In September, we welcomed to the House of Formation five new young men who desire to give their lives to Christ. They come from three different countries: Italy, the United States, and Spain. Having different backgrounds, it is easy to imagine how much the house changed with their arrival.
Today, much is spoken about welcoming but it seems clear that, the more it is spoken about, the less one is able to welcome the other. There are many “current events” that we see in the newspapers -unfortunately with always decreasing respect and discretion- where the combination of the closure in oneself and the diversity of the other triggers an evident incapacity to welcome that often explodes in gestures of violence that leave us at a loss for words. But perhaps, without having to look too far from our daily life, even at home or at work, we can see small signs of the same difficulty in others and, above all, in ourselves.
And yet, the experience of welcoming and being welcomed is truly decisive and accompanies every instant of our life, from birth to maturity, until old age and life after death. Our very humanity tells us how fundamental this experience is: it is from a reciprocal welcoming of spouses, in fact, that a new life can be born. Which is to say that without the experience of welcoming, man cannot live.
There cannot be welcoming without a continuous work of conversion
Even for the life of faith, the act of welcoming plays a decisive role. Jesus says it clearly in the Gospel when He affirms that if one does not welcome the Kingdom of God as one welcomes a child, he will not enter into it. Or even, that the one who welcomes you all welcomes me, and the one who welcomes me welcomes the one who sent me. In one of his books, Fr. Giussani writes: “Without a doubt, the first need of a person is that of being welcomed.”
What do we mean, then, when we speak about welcoming, the golden thread that connects the articles in these pages?
Years ago, when I was a seminarian, I was struck by a phrase that Fr. Massimo used. I remember it word for word: “When even just one person joins us, all of the Fraternity changes.” In the years after, I discovered how true this affirmation really is. It does not so much speak about a moralistic effort that we take up to be welcoming but the contrary: welcoming means changing.
There cannot be welcoming without a continuous work of conversion. It is never a finish line that we reach precisely because the other, being free, is always new. The etymology of this word in Romance languages can help us to understand better: all of the words for the verb “to welcome” derive from the Latin ad-colligere, which comes from the root word co-legere: to collect together, to look at things together. Welcoming indicates therefore an openness to another point of view and the willingness to look along with that point of view at reality in order to glean its meaning together. This requires from us an availability that keeps the soul young. But this is still not all.
If we go to the Gospels, we see how children welcome the Kingdom of God, that is, Jesus Himself: He took them into His arms, blessed them, placed His hands on them. The true way to welcome is this: giving of oneself and letting oneself be embraced. Welcoming the other, therefore, asks also a gift of self, and implies the offering of our experience, our judgment or our thoughts. Welcoming and gift of self cannot be separated.
All of this would be impossible if we did not first recognize, above all, the initiative of God towards us. Every day, He welcomes us, gives Himself to us, involving us in His life: a continuous giving of self and receiving between the Father, the Son and the Spirit. In this way, the more we live and repeat this experience -even with the “same old” people-, the more we are fulfilled according to that image and likeness in which we were created. As these pages attest, even when we are sent in mission, the giving and the receiving blend together and, often, as it happens for the children in the Gospel, it is in welcoming the persons to whom we are sent that we receive the embrace of Christ.
