Seton Hall’s First Annual University Parish Mission Highlights the Meaning of Hospitality

With engaging humor, Father Agustino Torres, CFR, beautifully brought life to Seton Hall University’s First Annual University Parish Mission, “Gratitude and Hospitality: Communicating the Gospel Message in the 21st Century,” on November 17-19, 2025. A 1999 Graduate of Seton Hall, Torres headlined the Mission sponsored by the Preaching as Hospitality Formation Program of Immaculate Conception Seminary School of Theology (ICSST).

The three-day event, held in Seton Hall’s Chapel of the Immaculate Conception, included Mass each evening, along with presentations, the opportunity to receive the Sacrament of Reconciliation and a reception in the Seminary refectory. In addition to Father Torres, featured speakers included Holly Wright and Lissete Barretto of Corazón Puro, the Bronx-based ministry co-founded by Father Torres and dedicated to faith formation in areas in need. Each night highlighted a different hospitable theme and Scripture passage.

Father Torres brought Christian hospitality to light through his own life experiences. His time serving poor communities in Honduras and the Bronx taught him that hospitality has Christ at its center; it is radical, something to both give and receive. Father Torres looks to these communities as examples: “To see Jesus in those that were offering hospitality, especially the poorest of the poor, because we really do learn it from the poor. But it makes us free. It gives us freedom.”

Hospitality is also an act of worship that requires sacrifice, but it always involves receiving a gift. Father Torres cited Genesis 18:1-15 as a model—just as Abraham and Sarah offered hospitality and sacrificed food, so we must be ready to offer hospitality and make a sacrifice. Recounting a story of raising pigs for the poor in Honduras, Father Torres showed how Abraham’s radical hospitality can echo today: “The joy of the people at receiving just this little packet of meat, and whatever they had made with the beans and the rice and the packet of meat that we gave, they gave it back to us. And they were saying, ‘Here, Father, we made this for you.’” Hospitality is something given and received, a sacrifice rewarded with a gift.

Wright and Barretto presented different expressions of radical hospitality in Scripture. Speaking on Mary of Bethany (Matthew 26:6-13), Wright demonstrated Mary’s radical hospitality to Jesus. By breaking the jar and pouring out the ointment, she healed her brokenness and rejection as she poured out everything she had. Wright encouraged the audience to learn from Mary and to pour out what we have for our own radical hospitality. “Let us learn from our lacking, our brokenness, from our own rejection wounds…How to break ourselves open and pour ourselves out to be a fragrant offering,” she said.

Barretto’s presentation on the Parable of the Good Samaritan (Luke 10:25-37) was inspired by her upbringing in New York City and a mission trip with Father Torres to the Texas-Mexico border. Accustomed to keeping to herself, as the priest and Levite did, Barretto was amazed when Father Torres immediately offered money to the poor and encouraged others to do the same. Her instincts said “no,” but compassion said “yes.” Barretto hopes that others will follow the Good Samaritan’s example of courageous hospitality and mercy over indifference. “Jesus calls each of us, you and I, to something deeper,” she said. “To welcome, to cross to the other side of the road and to love courageously.”

Participants responded to each evening with enthusiastic gratitude, some with much emotion, even tears, as they considered the inspiring testimony of the speakers, and the reminder of Christ’s great love for us. The next annual University Parish Mission will be held November 16 through November 18, 2026; the entire Seton Hall community is invited.

The Preaching as Hospitality Formation program of Immaculate Conception Seminary School of Theology seeks to form seminarians, diaconal students, and religious and lay graduate students of theology to be compelling preachers who will offer a hospitality of the heart as they break open the Word of God. The initiatives help to form preachers who will understand and embrace preaching as hospitality—a ministry of inviting, welcoming and offering compassion. The program also focuses on newly ordained priests and deacons and newly appointed pastors (less than five years) who are invited to re-imagine their preaching through the lens of Christian hospitality.

To learn more about ICSST’s Preaching as Hospitality Formation Program, please contact Alyssa Carolan at alyssa.carolan@shu.edu. 

Categories: Faith and Service