Friends have been defined as people who know you at your worst and like you anyway, people in whose company you can be yourself. But perhaps more than anything else, friends are people who care about you for who you are, not what you can do for them. There is a kind of holiness in true friendship, because it makes sure that we are never alone when we desperately need to not be alone.
The life of prayer is a journey with God as well as toward God, a journey in which prayer becomes for those who pursue it as natural as breathing. The first big step is to cease talking TO God and start listening FOR God. And that requires silence. Silence is the language God speaks, and everything else is a translation. "As long as you know you are praying, you are not praying properly", says Benedictine monk David Steindl-Rast. When everything we do is prayer, the fruit is an increase in love, patience and compassion for others, leaving behind the unmistakable taste of holiness.