Welcoming & Embracing the Stranger: Lenten Reflections with the Artwork of James Tissot

March 2, 2026 - Monday of the Second Week of Lent

My spouse and our next-door neighbor have a snow removal arrangement. They came to this plan before last month’s blizzard, while standing in our shared driveway watching the first serious snow of the season accumulate.

Jason and I are in our early thirties, our next-door neighbors are a Polish couple twice our age. Their plan is this: Jason shovels our neighbors’ back steps and digs out a path for them through their backyard to their detached garage. Once that path has been shoveled, our neighbor goes to his garage and starts up his snowblower. They then work as a team with the tools at their disposal (heavy equipment and relative youth) to clear our shared driveway, the sidewalk in front of both our houses, and our front steps and the front steps of a few other older people or people with young kids on our street.

Participating in life on our street as newcomers has been an experience of both giving and receiving hospitality, and nothing has revealed that like this year’s blizzard. We had the privilege of watching the excitement of the kids on the street, all under ten, experiencing the most snow any of them had seen in their lives. Jason helped a neighbor dig her sedan out of the street parking spot in front of our house after the plows (finally) came down our street and buried her car even deeper in snow. We ensured that our little patch of sidewalk was safe for the neighbor on the corner who walks her skittish rescue dog past our house several times a day.

The first words of Jesus in today’s Gospel are: “Be merciful, just as your Father is merciful.” In showing mercy, in withholding judgement, in forgiving, in being generous in our measure, we image our Creator.

When Jesus says “for the measure with which you measure will in return be measured out to you” this isn’t a promise of future prosperity or future favors owed, but rather an observation of a truth about life: in community, all debts are eventually paid in time. In hospitality, we know and are known; we can recognize our unique capacities, our strengths and our weaknesses, and in that recognition we can show up for each other.

Turn our hearts to you, eternal Father, and grant that, seeking always the one thing necessary and carrying out works of charity, we may be dedicated to your worship. Through our Lord Jesus Christ, your Son, who lives and reigns with you in the unity of the Holy Spirit, God, for ever and ever. (Roman Missal)

Alyssa Carolan, Administrative Assistant, Grants

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