To welcome and to feel welcomed

When I was working in the parish of Ba, I had a schedule of 8 or 9 villages that I would visit and where I would say mass over the course of the 4 Sundays each month. What I particularly remember was the welcome I received each time I arrived at a village. The catechist and some elders would greet me as I got out of the parish utility truck. We’d then make our way to the house where I would be more formally welcomed with a traditional kava ceremony. This would usually be the house where I would stay during my visit and have my meals and where I would have time to chat with people about matters of concern or about whatever comes to mind, the weather, the rugby team, a local village project, etc. During my years in Ba, it was in these villages and through these ways of coming to know people that I felt at home and I experienced what it truly meant to be church. I recall these experiences in the light of the first reading today (Acts 13:13-25) about Paul and his companions being welcomed by the Jewish community in Antioch, a town in the region of Pisidia. These experiences also remind me of the touching statement by Jesus, after he had washed the feet of his disciples (as we read in the gospel today from John 13:16-20), “whoever welcomes the one I send welcomes me, and whoever welcomes me welcomes the one who sent me.” People of the villages of Ba welcomed me because I was their pastor and their friend and because, each month, it was so good to meet up again. It was wonderful just being together. But in those experiences of being together, there were moments when I would look around and have a real sense of being in the presence of Christ. The simple Fijian word, veikidavaki, which means “welcome” is powerful because it is a two-way experience of being welcomed and being welcoming. It is the eucharistic experience of being welcomed by Jesus in those who welcomed me into their homes and of welcoming Jesus into our hearts amidst the joy and laughter and easy banter. And in this experience we may find ourselves quietly saying “God is in this space and in this moment we are blessed to be here.”