My name is Barbara Cini and I have long known that Hospitality is an integral part of many biblical stories and that in the presence of a God who made himself known to the world through his son, Jesus Christ, the only attitude we can assume is precisely that of Hospitality. This is a dimension of life that is particularly dear to the monks of the Fatebenefratelli because their founder, Saint John of God left it to them as their Charism.

It was a precious gift that cannot but be transmitted to other people such as myself who work in their centres. I suppose this is why they asked me to talk about my experience. My experience is, I would say, quite ordinary. There were no great events or dramas but an authenticity concealed among the facts of daily life, the simple things of everyday living. Does one have to learn to provide Hospitality? No, rather one must learn to BE Hospitality, to incarnate it.

To me, Hospitality means to be welcoming and generous to others, to accept others in their diversity without trying to impose on them my vision of life or of the world. This, I guess, is the hard part: to live in a dimension of continuing openness, to have the flexibility to change, when necessary, my routines and my obligations. This is the way one has to be if one is going to make room for another human being and allow him or her to enter into one’s personal existence, into “one’s home”, as it were, even when doing so may cause discomfort; in other words, to welcome the guest with joy, doing the most one can do to ensure his or her well-being.

I won’t deny that I often feel the weight of an encroaching world, one that increasingly leads you towards suspicion and thus towards closure, the weight of a way of life in which I have less and less time for myself and where cultural, religious, ethical and economic diversities can be confusing. How, I ask myself, am I to care for the “guest” if I am so taken up with my own needs, my own affairs, my own burdens; how can I be aware, at all times, of the needs of others? And above all, how am I to incarnate Hospitality if at times I am not even aware of my own needs, my own fragilities my own fears.

Working with people who are elderly or ill, I have learned over the years that my most important and challenging task is the work I do on myself, to accept first of all my “otherness” and then to be there for others. It is a personal challenge but one that I have been able to undertake as part of a community: working through the Fatebenefratelli, it is the Church that works towards bringing care and Hospitality to those who need it.

In my life there are several people who are important to me as “my” witnesses in Faith. One of them, who is particularly dear to me, is the late Patriarch of Venice Marco Cé. I once confessed to him that I was thinking of changing the kind of work I do. “Barbara, think about it carefully before you make any decisions. You have a precious treasure at your disposal. Contact with people who are suffering is something that can also give you comfort, that can be your school of life”.

Ever since then, I have taken the task of “being” Hospitality to heart, whatever the difficulties and the hardships involved….In the footsteps of Jesus and in the company of a great saint, Saint John in God and of the Brothers of Fatebenefratelli.