This is the lesson one draws from the Abbey guesthouse: that we should welcome guests in our lives as we would welcome Christ. But today, after our walk, and the evening prayer, I have become aware of so many more levels to this hospitality.
All tagged hospitality
This is the lesson one draws from the Abbey guesthouse: that we should welcome guests in our lives as we would welcome Christ. But today, after our walk, and the evening prayer, I have become aware of so many more levels to this hospitality.
Any tradition, any spiritual house, will fossilize without being open to new influences, and it will not stand without some grounding. Both tradition and openness are long habits of Benedictine practice. And hospitality, welcoming the other, is a central aspect of Benedictine spirituality that points it outward from its tradition. Benedict was very clear that monasteries should always have guests, should welcome them, and treat them honorably. The Sufi spiritual teacher and poet Jalāl ad-Dīn Muḥammad Rūmī makes a similar point, with more extreme imagery, in his poem “The Guest House.”