Hospitality from Judaism, Christianity and Today with Covid-19? 13th Sunday in Ordinary in Time

Listen to the homily here.

Notes:

13^th Ordinary Time

This weekend, here is a curious gift that we ought to give to others in the Old and New Testaments: Hospitality

·      I bring this up, even in the Covid-19

·      And listen to the very first words in our first reading from Elisha:

o   “One day Elisha came to Shunem,
where there was a woman of influence, who urged him to dine with her.  Afterward, whenever he passed by, he used to stop there to dine.  So she said to her husband, “I know that Elisha is a holy man of God.  Since he visits us often, let us arrange a little room on the roof
and furnish it for him with a bed, table, chair, and lamp,
so that when he comes to us he can stay there.”
Sometime later Elisha arrived and stayed in the room overnight.”

During the Jewish culture, from the very beginning of humanity, and around the world today is amazing to still seeing hospitality

·      And Jesus challenges us not to just do this to our family and friends, as, in one place said that pagans, tax collectors and sinners to the same

·      We are called to give hospitality for those we do not know, the poor, the sick, the hungry, the thirsty, etc.

And here is the deep questions now: how do we show hospitality during Covid?

·      I personally think this is the opposite of our individualism—keeping safe our family first, others second

o   Well God wants us to support all of His sons and daughters

·      How are you showing hospitality before, during or after this virus? 

·      Yes, we must make good decisions as we would speak about the words like prudence and wisdom, but we are not in this world, but of this world

·      We literally have had saints that did give hospitality during the worst pandemics, injustice, and violence, like St. Damian as men, women and children were isolated on Molakai, like St. Mother Teresa of Calcutta who housed in the ghettos in Calcutta, like Dorothy Day, who took any ethnicity or even religion for food and shelter, Pius XII who saved thousands of Jews during the third reich, St. Katharine Drexel with Black and American Indians, priests who tried to dissipate the lynching in Duluth, and any other saints or individuals with missions 

So how are you called to give hospitality, even during this challenging time?