Welcome! Merħba - such a small and insignificant word but its ramifications are enormous! If the word 'welcome' helps you start the day with a nice taste how much more will its spirit work wonders in you and me!

Welcome! When it is meant and not simply uttered with a malicious heart it works miracles indeed! Do we need to be welcomed? Take a look at your own family to see how much we are greatly in need of it. Let alone in the Church, God's family and ours too!

In the homily of the last Mass he celebrated in Paraguay, Pope Francis gave an excellent catechesis on the theology of welcoming. He emphasized that hospitality is the trademark of being a Christian. Speaking to a one million congregation, the Holy Father said much good can it done if we Christians welcome each other in the Church. He said that the word 'welcome' is the kernel of both our Christian spirituality and our experience of following Jesus Christ. Nonetheless we ignore it repeatedly! How many times we inflict indescribable pain on one another by politely ignoring each other!

Referring to the Gospel of the day, Pope Francis reminded the huge congregation of Jesus' words to his disciples: "No longer do I call you servants... but I have called you friends, for all that I have heard from my Father I have made known to you." He explained that Jesus "as the good master, the good teacher", sends his disciples out to be welcomed, to have first-hand experience of hospitality and finally, to be able to learn one of the characteristics of the community of believers. "We might say that a Christian is someone who has learned to welcome others, to show hospitality." The Holy Father also observed that "Jesus does not send them out as men of influence, landlords, and officials armed with rules and regulations".

And what does this imply in practice? Pope Bergoglio said that Jesus helped his disciples understand that "the Christian journey is about changing hearts. It is about learning to live differently, under a different law, with different rules. It is about turning from the path of selfishness, conflict, division and superiority, and taking instead the path of life, generosity and love. It is about passing from a mentality which domineers, stifles and manipulates to a mentality which welcomes, accepts and cares".

How unfortunate our evangelization becomes when it is relegated to what Pope Francis referred to as "any number of strategies, tactics, manoeuvres, techniques, as if we could convert people on the basis of our own arguments". The good news is that "you convince them [the people] by learning how to welcome them".

But who can better welcome us and love us like our mothers? That is why the Holy Father wisely promoted the powerful image of motherhood. He likened the Church to a mother who cares for her children.

"The Church is a mother with an open heart. She knows how to welcome and accept, especially those in need of greater care, those in greater difficulty. The Church is the home of hospitality. How much good we can do, if only we try to speak the language of hospitality, of welcome! How much pain can be soothed, how much despair can be allayed in a place where we feel at home! Welcoming the hungry, the thirsty, the stranger, the naked, the sick, the prisoner (Mt 25:34-37), the leper and the paralytic. Welcoming those who do not think as we do, who do not have faith or who have lost it. Welcoming the persecuted, the unemployed. Welcoming the different cultures, with which our earth is so richly blessed. Welcoming sinners."

This is the real Church of Jesus Christ. This is the Church whose Mother is Mary, the Mother of Jesus and our Mother! It is this kind of Church that we must approach with great confidence, to whom we can open our hearts, entrust our joys and sorrows, our aspirations and sufferings. Because this kind of Church is fuelled by Jesus' mercy and protected by our merciful Mother Mary!

May we constantly turn with utmost trust to Mary to teach us how to welcome one another warmly!

Mario Attard OFM Cap