The “1 Was a Stranger: Student Stories of Religious Hospitality” began with remarks from Dr. Thomas Wetzel regarding what topic and format of the panel discussion was to be. The first set of remarks were given by a Jewish student. The Jewish student (whose name I unfortunately cannot recall) was the former president of the Loyola Hillel Jewish student ministry group. She is ethnically Jewish and some of her ancestors faced the horror of the Holocaust and anti»Semit.ic persecution in Europe, She was raised having full knowledge that she was Jewish but she was not raised in the Jewish faith. It wasn‘t until when a family member was dying did that family member tell the student that she made a mistake in not teaching the student the Jewish faith. It was at that point that the student decided to pursue and invest in studying the Jewish faith.
At Loyola, she began to get involved in Hillel but was initially apprehensive, fearing that those who were raised Jewish would not recognize her as a peer or would see her as an imposter. Instead, the Hillel group welcomed her with open arms and it was there that she met Rabbi Meghan. Rabbi Meghan spoke after the Jewish student, commenting on some of the elements from the Jewish student’s story. First, she pointed out that hospitality is something that is steeped in the Jewish religious tradition and is expressed in Jewish practice today. Judaism is not a religion that seeks to convert non-Jewish people and, as a matter of fact, whether someone is Jewish depends on their family line and whether one‘s mother is Jewish. But, if a stranger comes seeking help, aid, or counsel, it is incumbent on the Jewish people to welcome that person as if they were a family member.
Rabbi Meghan, for example, was taught in the Conservative Tradition of Judaism that is perceived as being more insular than the Reformed Tradition of Judaism but she still welcomed the student to the Jewish faith although the student’s mother was not Jewish. Following Rabbi Meghan, Sylvester, a Catholic international student made some remarks. Sylvester is from the Republic of Palau, which is a series of Islands in the western Pacific Ocean. He was raised in the Catholic faith and went to church regularly. However, when he came to the United States and to Loyola he was uncertain whether the Catholic faith he practiced at home in Palau was the same Catholic faith that is practiced here in America. What he came to realize after he met some of the Catholic ministers at Loyola was “They don’t know that they are my family yet”. In other words, although Sylvester came from Palau and never met anyone from the Catholic faith, he was already family with them through their shared faith and humanity.
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Dr. Michael Murphy, the Director of Catholic Studies and Associate Director of the Hank Center commented on Sylvester’s remarksi He pointed out that hospitality was part of being a Catholic and almost a commandment from God. Since Catholicism does seek to convert people to the faith and make disciples of all nations, welcoming people and being hospitable is required of the faithful, It is steeped in Catholic culture and in cultures that were formed around the Catholic faith. This event wasn’t explicitly connected to the material we are covering in class; however, hospitality is a theme in the Old Testament. Moreover, rules governing hospitality and welcoming guests under one‘s roof were very important in Ancient Near East civilizations. To welcome someone under your roof is to make that person a temporary member of your family, granting them all of the protections and aid that you would render to a stranger of your house.
In class, we read how Lot welcomed and housed the two angels outside of Sodom because Lot warned them that the square was not a safe place to be even though it should have been the safest place rest in an ANE civilization’s city. The destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah was a result of the Sodomites attempting to rape the two angels but more importantly because their attempted assault was an affront to the values of hospitality and protection of guests, As I grew up in faith, welcoming people to the faith and to church was something that my family and the priests of my parish stressed It was important for all those who were interested in God and wanted to return to the Catholic faith to feel as if the parish not only welcomed them but needed them, In the end, hospitality is best when a person feels that their presence is not only tolerated in a certain social group but gratefully received and even critically necessary.
That is why my parish had multiple groups involved in a wide variety of ministries, sports, theological topics, commitment expectation, and labor intensity that all stressed how critical the group was to the parish and how they needed people to be in the group for it to function This sense of feeling needed and thereby feeling as if they belong is what built my parish from being a group of 20 people praying in 1997 to building a church in 2008i In reflecting on the comments made by the Jewish student and Sylvester, it is clear that their experiences of entering into a religious faith community was based on this feeling of not only being welcome but also feeling necessary to the group.
The Jewish student became the president of the Hillel group even though that were people who had ‘more time’ in the Jewish faith, the group felt that she would be a good leader and felt that they needed her to lead. Sylvester became involved in Campus Ministry, Catholic Studies, and serves in multiple roles at Madonna Della Stradda. The Catholic community at Loyola, in one way or another, is influenced by Sylvester‘s involvement and in many respects needs him now as a server at mass and as a student leader in Campus ministry.
As a seminarian studying to be a priest, I often hear about vocation and how God calls. However, sometimes people make the mistake of saying that a vocation from God is simply that which God WANTS you to do. That is a mischaracterization of what a vocation from God is. Yes, God wants you to fulfill your call, but because he NEEDS you to fulfill the vocation he calls you to as part of his plan for all of humanity As a future priest, i hope to learn from these testimonies and to follow God’s example in calling those outside of the church to serve the church by showing them how critically necessary they really are to the mission of the church
