11 Quotes from the Saints on the Beauty of Female Friendship

If you look to the saints for inspiration as you seek holy friendship in your life, you’ll quickly find the thoughts and words of Saint Thomas Aquinas, Saint Maximilian Kolbe, Saint Jerome, and Saint Basil. They speak beautifully about the necessity of friendship, and even share the gift of friendship in their own lives.

But what about friendship with other women? The words and thoughts of women saints on the beauty of friendship with other women can honestly be hard to find.

Friendship with other women is a beautiful gift - one to be given and received. But we all need encouragement and inspiration as we navigate the sometimes complicated reality of friendship with the women in our lives.

While general quotes on friendship are helpful, sometimes you just need advice from a woman who understands your experience with friendship as a woman.

Here’s what women saints (and friends of the saints!) had to say about the beauty and necessity of friendship with other women:

1. Sister Marie of the Eucharist on soul-level friendship with other women

Marie Guérin was Saint Thérèse of Lisieux’s cousin. Like Thérèse, Marie discerned a vocation to religious life and entered Carmel in 1895, taking the name Sister Marie of Eucharist. She spent her novitiate under the guidance of Thérèse, who was responsible for training the younger women in the convent. Sister Marie’s letters give us incredible insight into the suffering and death of Thérèse in 1897. Eight years after Thérèse’s death, Sister Marie also died of tuberculous.

During her time in the convent, Sister Marie of the Eucharist corresponded with Céline Pottier, Thérèse’s childhood friend and Sister Marie’s cousin. Commenting on their friendship together, Sister Marie wrote:

“Oh, as you so well said, the friendship we have is no ordinary friendship; it’s a friendship between souls. It was God who united our souls, and it is God who helps you to understand so many things that are incomprehensible to others, because, as I’ve said many times, He chose your soul. He loves you with a special love, and don’t forget that He expects a great deal from you because He has given you a great deal. He wants us to help each other become saints, and that’s why He made our souls in sympathy.”

2. Saint Teresa of Avila on the growth of a friendship

In order to instruct the nuns that lived in the Carmelite convents she founded, Saint Teresa of Avila wrote The Way of Perfection. She dedicated an entire chapter to speaking about what spiritual love and feminine friendship looked like in practice within the walls of the communities. In that chapter, she speaks into the natural time it takes to grow and be perfected in loving others, writing,

“This spiritual love is the kind of love I would desire us to have. Even though in the beginning it is not so perfect, the Lord will gradually perfect it. Let us begin by using the suitable means, for, even though the love bears with it some natural tenderness, no harm will be done provided this tenderness is shown toward all.”

3. Sister Marie of the Eucharist on the beauty of friendship

Friendship with women in our lives who are also striving for sainthood is a true gift. In a letter to Sister Marie of the Eucharist,Céline Pottier mentioned a conflict with her friend. Sister Marie responded,

“And what about your friend?! Ah, poor Céline, that’s what worldly friends are like. You think their friendship is sincere and suddenly they abandon you. Your one friend in the Tabernacle never abandons you. However, it’s nice and helpful to have friends and I’ll pray that God finds you one after His own heart.”

4. Saint Teresa of Avila on loving a friend when you disagree

What happens when you’re friends with someone who is living as the woman God created her to be? It might be time for sororal correction. That may include some uncomfortable conversations. Teresa of Avila had some advice for these conversations for her sisters living in community together. She wrote,

“True friends correct each other when it is necessary. They realize that Gospel admonition is an act of love, nothing less.”

5. Ruth on being loyal to friends, even when it’s difficult

In the Old Testament, Ruth is a beautiful example of what it means to be loyal to the women in your life, even when it’s hard. After her husband died, Ruth stayed with her mother-in-law, Naomi, when she moved back to the land of Judah after devastating loss. After Naomi encouraged Ruth to stay in her own homeland, Ruth answered her, saying:

“But Ruth said, “Do not press me to go back and abandon you! Wherever you go I will go, wherever you lodge I will lodge. Your people shall be my people and your God, my God. 17 Where you die I will die, and there be buried. May the LORD do thus to me, and more, if even death separates me from you!” Ruth 1:16-17

6. Saint Teresa Benedicta of the Cross on why women are made for friendship

There is a beauty found in being receptive to the gift of friendship from other women. When speaking about the elements of the feminine soul that make women particularly made for friendship that helps others grow into more of who they were created by God to be, Teresa writes:

“Of course, woman shares a basic human nature, but basically her facilities are different from men; therefore a different type of soul must exist as well. Since the fundamentals of the typically feminine spiritual attitude are quite familiar to us, we will trace it only very briefly. Woman naturally seeks to embrace that which is living, personal, and whole. To cherish, guard, protect, nourish and advance growth is her natural, maternal yearning.”

