ADVANCING THE NEW EVANGELIZATION
Winning the World for the Sacred Heart of Jesus
Welcoming People to the Dinner Table
and to Be Part of the Community
Dr. Michael McCallion
“H
ospitality” is central to the Gospel and always includes, mini-
mally, feeding the poor and disconnected. The ministry of
hospitality, then, means welcoming the poor and strangers to the din-
ner table, but more importantly it means inviting them into the life of
the community. Moreover, from a Christian perspective, this ministry
is most important because people of all kinds flourish in contexts of
hospitality. It is hospitality, then, which includes welcoming, that is
fundamental to Christian identity. I simply add here that all of us can
learn more fully what hospitality means by learning from those com-
munities that practice hospitality daily, such as The Catholic Worker,
St. John’s and St. Benedict’s Monasteries, L’Arche and others.
In the Church’s early tradition, central to
hospitality was welcoming strangers into
local Christian communities as well as in-
dividual parishioner’s homes to offer them
food, shelter, and protection. Today, how-
ever, I believe most of us think of hospital-
ity as having family and friends over for a
pleasant meal, or we think of the hospitality
industry of hotels and restaurants which are
open to strangers as long as they can pay.
Or, perhaps we think of our parish’s
hospitality committee that coordinates the
coffee hour or greets newcomers at Sunday
Mass. As important as all of these gestures
are (no belittling here), especially the im-
portance of the parish hospitality commit-
tee, these efforts express a minimal moral
component if that is all a parish does. In
these scenarios, hospitality appears only as
a nice extra if we have the time for it.
We rarely view hospitality as a spiritual
obligation or as an expression of our central
Christian identity. In a highly individualis-
tic and capitalistic society, depending on
the generosity of others is difficult, whereas
in ancient times all strangers depended on
someone else’s hospitality. Maybe we don’t
experience hospitality today like yester-
34
year, but we know something of the joy
of being welcomed or the pain of being
excluded which should sensitize us to this
most important ministry.
In the New Testament we find Jesus wel-
coming the poor and weary into the King-
dom. Jesus also urged others to open their
banquets and dinner tables to more than
family and friends and to give generous
welcome to the poor and sick who could
not return the favor. St. Paul urged fellow
Christians to welcome one another as
Christ welcomed them. Indeed, for St. Paul
hospitality was a qualification for leader-
ship in the early Christian communities.
Christian believers were to regard hospi-
tality to strangers as a fundamental expres-
sion of the Gospel.
So, hospitality, because it was a funda-
mental human practice, always included
family and friends, but the distinctive
Christian contribution was the emphasis
on including the poorest and neediest. In-
deed, some argue that in the early Church
hospitality led to more conversions to the
faith than anything else. This focus did not
diminish the value of hospitality to family
and friends, rather, it broadened the prac-
Sacred Heart Major Seminary | Mosaic | Summer 2019
tice so that the close relations formed by
table fellowship and conversation could be
extended to the most vulnerable.
My suspicion today is that parishes that
have hired a Christian Service Coordina-
tor practice hospitality better than parishes
that have not hired one. Hospitality today
requires much planning and coordination
and consequently hiring a Christian Service
Coordinator is vital. Think about the plan-
ning and organization needed just to have
regular ongoing parish meals for strangers
as well as for parishioners. Remember, the
practice of hospitality almost always in-
cluded eating meals together, whether in
New Testament times or today. So, how
do we welcome the poor, the lonely, the
alienated into our parishes, into our Sun-
day liturgies, and into our lives such that
they are fed, sheltered, and protected? In-
tegral to unleashing the Gospel is unleash-
ing our hospitality – most realistically ac-
complished not as lone individuals but as
parish communities.
Dr. Michael McCallion holds the Rev. William
Cunningham Chair in Catholic Social Analysis
at Sacred Heart.