Benedictus qui venit in nomine Domini.
Blessed is the one who comes in the name of the Lord (Matthew 21:9)
The Benedictus is the Latin Bible’s translation of what Matthew portrays the crowds calling out as Jesus rode into Jerusalem on Palm Sunday, and continues: “When he entered Jerusalem, the whole city was in turmoil, asking, ‘Who is this?’ The crowds were saying, ‘This is the prophet Jesus from Nazareth in Galilee.’”
Benedict of Nursia (c. 480-550), whose name itself means “blessed,” was a layperson who became “a hermit at Subiaco, near Rome, … moved to Monte Cassino [and] developed a … close-knit model of community life” whose written Rule has shaped monasticism and Anglican spirituality through the present day.
Chapter 53 of the Rule of St. Benedict concerns “the reception of guests”. Benedict wrote plainly: “All guests who present themselves are to be welcomed as Christ.” We’re not a club to join, or a tribe to belong to. We are on a journey, and today you are our goal. Roman Catholic writer Joan Chittester comments: “The message to the stranger is clear: Come right in and disturb our perfect lives. You are the Christ for us today.”
Radical hospitality in the Episcopal Church has its roots here in Benedict. It is one thing for us to be inclusive and thoughtful and generous to others by allowing them into our lives on our terms. It is another thing entirely to practice hospitality in such a radical way that we expect to be disturbed and changed by those who come to our door.. Benedictus qui venit in nomine Domini. Radical hospitality makes us vulnerable to God. Who is this, we ask? Christ incarnate at our door.
Radical hospitality is not, however, to be misunderstood as an achievement reserved only for monks and saints; it should become an everyday minimum of the practice of our life together as followers of Christ. Joan Chittester describes what is ‘radical’ about Benedict’s notion of hospitality, versus our own:
Hospitality in a culture of violence and strangers and anonymity has become the art of making good connections at good cocktail parties. We don’t talk in elevators, we don’t know the security guard’s name, we don’t invite even the neighbors into the sanctuary of our selves. Their children get sick and their parents die and all we do is watch … from behind heavy blinds. Benedict wants us to let down the barriers of our hearts so that this generation does not miss accompanying the innocent to Calvary as the last one did. Benedict wants us to let down the barriers of our souls so that the God of the unexpected can come in.
Benedictine radical hospitality invites the stranger to have different values than our own, to intrude on the routines of our daily life. Radical hospitality first listens rather than speaks, offers rather than requires, surrenders to the reality of the other person rather than expecting them to be mirrors of ourselves. Benedict didn’t write to make the monks guilty at what they didn’t do, but to remind them of radical possibilities in the ordinary things they did already. Like opening the door.