The Fellowship of St. Columbanus

Isaiah 49:1-6 Acts 13:22-26 St. Luke 1:57-66, 80 A name is more than that by which we are called. There has always been within the name a kind of magic and romance. In America, where I am from, I have always considered it the most beautiful image to talk of a young man or woman as going out into the world, “to make a name for themselves.” In other words, to earn a reputation. We now speak with a kind of reverence the names of those who have changed the course of history: Plato, Augustine, Einstein; we remember the names of those who have impacted us: personally, culturally, and throughout time. The Naming of John the Baptist Fra Angelico, circa 1435 In the time of Christ, as well as at other times, this importance of a person’s name was not only a matter of reputation and remembering. Within a name is expressed a person’s culture, identity, people, and place of belonging. We can hear this very point in the words of Elizabeth’s neighbors and relatives: “there is no

Ezekiel 17:22-24 Psalm 92 2 Corinthians 5:6-10 Mark 4:26-34 St Anne conceiving the Blessed Virgin Jean Bellagarme the Elder If I were going to tell a Kingdom of God parable that might follow the ones from our Gospel reading, I know now that it would be about pregnancy. The point of the first parable seems to be that the Kingdom grows of its own accord, while the man who plants "knows not how" (Mk 4:27). The point of the second seems to be that the enormous Kingdom life can grow from the smallest bits of Kingdom faith. Both of these ideas are incredibly familiar to me at the moment, having spent some time thinking and worrying about the little boy growing inside of me. The act of growing a child seems like one of the most significant, productive, creative things I might ever do in my life, and yet I am nearly powerless in the process. Apart from keeping myself healthy, I have almost no control over how this little person grows. And yet I've spent a good deal of ti