Houses of Hospitality

"We read in the Catholic Encyclopedia that during the early ages of Christianity the hospice (or house of hospitality) was a shelter for the sick, the poor, the orphans, the old, the traveller and the needy of every kind...

"The fourteenth statute of the so-called council of Carthage, held about 436, enjoins upon the Bishops to have hospices or houses of hospitality in connection with their churches.

"Today we need houses of hospitality as much as they needed them then. If not more so. We have parish houses for the priest, parish houses for educational purposes, parish houses for recreational purposes, but no parish houses of hospitality.

"Boussuet says that the poor are the first children of the Church, so the poor should come first. People with homes should have a room of hospitality so as to give shelter to the needy members of the parish. The remaining needy members of the parish should be given shelter in a parish home."

Later, in writing about Peter, Dorothy put his idea in her own words: "Every house should have a Christ's room....It is no use turning people away to an agency, to the city or the state or the Catholic Charities. It is you yourself who must perform the works of mercy. Often you can only give the price of a meal, or a bed on the Bowery. Often you can only hope that it will be spent for that. Often you can literally take off a garment if it only be a scarf and warm some shivering brother. But personally, at a personal sacrifice, these were the ways, Peter used to insist, to combat the growing tendency on the part of the State to take the job which our Lord Himself gave us to do."--William D. Miller, Dorothy Day: A Biography, pg. 259.