Welcoming the Stranger

by The Reverend Mary Earle

(Excerpts from the homily at the Feast of St. Brigid on February 1, 2002)

It was easy around the winter solstice, December 21, as Christmas drew near, to think of hospitality, of welcoming the stranger into our midst. After all, the annual Feast of the Incarnation brings us joy and great cheer. We are moved by images of a baby needing shelter and warmth, and we turn eyes made more tender toward the strangers whom we encounter.

Now it is February 1. In her native land of Ireland, Brigid's feast occurs at that time when food put by for the winter season would have been dwindling. It is a harder task to feed the stranger when the oats are scarce, when animals may have died in winter's grip. Brigid's feast reminds us that even when, especially when, times are hard and the larder is low, we are called to welcome the stranger. We are called to remember to put food in the eating place, drink in the drinking place. We are called to remember the deep Christian virtue of hospitality.

Brigid's life, reflected in the rich trove of stories and legends that have been handed down, tells us that there is something of God's own life in the human practice of hospitality. There is something of the very life of God in welcoming the stranger, in receiving the one who is not like me.

We are told that Brigid was born in the threshold of her parents' house. She was born in that in-between space that joins inner and outer, that links public and private. Whether this is a fact is not what is at issue. The story tells us this: from her emergence into this world, this girl child was born into the sacred space of the threshold, that thin place, as the Celtic peoples would say, where earth and heaven are one. She was born into that interstitial place where the first movement of hospitality occurs.

The place of Brigid initially is the threshold. Yet she does not stay there. As she grows up, her life is characterized by an ability both to found monastic centers and to travel the countryside. Brigid's great monastic center, Kildare, attracted both men and women. She governed what was known as a double monastery, a place where both men and women took holy vows to live dedicated lives, dedicated to serving the Christ in one another. Over time, Kildare came to be known as the City of the Sick and the Poor. The tradition tells us that Brigidıs stated belief was "It is in the name of Christ I feed the poor; for Christ is in the body of every poor person." So Brigid's place, her thriving monastic center, was a place of healing and hospitality.

Thresholds are places of communion, connection, conjoining. Yet Brigid walked the land, manifesting that restlessness so characteristic of the Celtic saints, who saw themselves as pilgrims for Christ. Many are the stories of her encounters on the road, and in this she mirrors the life of Jesus. She bears that same mark of Christian hospitality that not only is characterized by a place of welcome, but by taking the initiative to find the ones who need a welcome.

Brigid's life also calls us to tend to the dimensions of ourselves as women that may need to be welcomed, received, sought after. Brigid's life calls us to actively welcome those aspects of ourselves, those gifts that may have been denied, those parts of ourselves that are sick and poor. One of my favorite stories about Brigid tells us that one day when she was still in her father's house in Munster, a nobleman came to the house for dinner. Food was prepared for the nobleman and his retinue, and they were made welcome. Five pieces of bacon were given to Brigid to prepare for the feast. At that moment, a "very hungry miserable hound" came into the house. Brigid saw how starved the dog was and fed him a piece of the bacon. He immediately brightened, wagged his tail, and asked for more. She of course gave him the rest of the bacon. Miraculously, when her father came for the platter of bacon, all five pieces were present. The nobleman, who had watched as Brigid fed the hound, was so moved by the miracle of abundance that he offered the bacon to the poor of the region.

This story, which was collected by Lady Gregory around a hundred years ago, guides us to feed those parts of ourselves that are like "a very hungry miserable hound," those instincts and aspects of our feminine existence that have suffered long from neglect. Further, the story suggests that when we offer hospitality, housing, hope to our hungry inner hound, abundance results. The fire of Brigid is the holy fire of transformation. As Benedictine sister Joan Chittester has remarked, "When I let strange people and strange ideas into my heart, a new world begins to take shape." Brigid, patroness of healing, smithing, and poetry, mothers the transformation of our deep selves, of our communities of the world. When Brigid's tradition calls us to welcome the stranger, she calls us to participate as active agents in the bringing forth of the new creation. As the other is welcomed, the fire of transformation is kindled and new possibilities open up.

I am wondering what Brigid would say to you of Brigidıs Place in the aftermath of both September 11 and the Enron scandal. What would Brigid say to women whose friends, families, selves have been battered by a succession of events beyond their control? It may be that for many of you gathered this night, you are acquainting yourself with the stranger within, a stranger who is somewhat fearful and tentative. What is it to know oneself in such times of uncertainty? What is it to feed this stranger, to put drink in the drinking place and food in the eating place?

Brigid's life tells us that if we don't tend the inner hungers, we aren't much good at feeding the hungry. We end up being resentful or hard. Yet she would also warn us against sealing ourselves off from others. She calls us to that place of both/and, that place of offering hospitality to the parts of ourselves that go begging so that we might offer hospitality to the other. And she insists that this happens in community.

You who are the members of Brigid's Place here at Christ Church Cathedral in the middle of Houston, Texas, have a particular array of circumstances to live into. You are in the midst of a diverse and complex urban culture, now acutely stressed by the events of the last five months. If we back up to the flood of last year, one becomes aware of successive waves of need. You are in the midst of a populace marked by some degree of disorientation.

Brigid would tell you there is bacon for your hound, and bacon for the ones who are coming for dinner. Brigid would tell you to be community, to help one another welcome the strangers both within and without. Brigid would tell you the hospitality of Christ marks our hope in the midst of such times.

The Rev. Mary Earle, a priest, writer, teacher, and retreat leader, is on staff at St. Mark's Episcopal Church in San Antonio.