The Divine Life of Hospitality

David Frazelle, Associate for Parish Ministry

Hospitality is nothing less than a participation in the very life of God. Being created in the image and likeness of a Trinitarian God means that we are created in the image and likeness of a community of persons - Father, Son, and Holy Spirit - who endlessly receive one another in divine hospitality. The life of Christ reveals perfect receptivity to the Father. The baptism, resurrection, and ascension of Christ reveal the Father's perfect reception of the Son. The Holy Spirit is the love received by the Son from the Father and back again in an endless dance of love given and received.

Since, then, we are created in the image and likeness of this divine community of hospitality, we are created for receiving one another in love. Jesus' table fellowship and healings in the gospels, the authentic Pauline epistles, the practice of Eucharistic hospitality in the early Church, the Benedictine tradition of hospitality, social justice ministries that put us face to face with others: these are just a few elements of our tradition that bear powerful witness to the central place of hospitality in our life in Christ.

It has been a great joy for me to encounter the living tradition of Christian hospitality incarnate at the Chapel of the Cross. Thank you for your warm reception and welcome expressed in so many ways, from cards to conversations to invitations to table fellowship. If we have not yet met, I invite you to introduce yourself to me. If we have met, I invite you to introduce yourself again, for I am vastly outnumbered. In either case, I look forward to knowing you better as we grow together in our participation in the divine life of hospitality.

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© 2005 The Chapel of the Cross