Hospitality
Do not neglect to show hospitality to strangers, for thereby some have entertained angels unawares.
The last office space my law firm occupied was in Herndon, Virginia, not far from Dulles airport (my “home away from home” during those years). The small office building sat in the same parking lot as a diner. My visits to the diner started with lunch. It was a quick walk next door and they tried to accommodate my gluten allergy. We would have the occasional firm group lunch there. I would meet clients there for breakfast from time to time as well. Over time, I started going to the diner when I arrived at work in the morning to have breakfast and coffee. I would sit at the counter with my laptop and get started on the day. It became part of my routine when I was in the office. It would not be an exaggeration to say that I became their best customer. Over the years, all of the ink wore off my frequent customer card!
Although convenience was the catalyst for going to the diner, over time it became part of my community. I knew most of the staff and management and they knew me. If I traveled away for a few days, on my return they wanted to know where I had been. I was greeted when I entered the front door with a smile and a wave. In the morning, someone brought my coffee without asking. At lunch, an iced tea showed up when I sat down. People asked me for advice. I heard about some of the troubles and difficulties the staff experienced in life. The diner and the people there had become an important part of my life.
One time, on a visit to my office in Austin, Texas, I was joking with my two attorneys there about being a regular at the diner and trying to explain it to the new attorney. I said to her that it was like Norm on Cheers—I would walk in and everyone would say “Eric!” (Not really.) She gave me a blank stare. I asked her, “You don’t know what I am talking about, do you?” She admitted, no. It turns out that she had grown up in Canada and had never watched the TV series Cheers!
I was recently talking to a friend whose ministry includes the operation of a coffee shop and cafe here in Leesburg. The atmosphere is intended to be Catholic Christian and offers warm hospitality in the downtown community. My friend commented that he works in an office upstairs from the cafe and comes downstairs for coffee or food throughout the day. Focused on work and his agenda for the day, he constantly finds himself greeted by customers who know him as he passes through the cafe. He visits with them because part of the ministry of the cafe is hospitality, but feels the tension of not getting back to his work promptly.
I shared with him my experience with the diner and how important it had been to me during that time in my life. To me, the most important part of the experience was being known at the diner. Perhaps his encounters with people in the cafe were an opportunity to practice a deeper ministry of hospitality? To be present to people and give them the experience of being known and recognized. The conversation led me to think more about hospitality.
One basic definition of hospitality is “the act of being friendly and welcoming to guests and visitors.” The Scriptures repeatedly exhort us to practice hospitality:
Contribute to the needs of the saints, practice hospitality.1
Practice hospitality ungrudgingly to one another.2
Do not neglect to show hospitality to strangers, for thereby some have entertained angels unawares.3
St. Paul also identifies hospitality as an important characteristic of a good bishop.4 Why is hospitality important?
One aspect of hospitality is that it makes us feel seen, acknowledged and recognized as a person. It is an encounter with another person. This was my experience at the diner. There is something life-giving about being recognized, about being known. In hindsight now that I have closed that office and work elsewhere, I see how much the people at the diner and their daily hospitality meant to me. During the pandemic, I felt acutely the absence of community interaction and hospitality. Our artificial interactions with people through our cell phones, on social media for example, also can leave us lonely and depressed. There is something about human contact and community that we need as human beings.
This truth is not surprising because of the way we were designed by God. Each of us is created in the image and likeness of God. We know by revelation that God is three Persons in one God — the Holy Trinity: Father, Son and Holy Spirit. God exists in community. Likewise, human beings were created to live in community with others. The basic unit of society is the family—a small community of people who love and care for each other. On a broader scale, each of us does not exist in isolation. We exist within a community of people that we interact with on a daily basis in one way or another.
Every baptized Christian has been given the Holy Spirit. If we are living in the state of grace (free from unrepentant serious sin), we are a temple of the Holy Spirit. God lives within us. This is the hidden power of Christian hospitality—it gives us the opportunity to manifest God’s love through the power of the Holy Spirit to those we encounter every day.
Hospitality is not only for shop keepers, dinner parties or house guests. Hospitality is “the act of being friendly and welcoming.” Each of us has multiple opportunities every day to practice Christian hospitality when we encounter another person. It may be life-giving and healing for you to recognize and greet with a smile someone that you encounter. You may be an important part of their community. Your hospitality may be life-giving to that person in the Holy Spirit.
We see the same dynamic play out in our spiritual life. The life of prayer really begins when we experience that God knows us. You realize that God knows YOU. This is where the divine power of Jesus brings healing to our soul. In fact, this is how my life of prayer was originally jump started on retreat some 28 years ago. During that retreat, I was instructed to spend time praying and reflecting on specific Scripture passages such as:
I created you in my own image and likeness.5
Before I formed you in the womb I knew you.6
You are my child.7
Every hair on your head is numbered.8
You are the apple of my eye.9
You are engraved on the palm of my hand.10
Be still, and know that I am God.11
While praying and reflecting on these Scriptures, especially in the presence of Jesus in the Blessed Sacrament, God touched me. The power of the Holy Spirit in the Word of God ministered to me. The words of the Scriptures spoke to my heart. I realized and understood that God recognized me and knew me. This experience was immediately life-giving and healing. It opened a personal relationship with the living God and allowed me to begin receiving God’s love through the Holy Spirit in prayer. This personal encounter with God, where I finally realized that God knew ME, changed the trajectory of my life.
In these posts, I keep coming back to the necessity of daily personal prayer. Building a life of prayer requires daily contact with the living God. As I have noted before, our daily exercise routine of prayer disposes us to receive the love of God that purifies and transforms us. Our encounter with God in the quiet place, in the stillness, strengthens us in the spirit to go back out into the world and love our neighbor. Without prayer, our hospitality is simply secular humanism. It is only by living life in the Holy Spirit through daily personal prayer that our hospitality truly becomes life-giving. It is the presence of God within us that ministers to those we encounter when we are friendly and welcoming. Christian hospitality gives us the opportunity to manifest God’s love through the power of the Holy Spirit to those we encounter every day.
I pray that your encounter with God today in the stillness would renew you in the inner man, strengthen you in the Holy Spirit, and fill and empower you to go back out into your community and share life-giving hospitality with all you encounter, in the mighty Name of Jesus. Amen.
God loves YOU!
Eric A. Welter is an employment lawyer and trial attorney with a long-time devotion to intercessory prayer. He is a Catholic Christian who has been involved with intercessory and healing prayer ministry for over twenty years. The Abound in Hope Ministry website is https://www.aboundinhope.org/ministry.
Eric’s books on prayer are available in paperback or e-book format on amazon.com.
Effective Intercession for Our Loved Ones: Power Tools for Prayer.
(Available on amazon.com in paperback or Kindle.)
Effective Intercession for Ourselves: “Power Tools” for Prayer (Part Two). (Available on amazon.com in paperback or Kindle.)
Romans 12:13. Bible quotations are from the Revised Standard Version, Catholic Edition, unless otherwise specified.
Hebrews 13:2. St. Paul here references Genesis chapter 18, where Abraham is visited by angels he believes are three travelers.