is the Great Star of Africa. Next is the Second Star of Africa, weighing 317.4 carats, which was mounted in the Imperial State Crown. Both form part of the Crown Jewels of the United Kingdom and are on display in the Tower of London.

Like all of the world’s most precious diamonds, the Cullinan diamond was formed some 300 to 400 miles deep beneath the earth’s surface when atoms fusing together under the enormous pressure and the immense weight of the rock above.

Diamonds, which are less expensive, are formed much nearer to the earth’s surface, where the pressure from the rock is much less and the crystallisation is less pure.

Indeed the more I read and found out about Diamonds, the more I realised that their formation is a great analogy for the gift of friendship, a valued friendship that is, which wells from deep, deep within.

The Old Testament Book of Sirach tells us that a ‘Faithful Friend is the Elixir of life’, one the most precious things we can hope to discover in our lives and ‘whoever finds one has found a rare treasure’.

There are many layers to friendship but, as with the cheaper diamonds found near to the earth’s surface, some friendships go no further than skin deep, they remain at a superficial level - perhaps based on who you are, what you wear, the car you drive, the house in which you live. With such friends, you may have to look your best and be at your best to meet with them for a latte or a cappuccino as you talk on the right things. You have to wear an imaginary mask, concealing the true essence of your being.

A true friendship on the other hand, a friendship which wells from deep beneath the surface, from the very core of our being, is poles apart in its purity from that which exists near to the surface. Such a friendship like the diamond is formed over time, deep, deep beneath the layers of rock, often times under heavy pressure, making it’s crystallisation all the more pure. With such friends there is no need for pretence, no having to wear a mask. With them, you do not have to look your best, be your best; in their company, you can just be. The sense of belonging and acceptance that you feel is a given, welling up from deep within.

In these days to come, you will observe the greatest examples of friendship ever known. On Palm Sunday you will hear the account of Jesus entering the City of Jerusalem, being greeted as the Messiah, ‘Hosanna, Hosanna in the highest Heavens’. Those who herald his coming lay Palm branches before him so that his feet will not have to touch the ground.

Everyone wants to get a feel of his cloak, to be associated with this heralded man, but Jesus knows their expression of friendship and their loyalty goes no further than the surface, than skin deep.

For as the Book of Sirach warn us, one kind of friend is so only when it suits them but will not stand by you in your day of trouble and this, Jesus knows, as He approaches Good Friday.

Where then, you might ask, are all those who greeted him on the previous Sunday and laid down their palm branches before Him, where are they now? For come the Friday of that week, just days after, they have all scattered, they are nowhere to be found. In fact some, instead of hailing him, spit on him and kick him as he lies on the street under the weight of the Cross, it is then under pressure from all which bears down on him that true friendship is revealed.

It is then that the Simon of Cyrenes, the Veronicas, the women of Jerusalem stand forward. It is then as all others run for the hills that Mary of Magdala who was derided, Mary the mother of Clopas, his own mother Mary and John, the quiet one, the only one of the twelve male disciples to remain by his side, all stand with him at the foot of the cross. The most purest example of friendship ever known.

This was a love and a friendship that, like the most precious diamond was formed over time, deep within the core of their very beings, which reached its zenith when it was that their friend reached rock bottom.

So we might ask ourselves in this Holy Week to come, of what are we made. Are we that, which is hewn of a Palm Sunday close to the Earth’s surface? Or are we among those that found at the foot of the Cross of a Good Friday, formed like the purest of diamonds deep, deep beneath the Earth’s surface?