Hospitality
Brother, sister, when you welcome guests, be aware that it is God who is coming to you as a pilgrim. You will welcome every guest as you would welcome Christ. You will treat all guests who come to the community with honor, simplicity, and refinement, and you will try to believe that Christ is present in them. (Rule of Bose 38; 40)
To contact the guest house of the monastery and to have information about the stay at Bose, please make a phone call or send an email
Please use e-mail only to request information. We do not accept reservations by e-mail.
Tel: (+39) 015 679 185
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Brother, sister, when you welcome guests, be aware that it is God who is coming to you as a pilgrim. You will welcome every guest as you would welcome Christ. You will treat all guests who come to the community with honor, simplicity, and refinement, and you will try to believe that Christ is present in them.
It is not by chance that the community welcomes guests: hospitality is a ministry you offer to the world in the name of Christ.
(Rule of Bose 38; 40)
Hospitality is a ministry that can be practiced with particular dedication by those who live in celibacy. The many guests who visit Bose (now more than 15,000 each year) come for different reasons – some are Christian and some are not, some work in the church and some have little contact with the church, some live on the edge of society – but everyone is welcomed with the same attitude: “You will welcome every guest as you would welcome Christ.”
The monk, who practices the art of discerning the presence of God, should be able to see the face of Christ in each guest and should perceive, in the great mystery of communication with others, the reality of the hidden presence of Christ in every person, even in those who are disfigured by pain or illness or marked by their faults. Practicing the ministry of hospitality means welcoming and listening to all, seeking to understand the other in his or her “otherness” and presenting him or her to God in prayer, consoling those who are in situations of trial, and expressing solidarity with those who are marginalized. Expressed in these ways, the ministry of hospitality can constitute an implicit but direct appeal to a society at times tempted to de-humanize interpersonal relationships.
In order to welcome, without relying on simple spontaneity and improvisation, the growing number of guests who ask to visit Bose, the community has found it necessary over the course of the years to create a team of brothers and sisters whose full-time work is the welcoming of guests. However, hospitality remains a fundamental ministry of every brother and sister of Bose.
Guests are invited to participate in the three daily prayers of the community and in a daily meeting offered to all guests by a brother or sister, a moment of lectio divina on the Gospel reading of the day. The community also offers guests the possibility of individual retreats guided by a brother or sister of Bose, and meetings and conferences on topics of particular spiritual interest. During the summer there are week-long courses, open to all, on topics related to Scripture or spirituality, week-long sessions of spiritual exercises for priests, and courses on the Bible for children and young adults from 18 to 30 years old. From summer 2006 a special area of the monastery, near to the wood, has been reserved for scout groups. They can stay and share with us the prayer and some other activities.
Aware that many Christians today are looking for alternatives to their local parish communities, the Community of Bose reminds all of its visitors, especially those who take part in the Sunday Eucharistic celebration, that it does not consider itself in any way a parish church and does not wish to lead guests and friends of the community away from the churches to which they belong or from their daily work environments, in which each person is called to live his or her faithfulness to the Gospel. For those who wish to travel, in their daily life, in the direction of the kingdom of God, Bose would like to be nothing more than a small oasis along the path.