De arte praedicatoria

Paul says: Do not forget hospitality.¹ Likewise Peter: Be hospitable to one another without grumbling.² And Isaiah: Bring the needy and the wanderer into your house.³ Hence Truth says: I was a stranger, and you took me in.⁴ O man, Christ in his members cries out at the door, asks for lodging. Receive the pilgrim on earth, so that he may receive you rejoicing in your homeland. Because Abraham received angels under the appearance of guests, he deserved to be given a son.⁵ Because Lot received angels as guests, he deserved to be freed from the burning of Sodom.⁶ The widow who honored Elijah by the kindness of hospitality deserved the restoration of her son.⁷ The disciples going to Emmaus were enlightened through Christ's teaching, but through the duty of hospitality, they deserved to be enlightened by him more fully and more perfectly.⁸ O man, if you know that you are a stranger and a pilgrim in this world, if you recognize the state of your own pilgrimage, you will not deny lodging to a pilgrim. For if you exclude Christ's poor from your roof, you exclude Christ himself from the lodging of your breast. Hear what he himself says: What you have done to one of the least of these, you have done to me.⁹ Hospitality itself ought to be joyful, generous, showing humility, and embracing generosity. For serenity of countenance is a great part of honest hospitality. Hence it is said:

Above all things, a good countenance came to their aid.

Generosity is also a portion of hospitality, so that we do not receive one who asks with a weary reluctance, but even anticipate him with an excellent service. For by the example of those going to Emmaus, guests are not only to be invited, but to be drawn in. Humility also must be shown to guests, so that, by the grace of humility, which also completes the whole of hospitality, the service rendered may be more pleasing. Let us therefore receive, in the pilgrim, him who journeyed for us on earth from heaven; who, having gone out from his homeland for us, stood as a beggar on the way. O happy lodging, given to Christ in the poor man! O happy bed, in which Christ rests in the body! Happy table, at which man sits, God within man! O man, among the gentiles the laws of hospitality are kept, among the faithful they are broken. Dumb animals rejoice at the coming of their own kind, and in some way show them the right of familiarity; but men suppress the duty of humanity. Blush, Sidon, says the sea,¹⁰ let the sea blush to be helped by rivers. Let the rational blush to be instructed by the irrational. Let the sun blush to be warmed by a furnace and torches.

Just as a believer is bound to show Christ, in his members, the office of charity, so he is bound to minister to Christ himself, the head, with spiritual service in his own mind. Each person ought to invite Christ into the house of his mind with the inward cries of his heart, and prepare for him, in the house of the mind, a table of honest and pure thoughts, and offer him the wine of charity. Every believer ought also to prepare a third lodging for Christ, namely, that he may receive the heavenly provision for the journey, the spiritual eucharist, the Lord's flesh. At the coming of so great a guest, let him cleanse the house of his own body; let him purify it from the dung heap of lust, from the dust of vainglory, from the mud of gluttony, so that Christ himself, coming, may deign to rest there peacefully, just as he himself says: I and the Father will come, and will make our dwelling with him;¹¹ lest the uncleanness of the lodging offend the eyes of so great a guest.