Today the Catholic Church recalls some American martyrs,
including St. Isaac Jogues, my patron saint when I was confirmed.
One of the startling details about hospitality in Scripture
is that there’s not much difference between the guest and the host. When Mary
visited Elizabeth, who was guest and who was host? Today, we would promptly say
that Mary was the guest, and Elizabeth was the host, because they got together
at Elizabeth’s house. Our view makes sense; it’s not nutty or confusing or
anything. But I think that Mary was as much host as Elizabeth.
Look at the six precepts in Matthew 25. Jesus said, welcome
strangers – and also said take care of specific needs. It’s plausible that
oftentimes people who need food and water and clothes are strangers. It’s
plausible that the commands to care for the hungry and thirsty and badly
dressed are details of a more general command, to take care of strangers. But
more, the six precepts include visiting the sick and the imprisoned. I think
that’s pro-active hospitality; if they can’t come to your house, you go to
where they are.
The daily morning prayer of the Church includes the
Benedictus, the Canticle of Zechariah. In it, the prophet cries out that the
Lord has “come to his people and set them free.” Often, we fly past the detail that the Lord
has “come,” and get right to the salvation bit. But the Greek word for “come” there
shows up again at the end of the Canticle. “The dawn from on high has broken
upon us, to shine on those who dwell in darkness and the shadow of death, and
to guide out feet into the way of peace.”
The word for what the dawn does is the same word as above: “come” to us and
“break upon” us. I think that these too are details of hospitality. The Lord
comes to us, gently, like a guest; but in truth, this is his world, and we are
the guests. We can call him a visitor, but he’s in charge of the visit, and
owns the house.
It’s like Jesus and the woman at the well: who’s host and who’s
guest? You can say she’s host at the beginning, and he’s host at the end, and that
makes sense; but I think it’s easier if both are both. A visit is a visit; an
encounter is an encounter.
One more: at Mass, the priest says we are blessed to be
invited to this banquet, and we respond that we are not ready to be good hosts.
Come as a guest, says the priest; I’m not worthy to be a host, we respond. That
makes perfect sense if hosts and guests are usually or often (or always?)
interchangeable roles.
I think that the host/guest relationship is almost as
central to the Gospel, and as revealing of the life of the Trinity, as
marriage. Two become one, in the Spirit that binds us together.
Anyway, I think that today is a feast of hospitality. In his
life and in his death, Isaac Jogues showered gifts on the people he met. Was he
host or guest? Yup.