Today (1/17) is the feast of St. Anthony, who fled into the desert
– not to escape from the legitimate demands of love, but to escape from the
reign of superficial and demented and mis-shapen nonsense and evil.
So, I hear in my heart a question from yesterday and an
answer today.
Yesterday’s Gospel reading was from the beginning of Mark’s
Gospel, or near the beginning. It was another story – this one a very brief
vignette – tying salvation and hospitality together. Jesus healed Peter’s
mother-in-law, and she got up and served. The clear proof that she was healed
was that she offered hospitality.
Is that generalizable? Is it true for everyone that healing
leads directly and promptly to hospitality? That penance and reconciliation
lead to the Eucharist, that Good Friday leads to Easter, that the parting of
the Red Sea is followed by manna in the desert, that the end of evil is the
beginning of love? Or is it specific to her? Is it just Peter’s mother-in-law
who does this? Is she a neurotic fussy busy gotta-clean guests-must-sit-and-eat-some-more
type, who starts to buzz as soon as she has a muscle that works?
Anthony, who fled to the desert to listen to God, was
hospitable to those who sought him and caught him. A healthy heart offers
hospitality.