Welcoming people

It makes one feel very special to be genuinely welcomed. I remember the company official who showed up with the moving van delivering our household goods in Honolulu many years ago. It turned out he recognized my husband’s name as a former military colleague and came along to welcome us to Hawaii. He then invited us to his home for dinner — my first experience of aloha and an unforgettable gift of welcoming.

In our last column we shared the reason for including planning principles in our diocesan Road Map for Pastoral, Program, and Facility Needs 2008-2013 and discussed the first of these principles, “One People of God.” Now we look at the importance of being a “welcoming people.”

This principle addresses the basic human need to feel welcome when we are new to parishes, attend liturgies, or seek guidance and assistance from parish and diocesan staff. For the “Road Map,” it means the welcoming spirit needed to carry out our recommended actions.

St. Benedict told his monks that all guests who arrive at the monastery are to “be received like Christ.” People who have had the pleasure of visiting a friend or relative at a monastery or any number of religious communities experience the gift of hospitality that these communities graciously bestow on visitors.

Welcoming people value and practice hospitality. When we are the recipients of hospitality, we feel special. When we visit family and friends and are greeted at the door with warmth and the smell of good food, we feel good. The same welcoming spirit is the gift we experience when we feel accepted at a new school, place of work, or in any number of other settings.

The business world has learned, sometimes only after poor performance, the value of customer service. There was the large national retail store that for a time took its clerks “off the floor,” positioning them in a few central locations. The store was instantly less attractive as a place to shop. It is not surprising that exceptional customer service has become the hallmark of many successful businesses. Some might equate this business practice with hospitality, but it is not the same as the welcoming spirit we want to foster and grow in our church. The business world expects, or at least hopes, that in return for quality service we will purchase something or leave a good tip.

Welcoming people extend hospitality with no expectation of reward. We welcome others in many ways. It can be as simple as being greeted by the priest at the door of church before and after Mass or when we show interest and concern for fellow human beings, no matter what their faith or background.

Our Road Map for Our Mission calls us through outreach, social ministry, and other programs to be a welcoming church — one that reaches out to the larger community and brings spiritual and temporal comfort and assistance to youth, young adults, working families, seniors, and those who are homeless or struggling and in need.

Making progress in these and other Road Map areas will challenge us. Working with others who have made life choices we don’t approve of, or who want to carry out a task differently than we would, can test the limits of our hospitality. Being a welcoming people calls us to not only practice civility but to deal with our disagreements and work with others for the good of the whole.

Being welcomed does not relieve the recipients of responsibilities. Just as guests pitch in and help clean up, we have a responsibility to educate ourselves about the needs of our diocese, be open to different solutions, ground our opinions in evidence, leave character judgments to God, and welcome to the tasks before us the many who are willing to help if they are just made to feel welcome.