Hospitality and Healing

Benedict instructed that "All guests to the monastery should be welcomed as Christ, because He will say, 'I was a stranger, and you took me in'"(RB Ch. 49). The Porter is to greet everyone who comes to the door with the appellation: "Thanks be to God," or ask for a blessing. (RB Ch. 66.) Thus was born the radical hospitality for which Benedictine houses are noted. The monasteries were really the first "Holiday Inns", the first YMCA'S, and the first hospitals. This legacy of hospitality continues to this day and is central to Benedictines.

As a therapist, I think its is important to have this sense of hospitality as hurting people come through the door. If I can welcome them as Christ and listen deeply to their story, I convey welcome and encourage openness and healing. It is this kind of hospitality that Tony Hendra wrote about in "Father Joe, the Man Who Saved My Soul" ( While there does seem to be some controversy about Hendra's story, the portrait of Fr. Joe is still accurate and valid.)

Healing the soul depends upon the freedom to be open and feel welcomed by the person listening.