WELCOME

This past weekend I was blessed to celebrate Mother’s Day in Ephrata, WA. It is a small community of about 6,000, mostly old-time residents with a few new ones from south of the border. It is apple orchard country where the Latino labor is needed. As always, I received a warm welcome. But sometimes the “welcome” given to others, whether to a new group of parishioners or even to a newly-assigned pastor, is “welcome to my parish” rather than “welcome to our parish”…as if to say, “Don’t make your stay permanent...and please don’t rearrange the furniture.”

I am reminded of my family’s own journey when I was eight from Montelepre, Sicily to Windsor, Ontario, and the warm, loving reception we received from our new Canadian neighbors, for which we were most grateful. Like so many who cross our borders to find work and a better future for their children, we were very poor, though I didn’t realize it at the time. For example, I thought we lived in a fairly decent size home. Years later I went back to the old neighborhood on Elsmere Street and was shocked to see that the house in which we lived was smaller than my garage.

My parents left family, friends, security, language and culture behind to risk their lives in a new world where they knew neither the language nor many fellow paisanos. They ventured forth in their forties in order to give my brother and me a better opportunity in life. They took whatever jobs they could find. My father worked odd jobs by day and washed dishes by night in a hotel restaurant. My mother carried 50- and 100-pound sacks of apples, potatoes, oranges, etc. in a fruit packing warehouse.

Back in Sicily my father had been a construction foreman and my mother ran a small grocery store. We also had some olive groves. It was a very difficult life, but not nearly as hard as that which we encountered in the land of opportunity. Yet, they never complained.

One night, when I was about nine I remember a knock at the door after midnight. It was the Saputos, old friends from our hometown who now lived in Montreal. They were returning home after visiting family in St. Louis, and they stopped merely to say, “Ciao”.

Of course, my parents were not going to let them leave without having a bite to eat. They invited them in, asked them to take their coats off, to sit and make themselves comfortable, and before one knew it, my mother had a pot of boiling water and soon enough there was plenty of delicious pasta for all. I noticed the joy and radiance on my parents’ faces as they entertained our friends with stories and laughter, and hosted them with a simple but delicious meal. We didn’t have much, but in sharing the little we had, there was plenty for all and a bonding of true friendship.

Years later, visiting my mom after perhaps some international trip, I would always be greeted at the door with lots of hugs and kisses. I knew I would always be welcomed.

Perhaps nothing captures the essence of a mother’s love and of our faith as much as the word, “welcome”…to give true hospitality…to make the other feel loved and at home. This is what Christ does at every Mass, becoming “Host” (in more ways than one) to welcome us, to break bread with us, to tell us how much we are loved. As Jesus did 2,000 years ago when he spotted a hungry seeker up a tree and said, “Zacchaeus, come down. Today, I must dine with you at your house.” Today, Christ does the same with us, entering our "house" to make of our bodies holy temples.

Sometimes it can seem that the only ones interested in hospitality are restaurants, casinos, cruise ships, and other commercial enterprises ~ for their business motives. But that is our call…to receive the Host…and to be hosts…to welcome one and all.

Did you know that there are Hospitality Clubs all over the world, whose goal is to bring people together, foster international friendships, increase inter-cultural understanding, and strengthen peace? They do this by hosting visitors to their city…without any reciprocal obligation. How great! Would that all churches would do the same. How much more life-giving life would be.