Chapter 53: The reception of guests (paragraphs 1-4)

The greatest care should be taken to give a warm reception to the poor and to pilgrims, because it is in them above all others that Christ is welcomed. (From para. 4 of Ch. 53 of Saint Benedict's Rule, trans. by Patrick Barry, OSB, 1997.)

I allow myself to wonder for a moment what it might be like if this were our national border policy. It would take a radical understanding that we all have the eternal, if deeply buried, qualities of vulnerability and a yearning for our source. I must do my best today with being welcoming.