The Charism of Hospitality
Definition: Warmly welcoming and caring for those in need of food, shelter and friendship.
Testimony for the Charism of Hospitality
In the year 2000 I had a significant spiritual moment when God gave me two distinct words – ‘motherhood’ and ‘hospitality’. Many years later, the Called and Gifted teaching helped me to understand that ‘hospitality’ is one of the charisms that theHoly Spirit has given me to bring God’s love into people’s lives.
“One evening, all on my own, I prayed the Alpha prayer – and everything changed!”
When I left university, I loved my work in Hospitality Management and envisaged an exciting future career. But by 2000 all that had changed and I was a military wife with 4 young children. Whilst I loved being a mummy, I always seemed to be searching for something else which would give me status and recognition in the eyes of the world. One evening, all on my own, I prayed the Alpha prayer – and everything changed! I felt that I was walking on air, I loved reading the Bible and had lost all desire for status. I also opened up our home so I could show God’s love to others. One way I did this was to welcome mothers and their young children into our home for pre-school music sessions. I always made cakes for everyone who came and, for me, the hospitality just as important as the music. The mothers loved coming, and I could see them visibly relax while they were with me.
Later I became a Host Mother for local language schools. This was a wonderful way of combining the two words the Lord had given me back in 2000. We had many students from overseas coming to stay in our home. Yet I found myself still being tempted to do other things with more status and more money, so I became a teacher at one of the language schools. After a short time of teaching, I developed a bug that made me ill for twelve long weeks!
During that time God told me again to give up the teaching and concentrate on the Hospitality. As soon as I made this decision, I was better! I always make sure I am home when the students get back from college. I love listening to them, and I love sharing our faith with them. We keep a visitors book in our home and we have been given some lovely feedback from our students. They have written things like; ‘This has been my happiest time in UK’, ‘I am a changed person after staying here’, ‘I have been so happy here’ and ‘we never felt like strangers’. Even though being a Host Mother has very little status, and earns very little money, I am absolutely sure it is what the Lord wants me to do – and I love it!
Other Hospitality Testimonies from the Called and Gifted Community
Mike
As Christians, we are all called to use our charisms in our lives. We now know that everyone has at least one charism and many people have 3,4 or even 5. And our charisms can be unexpected! For example I have the charism of Hospitality… this is odd because my family and any friends who have eaten anything I have cooked would all agree that I am definitely not a cordon-bleu chef! But I have this gift of Hospitality because whenever I see somebody standing alone outside a group I have this strong desire to introduce that person standing alone to people in the group and to make that person feel comfortable and welcomed.
I highly recommend the course as the way for each of us to meet our Pope’s challenge to identify and use our charisms.
“My wife and I have always enjoyed meeting new people and welcoming them into our home. We have never felt that we would like to have our house to ourselves for a change!”
“When I moved to my lovely flat in May 2015, it was wonderful. I decorated it, made the balcony flourish with plants and had a profound desire to invite friends and guests. “
2020-10-19
