Reprinted from The Common Good, No 14, Christmas 1999
Catholic Worker Spirituality
Hospitality Ð A core CW value
Hospitality is a special charism of the Catholic Worker. It is a gift which, when mutually experienced, enriches both host and guest. It empowers people for lifeÕs journey and enables healing to be effected.
Hospitality is relational and creates a feeling of being at home, so that joys and hopes, pain and hurt are shared. It helps us become energised and find lifeÕs burden lighter because we know we are not alone. With hospitality we are valued for just being ourselves. We are cared for and touched gently and warmly. We are welcomed without condition and our story is heard.
Hospitality is an invitation to the host to full immersion in the experience of being human, to not so much save but deeply influence other lives. It invites us to abandon the standpoint of our own private needs and affirm our dependence with respect to the other. It calls us to actively reach out to the other, regardless of personal feelings or desires.
For the sake of hospitality we need to sustain and encourage each other by sharing our beliefs. Because we believe in life, freedom, gentleness, forgiveness, we know that hospitality is possible in the heart of each person.
To give hospitality a chance we need to celebrate life. We do so by touching and being touched by the beauty that surrounds and is within each of us. We do so by revealing those energies and impulses in life which extend our human potential for a meaningful and life-enhancing existence.
To give hospitality a chance we need to be free. We are free when fear does not cripple our capacity to stand up for our beliefs. We are free when we can speak the truth in love. We are free when no one suffers injustice in our lives.
To give hospitality a chance we need to be gentle. We are gentle when our presence encourages others to be themselves, We are gentle when we awaken people to the richness that is within them. We are gentle when we help one another perceive the paradoxes of life - that through faith the lowly are raised up, the poor are rich and the needy find fulfilment.
To give hospitality a chance we need to forgive. We truly forgive when we know that we ourselves are most in need of forgiveness. We forgive when we can forget that we have been wronged. We have forgiven when we accept the words of Archbishop Tutu Ôthat without forgiveness, there is no futureÕ.
Hospitality can arise out of a sense of Mission. Mission is about openness to mystery and to life. Hospitality is being with people in their suffering, hospitality is seeking healing for others, hospitality is learning to live again. It is a central value of the Gospel.
As a process hospitality favours excellence over mediocrity, mission over maintenance, the dynamic over the static, creativity over function, expansion over limitation, team effort over individualism and people over systems. It favours people on the margins, creates community, affirms individual dignity, is truthful and works towards self determination.
Hospitality is a comprehensive as well as integrative force in each Catholic Worker house. It is a point of reference for judgment as to the effectiveness of each CW. It has an elusiveness quality. It deals with realities that are powerful yet often unconscious, sensed rather than touched, believed in more than fully realised. Yet without these realities a Catholic Worker house would simply function as a business.
Hospitality ultimately means being open to one another in love. It helps us understand the mysterious relationship among the persons of the Triune God - Father, Son, Spirit, between Creator, Redeemer and Sanctifier. As such it is a road to holiness and eternal life.