I appreciate your elevation of hospitality as an erudite grace to be identified and practiced.
I feel that authentic hospitality is and ought to be at the heart of 'religious' faith, as your mention of Abraham avinu might imply. I suspect the eucharistic, hidden as it is in theology and ritual, might be healthily expanded to incorporate a proper appreciation of the value, the worth, the healing power (hence, hospitals) of hospitality. I touch on this in my post about 'heart and hearth in harmony.'
Indeed. I suspect that the authentic, hospitable sharing of an actual meal — our "daily bread" — is, would be far closer to the heart of what Yeshua (Jesus) intended, when he said : "Do this in remembrance of me" et al. It is, after all, what he and the disciples were actually doing at the time!
If we organised our "eucharistic communities" around such practical hospitality who knows what might flow from it!
In the sense you say it, a meal table following a Church Liturgy, followed perhaps by invitations to homes; would correlate the two.
There is a deeper Theurgic element that does matter and is related to communal temple ritual and ceremony.
Pagan and Christian Platonists debated what best met this theurgic aspect in the Neo-Platonic period (3rd-7th Centuries AD).
I think that issue does still matter and is not merely relative.
Yet your point hits the communal aspect right on. That needs to be re-calibrated, renewed, revivified, But not at the expense of the temple or ceremonial aspect.
They need to swirl and merge together, baking in mystery.
I appreciate your elevation of hospitality as an erudite grace to be identified and practiced.
I feel that authentic hospitality is and ought to be at the heart of 'religious' faith, as your mention of Abraham avinu might imply. I suspect the eucharistic, hidden as it is in theology and ritual, might be healthily expanded to incorporate a proper appreciation of the value, the worth, the healing power (hence, hospitals) of hospitality. I touch on this in my post about 'heart and hearth in harmony.'
https://open.substack.com/pub/writethevision/p/heart-and-hearth-in-harmony
In a sense, all food and drink laid at the table has a touch of the eucharistic about it.
Indeed. I suspect that the authentic, hospitable sharing of an actual meal — our "daily bread" — is, would be far closer to the heart of what Yeshua (Jesus) intended, when he said : "Do this in remembrance of me" et al. It is, after all, what he and the disciples were actually doing at the time!
If we organised our "eucharistic communities" around such practical hospitality who knows what might flow from it!
In the sense you say it, a meal table following a Church Liturgy, followed perhaps by invitations to homes; would correlate the two.
There is a deeper Theurgic element that does matter and is related to communal temple ritual and ceremony.
Pagan and Christian Platonists debated what best met this theurgic aspect in the Neo-Platonic period (3rd-7th Centuries AD).
I think that issue does still matter and is not merely relative.
Yet your point hits the communal aspect right on. That needs to be re-calibrated, renewed, revivified, But not at the expense of the temple or ceremonial aspect.
They need to swirl and merge together, baking in mystery.