“Love the Lord your God and love your neighbour as yourself.” 

This is pretty widely understood to be the end goal of the Christian life and, at a surface reading, it sounds pretty agreeable. What do we do when we find ourselves at the end of what used to be a fruitful and loving relationship? When we experience the pain of a falling out? The boundaries are so much harder to draw.

A good, close friend is easy to love. Loving an enemy is certainly more difficult, but if you don’t know them too well, you can abstract the enemy enough into someone you can accept in Christ. The most difficult place to love is in the person we were once close to but are no longer.

In 2022, I moved to a new city and immediately set myself to the task of trying to find a good new community. It wasn’t easy but I was lucky enough to fall into the company of a group of young Catholic men who were on fire for their faith, invested in fraternity, and generally speaking just a good time to be around. I really connected with one of these guys in particular and invited him into my life.

About a year later, some of the cracks started to show. It was clear there were ideological and theological differences, the kinds of things that seem stupid to argue about in retrospect but felt so important in the moment. It culminated in a very awkward situation, one that showed clearly which sides of the aisle we both stood on, and resulted in consequences that would be very difficult for us both to accept.

There was no dramatic breakoff point. It just became clear over time that the trust and depth and intimacy that used to be there wasn’t anymore. The relationship was broken. I forgave him and I’m sure he forgave me too; but things were still weird.

In the Christian world, it’s become almost a cliche at this point to state that forgiveness and reconciliation aren’t the same thing. That you can release someone from the bitterness and anger in your heart without rebuilding the friendship to be exactly where it was before. It’s a helpful distinction; but it breaks down when we try to figure out how we’re going to live when we’re still in each others’ lives. I didn’t cut myself off from my friend and he didn’t cut himself off from me either. We were in the same community, often attending Masses in the same Parish. We were going to have to live here with one another. How could we find peace with that?

There are a few ways to move forward from this place. First, we must distinguish between the love of friendship and the love of God. Aquinas called them amicitia and caritas. Amicitia requires that we will good things for our friends for their sake and not our own, that love is returned mutually, and there’s some kind of common ground or interest. Amicitia is not always possible in a relationship but caritas, – the love we have with God –  is. And caritas extends even to our enemies, or people that we no longer have a good relationship with. To know that we can love the people who have hurt us without sharing a common life because of our love for God is a powerful pre-condition to finding peace in our broken relationships.

The next thing to do is simply to allow the relationship to dissolve quietly and naturally. There are times, especially when harm or abuse are involved, when we need to set quick boundaries, block people on social media, and find new friend groups. In other times though, usually the quiet drift is healthiest as it gives you both space to work through the grief of a broken relationship and develop new ways of living apart from each other. This isn’t an easy space to be in and might at times even feel lonely but God wants to meet us in this space. The pain of a broken relationship can often serve as a reminder that we should bring our desire for relational fulfillment to God - He who meets us in the emptiness of loss.

Maybe your greetings at gatherings are brief, your interactions become shallow, and you’re invited to fewer of their events, and vice versa. It’s not easy, but the slowness gives space for healing and adjusting while avoiding the drama.

On the other side of this process, we can start to find peace. Sometimes we can feel that in order to fully love God we have to be on good terms with everyone around us. In order to move on from a broken relationship, it’s actually so important to remember that God is merciful towards our humanity. He understands that even though we can love and forgive, it’s not always possible for us to continue in a common life with certain people.

A powerful and embodied practice for moving into this stage is the Sign of Peace at the Mass. This is more than a gesture, where we shake hands in greeting to those sitting around us. The Sign of Peace is a theological statement – in it we’re saying that we make peace with our brothers and sisters, that we’re letting go of past hurts even if everything isn’t resolved, so that we can approach the Altar together in communion. No matter how messy our relationships are in day to day life, we are united to God in our participation in the Eucharist.

Falling out with someone we love is always painful but it is possible to find peace in the God who loves us and to continue to share His love, even in a broken relationship.