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July 17, 2022: Thank you for your hospitality
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I wish to thank our parishioners who could (or couldn’t) stop by last Sunday after Masses for the meet and greet. I speak not only for myself, but also for Fr. Paul and Fr. Bill of the joy to be had when a number of folks from St. Anne’s gather as one on Church grounds for whatever the excitement might be. There’s sure to be lots of laughter, good cheer, and Christian charity. Unfortunately, Fr. Enoch was unable to be there because of his previous commitment to cover Masses in Fitchburg for another priest on vacation, as well as his own Mass for the African community that gathers at St. Anthony’s in the same city.
Thank you also to all who worked devotedly, offering your time, ordering and putting together the food and refreshments consumed after each Mass by many of our people. Between bagels, donuts, muffins, crackers and cheese, it was a weekend where the carbohydrates and cholesterol numbers soared in the wrong direction. But for one weekend, it was well worth it. In ten years I may not be saying the same.
Speaking of food, in this Sunday’s first reading from the Book of Genesis, the scene has Abraham being visited by “three men” who are rather hungry. The three strangers who appeared out of nowhere, especially in the isolated place of Abraham and Sarah’s home, were welcomed with open arms by the Father of nations. Now, do you remember the Gospel last week when Jesus told the parable (yet likely a real-life story) of the man who was beaten and robbed on the road to Jericho? How he was passed by on the opposite side by a priest first (no one I know), and then a Levite? But it was the unexpected stranger known as a Samaritan who cared for the beaten and robbed man on the side of the road, giving us a Divine teaching that all strangers are actually neighbors of ours? Thus, making this story a very hard Christian teaching in a present climate and world that puts up boundaries, limitations, makes self-preservation a top priority, and will harshly judge others based on little or faulty information?
It's a very good thing Abraham did not choose any of the above ways that treats a person – or three men – as people to be avoided at all costs. Rather, Abraham is what we would call hospitable. Thoughtful. Generous for sure. Kind. A true servant. And it’s a good thing Abraham made this choice, because the “three men” who show up at his front door to announce that Sarah his wife will have given birth to a child by the same time the following year...well, those “three men” are the earliest presence in the Scriptures that point to the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, without doing so explicitly.
In other words, God in the Trinity showed up at Abraham’s door out of nowhere with the best news he and Sarah would hear in quite some time; that Sarah will give birth to their son Isaac within the year. And that Isaac would not be in need of a NIC unit for any lengthy period of time. Isn’t this one of God’s many ways of entering our personal territory? From out of nowhere? Unexpectedly at times, and in unexpected ways? As a priest I’ve been blessed to have this happen a few times over the years where something profound will occur, blessedly given the reminder that God is close by, always near, even ready to be fed by us lowly persons with the very virtuous gifts He gives to us in our Christian hearts.
I’ve been even more blessed to hear many of the personal stories of parishioners and others explaining with excitement how God’s presence was seen and revealed in this way or that way. One of the more “popular” moments of Divine presence from “out of nowhere” are the stories associated with family members or friends, and their dying process. More unusual experiences of God’s presence have come to be known in those moments when death is near. It would be fair to say that the man left half-dead on the side of the road to Jericho experienced God’s unexpected presence from a Samaritan, the one who was supposed to keep walking by according to the culture of the time, but chose not to.
Abraham offers a splendid example of the virtue of hospitality in today’s reading. The theme for the readings this Sunday is more along the lines of Abraham running around, trying to get a delicious meal ready for the three men in his presence, while in the Gospel Martha, the sister of Mary and Lazarus, is doing the same. She’s busy cleaning the house while Jesus sits in a rocking chair in the next room over with Mary at his feet. But the theme also touches on hospitality, which I witnessed firsthand last week in the meet and greet at the Parish Center. I would never compare Fr. Paul, Fr. Bill, and yours truly as “three men” who deserve the same treatment Abraham gave to the Trinitarian figures at his front door. Father, Son, and Holy Spirit we are not. Or Fr. Enoch as a fourth. But I would say that we are servants of God’s people, thus, serving the Lord in service to you. May we all go and do likewise.