Someone once pointed out the marked difference between meeting and inviting; i.e. meeting another person as opposed to inviting that person.

Meeting people means simply coming upon them, noticing and perhaps even greeting them. In that moment, I remain an observer—a spectator or bystander — and not someone who is genuinely intent on welcoming in the other person.

To invite, however, is to take a step further and a vibrant one at that. It means openly receiving, engaging, and welcoming the other person. It reflects the shift from spectator to host, from neutrality and distance to friendliness and hospitality.

In the book of Exodus, we encounter somebody who is very purposefully moving from that reserved stance of meeting over to the warm and heartfelt action of inviting, “the welcoming in!”

This is Moses standing up there on Mt. Sinai with those ten stone tablets. He’s speaking with the One whom he calls “Lord.” This is the Divine One who, as the text proclaims, is “merciful and gracious, slow to anger and rich in kindness and fidelity.”

What does Moses do at this moment? He invites God with warmth and humility: “If I find favor with You, O Lord, come with us. Join Your people standing here today.” In other words: come with us; enter our circle.

And this is the same deity, the very same Lord God whom John the Evangelist portrays as “The one who gave us His only Son so that everyone who believes in Him might not perish but have eternal life.”

Do we not, each time we gather for the Eucharist, offer that same warm invitation—an open-hearted welcome and inclusion? Are we not making Moses’ words our own, words spoken so graciously long ago: “O Lord, come with us—and, more personally, come with me.”

We pray this not only with Moses, but also with worshippers around the world who invite the Lord into their lives each day. “Come along in our company, Lord. Join us, Your people, standing here today.”

In a letter to one of his priests about prayer, Vincent sounds this same inviting note.

But the blessed Bishop of Geneva taught his nuns another kind of prayer, which even the sick can make: to remain peacefully in the presence of God, manifesting our needs to Him with no other mental effort, like a poor person who uncovers his sores and by this means is more effective in inciting passers-by to do him some good than if he wore himself out trying to convince them of his need.

(Volume: 4 | Page#: 385) To a Priest of the Mission, 21 May, 1652 added on 6/28/2011