" Benedict knew that hospitality could be life-saving for both monk and guest. I believe that he wanted Benedictine women and men to be so deeply grounded in hospitality that it would color everything they do and say.

And in his Rule he indicated an acute awareness of the dangers of implosion in the monastic life, the dreadful insularity against “the world” that led the poor souls of Heaven’s Gate to their demise. He instructs Benedictines not to turn their backs on the world, even as they seek to detach themselves from worldly values. This seems to me the core of Benedictine hospitality. To reject the world is to reject other people. And to reject other people is to reject Christ himself. "

― Kathleen Norris , Amazing Grace: A Vocabulary of Faith