The great crowds that had followed Jesus were leaving one by one in disgust. Jesus had told them that unless they ate His flesh and drank His blood, they would have no part with Him.
How could such a learned Teacher the great Miracle worker, make such a proposal? The Jews, so particular with matters of cleanliness and purification in their eating habits, were taken aback by what seemed to be cannibalism.
The 12 Apostles were also in doubt, so Jesus tells them, “Do you also want to go away” (John 6:67)?
Almost without thinking, Peter blurts out what he had in his heart. “Lord, to whom shall we go? You have words of eternal life and we have come to believe and to know that You are the Holy One of God” (John 6:68).
No, they were not going to abandon the Master even in this difficult moment. They still could not understand that Jesus was foretelling the institution of the Holy Eucharist. But they had developed a certain loyalty to His person.
There is a story of a certain Demetrius whose friend had been unjustly condemned to death and had no time even to inform his mother.
Demetrius vouched for the integrity of his friend and volunteered to remain in prison and even suffer the death sentence so that his friend could be allowed and say good-bye to his mother. A long time elapsed and the released friend had not yet shown up while the time for the death sentence drew close.
The cynics and the skeptics rubbed their hands in glee—here is another betrayal of friendship; whoever talked about the virtue of loyalty and friendship?
On the day of execution, Demetrius still kept his faith with his friend, confident that he would finally arrive. And he did, all flustered and in a hurry. He had been detained by some accident, but had rushed to the scene of the proposed execution to take his proper place and released Demetrius.
The king then realized that such a noble person and such a noble friend could not have been guilty of the crime he was accused of, and both Demetrius and his friend were released.
Present-day skeptics may still raise their eyebrows over this fable of loyalty. But most of us would certainly wish to have such loyal friends. Even more important, we can ask ourselves if we are loyal to our friends.
We are loyal to our friends if we engage in a friendship not because of what we can gain but what we can give. True friends seek the benefit of the other person, not their own.
Therefore, friendship based on evil, in which we do harm to the other while also doing harm to ourselves, cannot be a true friendship. Such friends are really “accomplices,” and such friendships often end up in bitter quarreling and enmity.
One vice that often destroys friendships is detraction or calumny. False friends could flatter a person to his face and then say negative things about him in his absence.
A loyal friend would say nice things about us to others and save the negative things in a personal and private conversation, with the object of showing us our defects in order to help us improve.
So if we want to be loyal friends, we should not be afraid to talk to others about their need to improve, in a spirit of constructive help.
Likewise, we can put into practice that practical advice in our conversations: “Don’t make negative criticism. If you can’t praise, say nothing” (The Way, 443).