Open Door, Open Heart: Alberto Ares on the Transformative Power of Hospitality

Open Door, Open Heart: Alberto Ares on the Transformative Power of Hospitality

What does it mean to welcome the stranger? For Fr. Alberto Ares, SJ, Regional Director of Jesuit Refugee Service Europe, hospitality begins with encounter: listening, sharing our lives, and walking alongside people seeking safety and belonging.

Based in Brussels, Alberto has led JRS Europe since September 2021. A Jesuit priest with a doctorate in International Migration and Development Cooperation from Comillas Pontifical University, he brings together academic research and more than two decades of experience accompanying migrant and refugee communities across four continents. These encounters shape his conviction that hospitality can transform both those who are welcomed and those who open their doors.

This vision comes to life in Hospitality at the Heart of Spirituality: Being an Open Door to the Stranger, newly published in English by Paulist Press and co-authored with Jennifer Gómez Torres and María del Carmen de la Fuente Pérez.

Connecting the biblical and spiritual roots of welcome with today’s migration realities, the book explores hospitality as a path towards reconciliation and deeper human connection. From the ancient Greek tradition of xenia to Pope Francis’s invitation to become a Church that goes forth, the authors reflect on how welcoming others can heal wounds, overcome divisions, and strengthen communities.

Alongside these reflections, the book offers practical tools for accompanying refugees and migrants. It invites readers to recognise Christ in the stranger and to make hospitality part of everyday life—in our homes, parishes, and communities.

Discover the book and begin your own journey of welcome.

Alberto will also bring these reflections to audiences across the United States through “Open Door, Open Heart: Hospitality at the Heart of Our Common Humanity.” This speaking tour includes conversations, liturgies, and public events exploring migration, faith, and our shared responsibility to welcome others.

Through stories of refugee accompaniment from around the world, he will invite participants to rediscover hospitality as a Gospel value and a source of encounter, belonging, and hope—and to help build communities where no one walks alone.

Find out more about the US speaking tour.