It was my first weekend as a student at St. Meinrad Seminary and School of Theology. I had been to “the hill” twice as part of the admission process, but this was my first weekend. As a new student at age 62, I was excited, but hesitant, scared. Could I do this? Did I belong here? I checked in and received my room assignment, only to be totally confused by the myriad of connecting halls. I paused, went into a doorway to discover the Dean of Students. I asked where I might find my room. She smiled, got up, took my suitcase and said, “It’s a little complicated. I’ll show you.”
Whenever I think of Benedictine hospitality, I think of Donna’s simple act of kindness. It meant a lot to me then (and now) that the Dean of Students would personally take me to my room. It relaxed me and gave me a warm introduction to what was to become a wonderful educational experience.
The Holy Spirit put Donna in just the right place at just the right time to help, guide, and introduce me to St. Meinrad.
Lydia’s Prevailing Hospitality
In today’s first reading, the Holy Spirit uses Lydia in just the same way. There is a great turning the corner in the spread of Christianity in Chapter 16 of Acts. There is also some great backstory in verses not included in the daily mass readings.
As we read on Friday and Sunday, the first church council, the Council of Jerusalem, had decided that you did not have to become Jewish first before becoming Christian. Then, as John Ciribassi pointed out on Saturday, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit directed Paul and Barnabas to change direction. Instead of continuing to spread the Good News in Asia, they were to go to Macedonia—Europe. They separated, with Barnabas and John Mark traveling to Cyprus, while Paul, Silas, and probably Luke, went to continental Europe—Macedonia.
Today they arrive in Philippi, “a leading city in that district of Macedonia and a Roman colony,” only to discover that the Standard Operating Procedure for evangelizing Asia wasn’t going to work in Macedonia. Not only was it not necessary to become Jewish before becoming Christian, circumstances and the Holy Spirit showed them the way to set up a toehold in the community was not going to be through the Jewish synagogue. There was no synagogue in Philippi.
It took ten Jewish men to establish a synagogue. Paul and Silas went outside the gates of the city down to the river to find a place of prayer on the Sabbath because there were not enough Jewish families in Philippi to have a synagogue AND because written on the gates of the city were dire warnings to anyone who would bring into the city any foreign religion (think of China and Manchuria today!).
Apparently, they found not Jewish men, but some women praying. So Paul told them the Good News. Lydia, probably a well-to-do woman, was already “a worshipper of God.” That probably meant she was not Jewish, nor even a convert to Judaism, but simply someone who was attracted to the God known to the Jews.
Lydia was converted on the spot. “…The Lord opened her heart to pay attention to what Paul was saying. After she and her household had been baptized, she offered an invitation, ‘If you consider me a believer in the Lord, come and stay at my home.'”
She was persuasive. “She prevailed upon us,” writes Luke.
How the Lord provided! Lydia was from Thyatira, where Paul had already been, so doubtless they exchanged some “do you know’s” to establish mutual trust. Then Lydia—Gentile, woman, stranger—opened up her home as a base for the evangelization of Gentiles, of Europeans.
Lydia and the Rest of the Story
There is then an interesting story that is not included in the daily readings this year. As Paul and Silas were traveling to the “place of prayer” by the river, they encountered a slave girl who had a “spirit of divination.” She made a lot of money for her owners through her gift. The girl began to prophesy, saying, “These men are servants of the Most High God, who proclaim to you the way of salvation.” Paul was annoyed and told the spirit, “I charge you in the name of Jesus Christ to come out of her.” The spirit did—depriving the owners of the girl of their handy income.
This angered them. They brought Paul and Silas to the local officials with charges they were Jews who were disturbing the city. This led to the story of tomorrow’s reading.
Yet Lydia does not disappear. She is mentioned at the end of the chapter, after this adventure. They again “visited Lydia; and when they had seen the brethren, they exhorted them and departed.” (vs 40)
How fascinating! Lydia’s home was not only a place for Paul, Silas, and Luke to stay. It became the “house church” in Philippi.
From Prevailing Hospitality to New Model
And a new pattern of evangelizing was born that would work in Europe and with Gentiles: talk about Jesus until there is at least one converting family. Make their home into a “house church,” and begin to evangelize the city.
No need to go through a synagogue. Paul and his companions, through Lydia’s hospitality, were now guided by the Holy Spirit to a new path of evangelization.
And the house church became the standard Christian worship space until the 4th century.
From Lydia to Donna to me….and you
Lydia’s role in the spread of the Gospel to Europe gains her a few lines in Acts. It was a very small thing: she opened her home.
But it created a puzzle-piece link to a whole new direction of evangelization. In the 5th century, as the Roman Empire was over-run by the Northern peoples, St. Benedict took evangelization in another new direction: the establishment of monasteries as centers of Christian life.
And Donna, at St. Meinrad, with her expression of Benedictine hospitality, planted the seeds of both Lydia’s and Benedict’s hospitality in me. That is growing as I study and write about scriptures here, as I work with my pastor and other Eucharistic ministers to envelope our carebound parishioners in community hospitality, and as I continue as a Benedictine oblate novice to make my own small house into a little outpost of Benedictine hospitality.
Where and how are you called to be Lydia or Donna today? What seemingly small act of hospitality might God be calling you to do that might spread the Gospel in the corner of the world where you live?
Prayer
Lord, my Benedictine studies tell me hospitality is gracious welcoming and service, but it is also more: Hospitality is a Christian response to hostility. It is doing the Christ thing instead of the world thing, when I encounter the stranger, the difficult, the hostile. Lord, today, let the Holy Spirit show me clearly the opportunities I have to be a Lydia—and thus help you create moments to spread the Good News that Christ is alive, the Church is alive, and living a Christian life is living a good life. Amen.
