Monday of the 6th Week of Eastertide
Acts 16:11-15 | Psalm 149:1-6,9 | John 15:26-16:4
On this Eastertide day last year, I put up a photo journal of my 2013 visit to Philippi, to go with the reading that describes this very place.
This year, something different caught my attention:
After she and her household had been baptised she sent us an invitation: ‘If you really think me a true believer in the Lord,’ she said ‘come and stay with us’; and she would take no refusal. (Acts 16:15)
Introducing: Soulbnb, my Catholic spin on Airbnb.
Imagine an online lodging service in which hosts post images and videos of their day-to-day activities that befit a faithful Catholic. Instead of airbrushed images of perfect rooms, we’d see hosts:
- sharing a meal with a beggar, sitting cross-legged at an overhead bridge
- volunteering at a MINDS training centre
- quietly praying at home, in front of a portrait of the Sacred Heart of Jesus
Now imagine that guests rate hosts not just on how much they enjoyed their stay, but also how closely their hosts’ Soulbnb “image” matched their real-life interactions.
Would you dare list your spare room on such a service?
✞ ✞ ✞ ✞ ✞
Taking Lydia’s challenge at face value, we acknowledge her confidence in her own faith, as befits a new convert. It’s like the incredible high we feel at our own weddings, not really grasping the reality of mundane-ever-after.
It was pretty much the same story when I started blogging. Blue Swede could’ve echoed my heart’s words:
I can’t stop this feeling
Deep inside of me
Lord, I finally realize
What you do to me
When You hold me
In your arms so tight
You let me know
Everything’s all right
I’m hooked on a feeling
I’m high on believing
You gave Your love to me
Ooga-chaka, indeed.
Then one day became another, one week led to a month, and that fiery euphoria faded away.
Now, it’s down to a few quietly glowing coals, not much to look at, but warming and comforting all the same, and much more sustainable than the “Rocket Man” high of spiritual rebirth.
Just as important is the confidence it gives me to list my spare room on this hypothetical service. I’m not perfect, and my wife even catches me in a nasty mood from time to time, but I can’t hide the lamp of my faith and love for God under a bushel (Matthew 5:15) and still call myself a Catholic.
After all, isn’t hospitality a key sign of love?
Amen.