Tag: hospitality

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Tuesday of the Tenth Week in Ordinary Time

Sketch by Brie Schulze

At first glance the story about the widow in Zarephath seems a bit harsh, perhaps too demanding.  How could God expect someone on the point of starvation to provide what would be their last meal to a stranger?  Why would He ask someone to do such a thing?  It reminds us of Abraham who is asked by God to offer his only son Isaac.  When it is God Himself who asks, obedience must be understood as access to true happiness.  God gives us these stories to remind us that we cannot discern what we ought to do without consulting Him, His Word, His prophets. read more

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Saint Justin, Martyr

It’s hard not to think again back to the different mysteries we’ve celebrated this week when we read today in Peter’s first letter about the importance of hospitality.  The whole Christian mystery is warmly enveloped in the human experience of hospitality.  Last Sunday we celebrated the Solemnity of the Holy Trinity and one of the most famous and celebrated passages from the Old Testament that evokes this mystery sees it enveloped in the hospitality of Abraham and Sarah.  The Trinity receives this hospitality of Abraham in the Old Covenant, and in the New Covenant, as if in response to Abraham’s generous welcome Jesus goes to prepare a place to welcome us in His Father’s house.  Jesus’ most intimate moment with His disciples is at a meal where he shares all that He is and all that He has with them.  Jesus is the Host in every sense of the word.  Yesterday we celebrated the Feast of the Visitation where the first moment of Christian hospitality is shared by Mary and Elizabeth with great jubilation. read more

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Visitation of the Blessed Virgin Mary

Sketch by Brie Schulze

The hidden figures of the Visitation reveal a great mystery. Jesus and St. John the Baptist are both powerfully present and active well before they are even born. For St. John the Baptist this is a great grace – it was by no human quality or disposition that he came to know and rejoice at the voice of the mother of his Savior. The divine gift of prophesy and the motion of the Holy Spirit are the only possible explain for John’s in utero dance of jubilation. The most important events in our own personal history of salvation are similar: as glad and as free as we were to come to know our savior in a more meaningful way, it was always, “a total God move.” Even the gift of prophesy which helps us to see the way God is moving in the world in a mysteriously clear way is still God moving first our mind. We can cleverly attribute the text of the Psalm 138 as Jesus speaking to John the Baptist, read more