The greeter warmly welcomed me and I took a seat. It is in this human interconnectedness that Moyaert states that we find hope. How much flour and bread was that? In her chapter “Biblical, Ethical and Hermeneutical Reflections on Narrative Hospitality” from Richard Kearney and James Taylor’s Hosting the Stranger: Between Religions, Marianne Moyaert discusses the significance of the hospitality shown by Abraham at Mamre in Genesis 18:1-33. Abraham did not know that this was an appearance of God till later. Richard Kearney holds the Charles B. Seelig Chair of Philosophy at Boston College and is Visiting Professor at University College Dublin, the University of Paris (Sorbonne) and the University of Nice. If you’re coming into church, and you see someone you don’t know, invite them to come and sit with you. They don’t go out of their way to help you. One can turn into the other or back again. It begins with Abraham camped near the great oak trees of Mamre. He offers a shady spot to rest from the heat of the day. Abraham welcomes them, bows to the ground, has water fetched, and commands his wife Sarah to make bread. And we can give companionship. But against such exclusivist tribalisms, one witnesses important counter examples. Adding to the Healing and Not the Hurting, Community Service at Trinity Presbyterian, Doing Right in All Circumstances August 23, 2020, Dying Churches Don't Think Outside Their Own Walls, Dying Churches Focus on Their Own Comfort, Dyinng Churches Don't Have a Clear Sense of Purpose, Grace for the Gracious September 13, 2020, Having the Same Attitude As Christ (April 14, 2019), Imitation is the Sincerest Form of Flattery, The Jesus Prescription for Conflict Resolution, The Sins of Favoritism and Discrimination. In the instance of the Messengers, Abraham was not aware that they were sent by the Lord and had not encountered them before. Also, at the end of chapter 17, the last thing that has happened to Abraham was that he was circumcised. The refugee Syrian children meet Sasha Denenberg, Jonah Katz and Naama Abraham. Right away, we Christians might wonder: Since this is God appearing, and since there are three men, could this be a representation of the Trinity. This involved a productive exchange between two very different notions of being. What about the person who just moved in? This is certainly understandable, considering the relationships and sacred memories that are attached to parish communities. I’ll give you a homework assignment: Some Sunday, drive 30 miles away and go to a church where you don’t know anyone. Her servant woman Hagar is younger and more attractive than she and more fertile. Father Murphy frequently gets letters from people thanking him for our monthly Hospitality Sunday.”. “Father Murphy gets it, the new evangelization,” says Geri Anne O’Beirne, a 10-year parishioner at St. Saviour. And yet in Graeco-Roman societies - as in our modern societies - there are many narratives of strangers, guests and enemies who come into the home and destroy it. Abraham loved to receive strangers. Welcoming the stranger breaks down every exalted form of us and them. In the biblical tradition, Abraham is recognised as the wanderer par excellence, the tent dweller, celebrated in Psalm 119: "I am a stranger on this earth, I am a wandering Aramean." Your subscription supports the friars’ mission to spread the Gospel in the spirit of their founder, St. Francis of Assisi. I noticed people reading from the missal, which I started leafing through to find the proper page. “Every man for himself or every woman for herself” seems to be too common. He shows great respect. The host language welcomes its guest and, of course, in the act of translation the host is transfigured by the guest language and vice versa.