Chapter 53: The reception of guests (paragraphs 1-4)
Any guest who happens to arrive at the monastery should be received just as we would receive Christ himself, because he promised that on the last day he will say: I was a stranger and you welcomed me. (From para. 1 of Ch. 53 of Saint Benedict's Rule, trans.by Patrick Barry, OSB, 1997.)
Today this passage suggests to me that we are all strangers to each other, in a divine way, because of the unique mystery of Christ in each of us. To realize less would be judgmental. To accept the mystery is to be hospitable to all.
In the previous chapter, I welcome Christ in the oratory of my heart. Now I am asked to live out that welcome physically, in the very next moment when I "leave" the oratory. Christ is the Other in my heart unseen and perhaps idealized. Now it's time "to walk the talk" with the actual, physical, real, hardly ideal individual. Christianity, as Fr. Laurence mentioned in a talk, is "incarnational". Christ came in and into the flesh. This is where I welcome Christ-- in the flesh.
ReplyDeleteLearning how to welcome guests as Jesus in disguise, to me, has been a lifelong challenge. Too often my attempts to play the gracious host have been warped by my ego-centeredness and perfectionism. I remember some friends of mine, two sisters from a large family. One sister kept a super clean and neat house where her siblings and others tended to feel uncomfortable, afraid to disturb the fine furniture and neatness of the place. The second sister’s home was in constant disarray, with the pet German Shepherd and the cat and neighborhood kids and pets coming and going. She, however, would drop everything to make any of us who visited welcome as we made our way to her aging couch stepping through toys and clothes scattered here and there. Visitors always loved to visit the second sister where they always felt more relaxed and at ease. The Rule seems to favor the latter flexibility, leaving room for the unexpected. Or, better, making provision for, expecting the unexpected.
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