We are called to be hospitable to one another and towards the stranger—the outsider. All of this assumes the hospitality of God—that is, that we “welcome one another as Christ has welcomed us.” We have known the remarkable hospitality of God towards us, and thus in turn we live out this “gospel” in our relationships in community and in our engagement with our world. But there is another dimension of hospitality that we should not miss: we are also invited to be hospitable to God.

Hospitality means a generous welcome and attentiveness to those who are like us. For sure. And yet, it is also always and ever about a radical welcome to those who are different. Surely, this is the mark of hospitality: to offer this welcome to those who are other, those not part of our immediate circle, those who represent a different social, economic and ethnic background. And, thinking in terms of the church and the world, it is about the capacity of the church to offer hospitality to those who are not like us. We come to see that these differences are not a threat, but rather an opportu

I can still hear the words of my mother in the back of my head as we drove up to the home where we as a family were guests that evening. Her firm reminder: “we eat whatever is placed before us.” And for me, the great dread was turnips!

In Spanish this is a standard way of welcoming someone to your home: “mi casa es su casa.” My home is your home. It is, of course, the Spanish equivalent to the English “please make yourself at home,” which we instinctively say as someone arrives to our home as guest. It is an assurance that this guest is welcome; we want them to feel, as we put it, “at home.” But let’s face it: while the sentiment is appreciated, we all know that no one is to take this literally. As your guest, I know that later this evening you would like me to thank the chef for a wonderful meal and good conversation and

The last couple of decades have witnessed a remarkable flurry of reflections, writings, and publications around the theme of hospitality. Many of us are indebted to Dorothy Bass and Christine Pohl and others, but especially these two, for bringing this question to the fore and helping us think about this vital Christian practice. Typically, those who have spoken to this topic have, rightly, pointed back to the Rule of St.

We need to renew afresh our commitment to hospitality—as a fundamental practice, and as a vital and essential way by which we live out our Christian identity. This is one of the great calls of Scripture.

Second, in a series of eight reflections on the meaning of hospitality

First, in a series of eight reflections on the meaning of hospitality

As I noted in a previous blog posting, the genius of the Christian intellectual tradition is that it seeks the integration of head and heart – intellect and affect, understanding and the emotional contours of our interior lives. We are not sentimentalists, dismissive of the intellectual life; we are not rationalists, discounting personal subjective experience. Rather, and instead, the Christian spiritual and intellectual tradition affirms that the life of the mind matters and that we engage the truth with open hearts.

We live and work in deeply polarized social, political and religious communities and institutions. Christians have always, of course, had to navigate substantive differences. We see witness to those towards the end of the book of Romans where the Apostle Paul is speaking to what were clearly deep differences of opinion that were threatening to divide the church in Rome. And throughout her history, the church has been marked by century after century where Christians were deeply divided around matters of faith, piety and morality. So I am not about to suggest that we are more polarized now th