WELCOME
Today’s Eastertide word is WELCOME. Hospitality is central to Christianity. It’s especially important to me as a Benedictine. St Benedict tells us that we should welcome guests to our monasteries we would welcome Christ.
Today’s gospel speaks to the form of hospitality that underpins that instruction. Before we can begin to think about welcoming others, we have to welcome Christ into our own hearts Jesus says to his disciples:
“I tell you most solemnly, whoever welcomes the one I send welcomes me, and whoever welcomes me welcomes the one who sent me.”
His words call us to open our hearts to him, to welcome him into the very centre of our lives. That sounds like a fine idea, the reality can be more challenging. Jesus isn’t asking us to open the “good” part of our lives to him.
He isn’t asking to be invited into the parts of our lives that are going well or that we are proud of. He isn’t asking us to put our lives in order and then welcome him in.
Instead, he wants to be invited into the heart of our messy, broken, imperfect and failed lives exactly as they are now. For that to become a reality we have to allow ourselves to be vulnerable.
We have to acknowledge and accept our brokenness and allow the risen Christ to see it. In a world that values certainty and perfection that can be a real challenge.
What enables you to welcome the risen Christ into your heart this Eastertide?