An Armenian saying goes: “A guest belongs to God.” Հյուրն Աստծունն է։ One of the most beautiful fruits of the Love is certainly hospitality.

St. Paul wishes to see it practiced among first century Christians, in those difficult times, when the disciples of Jesus were frequently banished from their homes. Alluding to the hospitality of Abraham and Sarah (Gen. 18:1-15) the Apostle reminds them and us that by so doing some people have shown hospitality to angels without knowing it. A guest belongs to God. The guest could be God himself.

One stormy night an elderly couple entered the lobby of a small hotel and asked for a room. The clerk said they were filled, as were all the hotels in town. "But I can't send a fine couple like you out in the rain," he said. "Would you be willing to sleep in my room?" The couple hesitated, but the clerk insisted. The next morning when the man paid his bill, he said, "You're the kind of man who should be managing the best hotel in the United States. Someday I'll build you one."

The clerk smiled politely. A few years later the clerk received a letter from the elderly man, recalling that stormy night and asking him to come to New York. A round-trip ticket was enclosed. When the clerk arrived, his host took him to the corner of 5th Avenue and 34th Street, where stood a magnificent new building. "That," explained the man, "is the hotel I have built for you to manage."

The man was William Waldorf Astor, and the hotel was the original Waldorf-Astoria.