| January 1, 2002 Numbers 6:22-27 + Galatians 4:4-7 + Luke 2:16-21 |
| We are culture that does not always take names seriously As a pastor I have faced that fact on numerous occasions when it comes to the Baptism of infants. As a consequence, I have come up with a personal rule: I will not Baptize a child named for a place or a meteorological condition. There are no children listed in Baptismal registers above my name called: Elk City, Bug Tussle, Tornado, or Dusty Dawn.For generations the Church insisted that children be named and under the protection of Saints, but then we began to be less exclusive about who was and who was not a “Saint.” Certainly, any family is capable of acknowledging the holy one among them, and honoring that holiness by a name continued through another generation. A child named: “Rose” in our family would not be named either for St. Rose of Lima or for the best bush in the garden. That child would be living in the shadow and memory of Grandma who taught all of us in my generation to pray after getting four sons alive through the Second World War |
| This issue of Name is the central focus of today’s Gospel. The Name chosen, the Name given, the Name spoken is a powerful experience in this Gospel, and at the moment it is given, it is also claimed along with everything that goes with it. The obedience of these parents to the Will of God their fulfillment of what was asked of them is important to understand, and the Name carries with it all the hopes and expectations of creation. It becomes a life focus for the child, and it puts a vision before him. |
| Several years ago, there was a film called: “Quiz Show” It was about the Van Doren family, the father and son, and it concerned cheating on the TV Quiz Show The son shows his arrogance and his shallow sense of himself by claiming that his cheating on the show affected no one. “It’s my name being accused”, he jokes to his fathea:.ffs father shudders with pain, anger and even devotion to his son and respond”our name is my name!” With that, floodgates of realization open for the shallow and arrogant son, walls of isolation collapse and reconciliation begins. |
| We have a common name in here, and our failure to recognize t at your name is mine and mine is yours often leaves us desolate and lonely, isolated, and cold. Our name is CHRISTIAN. At our Baptism we were claimed by that name, and the sooner we remember that and reclaim it for ourselves, the sooner we shall who we are and see each other in a profoundly different way |