This coming Sunday is the 16th Sunday of Ordinary Time  and the story of Martha and Mary. In yesterday’s post we provided some points of contact showing how this story and last week’s gospel (the lawyer who wanted to know what he must do to gain eternal life), together portray a fuller picture of what it means to be a disciple of Christ. Today’s post is a long one – delving into the biblical meaning of hospitality

Hospitality in the Greek is philoxenia. The practice of receiving a guest or stranger graciously was common to all cultures in the period of both the Old and New Testament. The word most often associated with hospitality in the LXX and the NT is xenos, which literally means foreigner, stranger, or even enemy. In its derived sense, however, the term comes to denote both guest and host alike. Typically, the verb used to describe the extending of hospitality is xenizein (Sir 29:25; 1 Macc 9:6; Acts 10:23; Heb 13:2). In the NT one who receives visitors is said to be philoxenos, i.e., a “lover of strangers,” or to be practicing the virtue of philoxenia (1 Tim 3:2; 1 Pet 4:9; Rom 12:13; Heb 13:2).