Hospitality of heart and home

Hospitality of Home and Heart

In Jesus’ Gospel story we see the kind Samaritan lifting the wounded traveller onto his donkey and taking him to an inn. He paid for the injured man’s keep, promising the innkeeper to pay any extra expense on his return journey.

Hospitality is the virtue at the heart of the parable of the Good Samaritan and of St Benedict’s Rule. Everyone, Benedict says, especially the poor and the unannounced guest – even the inconvenient caller – is received as Christ. It’s been said that hospitality is the virtue of ‘interruptability’!

The desire to offer hospitality and shelter to homeless, destitute women inspired John Bede Polding to found the Sisters of the Good Samaritan.

We Good Samaritans try to continue the tradition of Jesus, Benedict and Polding in offering hospitality to our homeless neighbour by offering our homes and hearts as places of welcome. We do this by our work:

• At the Good Samaritan Inn
• Through Good Sam Transitional Housing
• And with those whose home is the street
• With asylum seekers and refugees
• With people caught in the web of trafficking