HOSPITALITY

The Order has traditionally

expressed the charism it

has received using

the term "hospitality".

This word has not only retained its expressive power to this day, but some even put it forward as a fundamental category of a new morality for our present age.

What is hospitality?

Hospitality speaks to us about the relationships that are established between a guest and the host. The fundamental feature of hospitality is taking in and recognising the guest, and recognising one's capacity as the host; but this recognition and this welcome has a number of special features:

• Hospitality is virtually universal. Anyone can be a guest; recognising a person as a guest presupposes that one takes a very important step towards recognising all human beings as virtual guests. Anyone in this world is a virtual guest…
• Hospitality reveals a high sense of morality and of policy. Hospitality therefore confronts us with something of great ethical and political significance: taking in the stranger, the alien, the other, the person who does not belong "to mine". Hospitality is recognition of people who are "different": we accept that the guest is different from ourselves. We give the guest freedom to differ from u.
• Hospitality is virtually sacred. In many peoples there is a sense that this "other person", the guest, is enshrouded in mystery. A certain air of the sacred envelops the guest. The guest could be a god. Hosting gods is something that appears many times in Greek mythology, in the Bible and in the tradition of very widely differing cultures.
• Hospitality is an event. It is unpredictable and uncontrollable. We never know when it will happen, or with whom. The host must always be prepared, because the guest can arrive at the most unpredictable time.
• Every meeting of hospitality is unique and brings with it care for a specific person.

(Taken from the book “THE PATH OF HOSPITALITY IN THE MANNER OF ST JOHN OF GOD”)

The Order’s Values

• Hospitality is our core value, as embodied and expressed in the four guiding values of quality, respect, responsibility and spirituality.

• QUALITY =

• excellence, professionalism, holistic care, awareness of new needs, model of union with our Co-workers, model of St John of God type care, welcoming architecture and furnishings, collaboration with third parties

• RESPECT =

• respect for the other, humanization, human dimension, mutual responsibility towards Co-workers and Brothers, understanding, holistic vision, promotion of social justice, civil and human rights, involvement of relatives

• RESPONSIBILITY =

• fidelity to the ideals of St John of God and the Order, ethics (bioethics, social ethics, management ethics) protection of the environment, social responsibility (for Europeans: the European Union), sustainability, justice, fair distribution of our resources

• SPIRITUALITY =

• pastoral service, evangelization, offering spiritual care to those of other religions, ecumenism, collaboration with parishes, dioceses, other confessions