The human being is constituted by hospitality to other persons

"The human being is constituted by hospitality to other persons, and by hospitality to theophany; that is, by communion. I mean, we aren’t human until we open our hearts to other humans and to God. The two great commandments, to love God and to love others, could be expressed in another way: show perfect hospitality to God and to others. Or, in still another way, as: be yourself; be truly human, since being human is something that arises only in relationship with God and with other human beings...

And all of this must turn us towards this great issue of our lives—hospitality. Hospitality is more important than faith or works, one could say provocatively; or rather, hospitality conceals so mildly within itself the perfect synergy between true faith and true works that we call liturgy, that it overcomes the five-century-long war between faith and works. 

Panagia stands to us as a kind of priest, a true mystic, and a worker of mysteries because her hospitality for Christ at his conception and throughout his life meant that her life was an angelic one, ministering day and night to the Holy One of Israel, and a priestly one, because she so ministered for the benefit of the people of Israel.

I tell my students that the serving tray is the foundation of human civilization, and I think that this is true. No home should be without a nice one, and we should never hand a guest a glass of water when we could instead set even the simplest tray before them. A serving tray is a kind of portable altar table, presaging the cultic centers that will give rise to the first cities. Hospitality unifies faith and works, trust and offering, and it is a liturgical act. When it is offered with philotimo, we enter theosis."

+Dr Timothy Patitsas, Chapter 6 “The Mystical Architect” from The Ethics of Beauty, https://www.stnicholaspress.net/store/the-ethics-of-beauty

If you are in the Toronto area or visiting Toronto find out how you can also experience and practice Christian Hospitality at Noble Joseph House, one of Toronto's Orthodox Houses of Hospitality https://www.noblejosephhouse.ca/

---