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We’ve heard a lot about what’s called the hospitality industry this past week, with people who run restaurants and pubs warning that many might close down for good if the Government further restricts their opening hours because of Covid 19 spreading. Already, 10pm curfews in the north are having an impact on the livelihoods of chefs and pub landlords. There was a time, though, when hospitality was not so much an industry, but a term more connected with places like monasteries and convents. It was about offering a welcome to people who were strangers who needed physical assistance, from a meal to a bed for the night. This idea of hospitality owed its origins to the monks’ Christian beliefs but it is also strong in the other Abrahamic religions of Judaism and Islam, ( cut? as well as Christianity.) No doubt it’s linked to their roots in desert lands, where life for someone on the road could be precarious. These faiths taught that a stranger in need who arrived at the door was not so much a threat or a nuisance but an honoured guest. Islam sees hospitality as a three-sided relationship between the host, the guest and God, while in his monastic rule, St Benedict said that guests are to be welcomed as if they are Christ. Benedict was profoundly influenced by the teachings of Jesus who urged the disciples to recognize him in those who need their help. “I was a stranger and you welcomed me”, he said, according to Matthew’s Gospel. “I was hungry and you gave me food”. Last week, when Pope Francis issued a new encyclical, or teaching document, on fraternity, he referred to St Benedict’s rule. Hospitality, he said, was a way of rising to the challenge of treating others with the utmost care and attention, and that encountering people outside our own circle is a gift. The beauty of hospitality is that it’s of mutual benefit. It’s a way of drawing people in, while being welcoming to guests also draws the hosts out of themselves, to focus on other people. But in a pandemic that’s more difficult as all of us are restricted in who we can meet, even our own relatives, let alone be welcoming to others. So being hospitable, in this theological sense, might be the opposite of opening doors, but focusing on the needs of others by keeping them shut. Instead, being concerned about others might be about simple acts, such as making a phone call to someone who lives alone, or delivering food. Pope Francis called hospitality moving beyond ourselves and our own interests. And even in a pandemic that can still be possible.