7. Saint Thérèse of Lisieux on friendship with women who are saints

In 1887, Thérèse went on pilgrimage to Rome and visited the tomb of Saint Cecilia. There she learned about the life of the early Christian martyr, and began a heavenly friendship with her. She later wrote the poem originally titled “The Melody of Saint Celia” for her sister Celine’s 25th birthday. Thérèse remembered the trip to Rome in her autobiography, A Story of a Soul, writing,

“Before my trip to Rome I didn’t have any special devotion to this saint, but when I visited her house transformed into a church, the site of her martyrdom, when learning that she was proclaimed patroness of music not because of her beautiful voice or her talent for music, but in memory of the virginal song she sang to her heavenly Spouse hidden in the depths of her heart, I felt more than devotion for her; it was the real tenderness of a friend. She became my saint of predilection, my intimate confidante.”

8. Saint Elizabeth on celebrating with the women in your life

In Luke’s Gospel, we meet Saint Elizabeth, Our Lady’s cousin. After the Annunciation, Our Lady goes to meet Elizabeth in the hill country to be with her during her pregnancy. When Mary arrives, Elizabeth’s greeting captures the authentic and immense joy that we find when we are able to fully rejoice with other women in our lives over the gifts God has given them.

“When Elizabeth heard Mary’s greeting, the infant leaped in her womb, and Elizabeth, filled with the holy Spirit, cried out in a loud voice and said, ‘Most blessed are you among women, and blessed is the fruit of your womb. And how does this happen to me, that the mother of my Lord should come to me? For at the moment the sound of your greeting reached my ears, the infant in my womb leaped for joy. Blessed are you who believed that what was spoken to you by the Lord would be fulfilled.’” (Luke 1: 41-45)

9. Saint Teresa Benedicta of the Cross on the necessity of friendship

As women, we need the friendship of other women in our lives. There’s a necessity for their empathy, compassion, and help. But we shouldn’t just seek this friendship within our circles of personal friends. Teresa encourages us as women to also give that gift of friendship to others - especially those who are carrying heavy burdens and are in need of genuine companionship. In her Essays on Women, she wrote,

“Everywhere the need exists for maternal sympathy and help, and thus we are able to recapitulate in the one word motherliness that which we have developed as the characteristic value of woman. Only, the motherliness must be that which does not remain within the narrow circle of blood relations or of personal friends; but in accordance with the model of the Mother of Mercy, it must have its root in universal divine love for all who are there, belabored and burdened.”

10. Saint Teresa of Avila on how to love friends well

Teresa desired the women living in the walls of her convents to see the other women living with them as family. In their daily schedule, Teresa made space for two times of recreation with the other sisters throughout the day. She wanted them to come together as a spiritual family and enjoy friendship, conversation, and leisure together. When she wrote about this schedule to her sisters, Teresa wrote,

“In this house, all must be friends, all must be loved, all must be held dear, all must be helped.”

11. Sister Marie of the Eucharist on discerning a friendship

In another letter to Sister Marie of the Eucharist, Céline Pottier wrote to ask about discerning whether to befriend a lawyer’s wife. Céline was married to Gaston, an attorney, and together they had two daughters. In response, Sister Marie wrote back, advising,

“In your last letter you didn’t mention your friendship with the lawyer’s wife. Are you continuing your little visits to each other? You asked me what my opinion was on the subject. Here it is: if this lady loves the world and is worldly, I would, in a word, advise you not to spend a lot of time with her. You would gain nothing from it, be led astray, and all the conversations would leave you with an empty heart and a head full of trivialities. What seems to be all smiles and graces will irritate you more than an annoying maid (which is the last thing you want). But if this lady looks after her soul and her family, only takes from the world what her position requires, and above all, oh, above all, doesn’t love the world, you can befriend her without fear.”