of the sacramental possibilities of friendship-love? Many years ago, when I was a boy, I read a light novel by Hugh Walpole called, I think, JEREMY AT CRALE. I Remember the book because of a single short sentence it contained. One of the characters said to another, "Friends feed each other." My mind moves imme-. diately from that simple declarative sentence to thoughts of the Last Supper, the "love feasts" of the early Christians, and the central sacrament of the Christian faith, Communion.

In the sixth chapter of the Gospel according to John we read Christ's words, "my flesh is meat indeed and my blood is drink indeed. He that eateth my flesh and drinketh my blood, dwelleth in me, and I in him. As the living Father hath sent me, and I live by the Father; so he that eateth, even he shall live by me." As Adam said of Eve, "This is now bone of my bone and flesh of my flesh", so Christ might speak of those who eat and drink his flesh and blood: "And they shall be one flesh".

In the fourth chapter of his First Epistle John writes as follows:

"Beloved, let us love one another: for love is of God, and every one that loveth, is born of God, and knoweth God." In the same chapter John writes, "No man hath seen God at any time. If we love one another, God dwelleth and he in us, because he hath given us of his Spirit.” Although God is unseen to us it is by "eans of loving one another, and by means of human-to-human love that we discover Him and learn that we are His. The love of friends,. then, as well as the heterosexual love of spouses, does possess sacramental meaning and value, is likewise a gateway to knowledge of God's love. Let us admit, how that no merely 26*

fleshly, earthly love can ever satisfy the visionar ysoul of man, be one's beloved male or female. The most perfect union of husband and wife, o: of friend with friend can only take place within the unity of God, and the coupling of bodies and hearts 'in sexual love is but a begining, `a gateway to the knowledge of the One, within which all exists.

There is another Supper which I must mention here, Plato's SYMPOSIUM. Plato's banquet is a frankly homosexual gathering, the love discussed in the course of that meal is explicitly and exclusively homosexual. Yet the climax of that evening is Socrates' exposition of the idea that the love of two friends is the beginning of a development leading ultimately to love of God.

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St. Paul charged that homosexual worships the creature more than the Creator. This is necessarily true only if one accepts the condemnation of homosexuality in Leviticus as the law of God given directly to Moses. In that case the homosexual, in loving a friend, defies God's law. If he sufficiently loved God he would obey that law. Therefore. it follows that he loves his friend more than he loves God. But, as I have pointed out, since God is love, he cannot be the author of the Twentieth Chapter of Levicicus. "Cruelty is a still more appalling crime than lust". And we have evidence that even the pagan Socrates found homosexual love a gate-r way to the love of God, a sacramental thing.

Moslem mystics have for many centuries approached God by the path of homosexual love. There exists a great literature of poetry which may be read either as homosexual love poetry or as religious song. The following is a poem by the Indian mystic Kabir who, although born a Moslem, became a

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oil of the Brahman wise man, mananda. The translation which m about to quote is by Tagore. "O Sadhu! the simple union is the my Lord, there has been no besi. "Since the day when I met with

end to the sport of our love. "I shut not my eyes, I close not my ears, I do not mortify my body;

"I see with eyes open and smile, and behold His beauty everywhere:

"I utter His name, and whatever I see, it reminds me of Him; whatever I do, it becomes His worship."

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A. J. Arberry, in his book SUFISM s written, "Many anecdotes of the rly Sufis relate how fond they re of quoting love-poetry, often the first place of a purely human aracter, which they interpreted aljorically to accord with their own ssionate spiritualism Fully to

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understand the later poetry of Suf ism...it is necessary to keep in mind how fundamental in Sufi thought is this allegory of love, and how readily in their minds human and Divine imagery is interchanged." Farther on Arberry writes, "Running through all the poets... there is an element of human affection; so that the visible object of regard, be he a, handsome young Sufi or a revered preceptor, shares with God the poet's passionate addresses."

The Persian mystic Farid al-din Attar concludes one of his poems thus:

"Now will I draw aside the veil from Love,

"And in the temple of mine inmost,

soul

"Behold the Friend, Incomparable Love,

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"He who would know the secret of both worlds

"Will find the secret of them both, is Love."

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