Hospitality and Visiting

Dear Friends,

John Gramkee was back at the pool at the Bayview YMCA this week. He recently turned 90. John had had knee replacement last year, but the reason we hadn’t seen him sooner this year is that he took 26 of his family members to Spain for a month and they just got home last week. John wanted his grands and great-grands to live together for at least a short time, acquiring a taste for the potential friendships that could arise among them. He hoped so.

During the course of summer, we visit relatives and friends. We welcome visitors to our home or we go to see others. Family visits reveal common history, especially when stories are told and retold.

Sometimes we really don’t want particular visitors to come our way. How do we deal with that?

When travelling, we visit in other ways for other reasons.

If we are courageous, we visit with strangers travelling along our vacation route.    

We visit museums and historic sites not just to see but to be changed, influenced, moved by what we see and hear.

We linger in open fields, in botanical gardens to soak in the Spirit.

Standing before the statue of St. Peter in the Basilica at Rome, we notice that his forward foot has been worn smooth and bright by visitors rubbing it.  

Getting into the elevator at the Holocaust Museum in Washington DC, we catch a whiff of smoke.

Visiting cemeteries evokes awareness of the circumstances which brought people to bury their dead here.

Abraham's hospitality was a way of life. Strangers travelling by could not pitch their tent in Abraham's compound. But strangers were always welcome to stay within. That's the backstory of Isaac's birth. Abraham's hospitality laid the groundwork for the hospitality that all Jewish people, Jesus, included treasure.

In the infancy narratives in Matthew and Luke, we hear of the angel Gabriel visiting Mary, Mary visiting Elizabeth, the shepherds and Magi visiting Jesus, Mary and Joseph. Jesus presumed on the hospitality of Peter's mother-in-law and Zacchaeus, when in their towns. Jesus rested well at the home of Lazarus, Martha and Mary. At his birth, Jesus had to depend on the hospitality of the innkeeper and at his death, he was laid in a stranger's tomb.

Hospitality and visiting go hand in hand.

Today is the feast of the Transfiguration. There on Mt. Tabor, Peter attempted to imitate the hospitality of Abraham, wanting to build tents for Jesus, Elijah, and Moses. (Matt.17.1-8) Do we want Jesus to stay with us?

Are we hospitable to the Lord when He visits us with a thought, a desire, a question?

~ Sister Joan Sobala