Mother Teresa of Calcutta — Missionaries of Charity founder and Nobel Peace laureate, who saw the face of Christ in every stranger she welcomed and served, making hospitality a theological act rather than a social courtesy.

From the writers we read together

Mother Teresa

Missionaries of Charity; Calcutta, 1910–1997

The writer alludes to Abraham's hospitality to three strangers who turned out to be divine messengers (Genesis 18), and to Lot's hospitality to the same visitors (Genesis 19). The point is not that every stranger is literally an angel but that openness to strangers is the kind of orientation that receives unexpected grace.

Mother Teresa took the logic further: she saw Christ in the stranger. 'Inasmuch as you did it to the least of these, you did it to Me' (Matthew 25:40). Hospitality is not merely social generosity—it is a theological practice, a recognition that the sacred moves through the unexpected. Who is the stranger in your life today who is waiting to be welcomed?