This is not my house; it is the house of Jesus Christ. This door does not demand of him who enters whether he has a name, but whether he has a grief.
Valjean warns the Bishop that he is a convict, expecting the door to slam shut. The Bishop answers by moving the house out of his own ownership and into a larger moral space. Calling it “the house of Jesus Christ” is a metaphor that turns hospitality into a duty, not a favor. He replaces the question “Who are you?” with “Are you suffering?” and that shift changes the air in the room. In the plot, this is the first time Valjean is treated as a human being before he is treated as a criminal. The emotion is compassionate because the Bishop centers pain over identity. It shows how compassion can start by changing the question you ask.