Jessica Wrobleski - The Limits of Hospitality

The Limits of Hospitality is an honest, beautiful, powerful, and challenging book. A thickly theological ethic rooted in and informed by the experiences of Christian communities, this is a welcome, practical, and important contribution to the recent literature on Christian hospitality and Christian practices.

M. Therese Lysaught, Ph.D.

Associate Professor of Theology

Marquette University

Jessica Wrobleski is that rare kind of theologian who is a serious intellectual and a committed activist. This beautiful book is excellent both for its perceptive reflections on Christian hospitality and the personal narrative of someone who is hospitable. One should use the word edifying sparingly, but this book does indeed build up the mind and heart with its seamless blend of personal witness and its mastery of theological insights into hospitality.

Lawrence S. Cunningham

John A. OBrien Professor of Theology (Emeritus)

Rooted in a deep desire to strengthen the practice of Christian hospitality, this book provides an insightful and incisive look at some of its limits and tensions. Jessica Wrobleski thoughtfully weaves together personal narrative, theoretical material, and practical wisdom in addressing the central challenges in offering welcome.

Christine Pohl, PhD

Professor of Church in Society

Asbury Theological Seminary

The Limits of Hospitality

Jessica Wrobleski

LITURGICAL PRESS
Collegeville, Minnesota

www.litpress.org

A Michael Glazier Book published by Liturgical Press

Cover design by David Manahan, OSB. Photo courtesy of Thinkstock/Ryan McVay.

Excerpts from documents of the Second Vatican Council are from Vatican Council II: The Basic Sixteen Documents , by Austin Flannery, OP 1996 (Costello Publishing Company, Inc.). Used with permission.

Scripture texts in this work are taken from the New Revised Standard Version Bible 1989, Division of Christian Education of the National Council of the Churches of Christ in the United States of America. Used by permission. All rights reserved.

Wer seines Lebens viele Widersinne/She who reconciles , from RILKES BOOK OF HOURS: LOVE POEMS TO GOD by Rainer Maria Rilke, translated by Anita Barrows and Joanna Macy, translation copyright 1996 by Anita Barrows and Joanna Macy. Used by permission of Riverhead Books, an imprint of Penguin Group (USA) Inc. Reprinted by permission of the translators.

From REACHING OUT: THE THREE MOVEMENTS OF THE SPIRITUAL LIFE by Henri Nouwen, copyright 1975 by Henri J. M. Nouwen. Used by permission of Doubleday, a division of Random House, Inc.

2012 by Order of Saint Benedict, Collegeville, Minnesota. All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form, by print, microfilm, microfiche, mechanical recording, photocopying, translation, or by any other means, known or yet unknown, for any purpose except brief quotations in reviews, without the previous written permission of Liturgical Press, Saint Johns Abbey, PO Box 7500, Collegeville, Minnesota 56321-7500. Printed in the United States of America.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Wrobleski, Jessica.

The limits of hospitality / Jessica Wrobleski.

p. cm.

A Michael Glazier book.

Includes bibliographical references (p. ).

ISBN 978-0-8146-5764-5 ISBN 978-0-8146-5998-4 (e-book) 1. HospitalityReligious aspectsCatholic Church. I. Title.

BX2347.W76 2012

241.671dc23

2011051742

Contents

Our Lady of the Road, Pray for Us

Christian Hospitality

Violence and Absolute Hospitality

The Limits of Hospitality

Decisions and Tensions: The Limits of Deconstruction

Hospitality as a Movement of the Spiritual Life

Disciplines of Gratitude

Prayer of Word and Prayer of Silence

Solitude and Fellowship

Fasting and Celebration

Service and Rest

Confession and Forgiveness

The Limits of Virtue

Hospitality as the Relationship of Host and Guest

Hospitality and Difference

Hospitality and Identity

Hospitality and Christian Identity

Three-Dimensional Hospitality

Possession and Security

Love and Limits

God beyond Boundaries

Beyond the Economics of Scarcity

Beyond the Idolatry of Security

The Catholic Worker

Poverty and Precarity

Violence and Vulnerability

Limits Even Here

Spirituality, Vocation, and the Gift of Hospitality

Acknowledgments

As the following pages will attest, a spirit of gratitude must form the heartas well as the limitsof hospitality, and I accordingly owe great thanks to many for their part in the completion of this book. Although I could recognize countless people for their insight and support, a few individuals and communitiessome of whom will appear elsewhere in this bookought to receive special acknowledgement. To begin, Hans Christoffersen, Eric Christensen, and others at Liturgical Press deserve significant thanks for their contributions to the production of this book.

The various communities of which I have been a part over the past several years have provided me with support, guidance, and inspiration for this project, and without them it simply would not exist. I am incredibly grateful for each of the people who contributed to making the community at 192 Mansfield Street a home for me during the time that I lived there. Among them, Scott Dolff has been a particularly essential companion and interlocutor, and I am more grateful for his role in my life and in this book than I am able to say. Conversations with many other teachers, colleagues, and friends at Yale University also helped to inform my doctoral dissertation, which was in fact the first version of this book. I consider it one of the great gifts of my life to have benefitted from Margaret Farleys wise and compassionate guidance as my dissertation director, and I am also thankful for the comments and advice of Shannon Craigo-Snell, Tom Ogletree, Gene Outka, Fred Simmons, Mike Wassenaar, Natalia Marandiuc, Linn Tonstad, Katie and Eric Bugyis, Jon and Jean Bonk, Sonali Chakravarti, Asia Sazonov, Ben Moser, Mark and Kristin Totten, Christiana Peppard, Khurram Hussain, Lani Rowe, Maureen McGuire, and others.

I am also deeply grateful to the St. Peter Claver Catholic Worker and the community of peoplestaff, volunteers, and guests alikewho gather at Our Lady of the Road in South Bend, Indiana, and for the many ways that they have contributed to this book. In particular, I have been inspired by and benefitted from conversations with Margie Pfeil, Aimee Shelide, Sheila McCarthy, Mara Trionfero, Daria Spezzano, Joel Schmidt, Sade Murphy, Elliott Magers, Carrie Lucas, Kathy Schuth, Michael Griffin, Katie Mansfield, Claire Hoipkemier, John Fyrqvist, and many others. I am especially grateful for the opportunity to address the communitys Friday night meeting in May 2010 and for their willingness to let me share selections from the Weather Amnesty logbook, which can be found in chapter 1. Michael Baxter has been an important friend and colleague to me over the past several years, and I am thankful for his contributions to this book. I am also deeply grateful for Doug Finn, whose insightful, generous, and faithful friendship has been essential through the writing process, and life more generally. In addition to those people I have encountered through the Catholic Worker, I am thankful for my students and colleagues at Saint Marys Collegeparticularly Phyllis Kaminski, Anita Houck, Megan Halteman Zwart, Kevin McDonnell, and Terry Martinfor their hospitality and for the ways they have helped to refine my thoughts here. I am also thankful for the companionship, support, and inspiration of others along the way, particularly Kevin Dugan, Jonathan Pierce, St. Thomas More Chapel at Yale, St. Augustine Catholic Church (South Bend), the Morgantown Church of Christ, Liz Paulhus, and my friends and colleagues at Wheeling Jesuit University.