Holy Name 2023

Holy Name 2023 January 1, 2023 Today is the Feast of the Holy Name, when we mark Jesus’s naming and circumcision 8 days after his birth. Our Old Testament reading gives us a glimpse of how God gives God’s name as a blessing to the people of Israel in Exodus, so I’ve been thinking about the sort of naming that we do in blessing this past week. Jesus’s own name is, of course, a blessing. In his native tongue, Jesus’s name is Joshua, which means “the Lord is salvation.” Jesus’s person and his name serve as a reminder to any and all that God cares about what happens to God’s people and that God will continue to offer salvation. In our Episcopal tradition, a priest is able to offer blessing at certain times during certain services, and a blessing is essentially the pronouncement of God’s love and favor for God’s people. And that’s important. But there are other ways to offer blessing as well. The Irish priest, poet, and mystic, John O’Donohue, has written an entire book of blessings. Its title is To Bless the Space Between Us, and in the book O’Donohue explores what the gifts of blessing are. He writes that blessing is a way of manifesting kindness, of holding a circle of light around the one being blessed. “There is a kindness that dwells deep down in things;” he writes, “it presides everywhere, often in the places we least expect. The world can be harsh and negative, but if we remain generous and patient, kindness inevitable reveals itself. Something deep in the human soul deems to depend on the presence of kindness; something instinctive in us expects it, and once we sense it we are able to trust and open ourselves… The word kindness has a gentle sound that seems to echo the presence of compassionate goodness. When someone is kind to you, you feel understood and seen. There is not judgement or harsh perception directed toward you. Kindness has gracious eyes; it is not small-minded or competitive; it wants nothing back for itself. Kindness strikes a resonance with the depths of your own heart; it also suggests that your vulnerability, though somehow exposed, is not taken advantage of; rather it has become an occasion for dignity and empathy. Kindness casts a different light, an evening light that has the depth of color and patience to illuminate what is complex and rich in difference. Despite all the darkness, human hope is based on the instinct that at the deepest level of reality some intimate kindness holds sway. This is the heart of blessing.” i. As I was thinking about blessing this week, I was joking around with people in the office. At the end of each conversation, I offered a blessing to them of what we had talked about in our conversation or what I thought they might need. To Jane, I offered her the blessing that she could find the grocery item she needed without having to go to the Big Kroger. To Amy Jo, as I was parting, I said that I hoped that she would not need to talk to me or I to her over the long weekend (because that usually means there’s some sort of crisis). These blessings were said as jokes, but I noted how good it made my heart feel to offer these friends my hope for goodness and blessing in their lives. So this week, as we continue in this Christmas season (yep, it’s still Christmas through this Thursday), I invite you to look for ways to offer kindness to those you love and those you encounter. Look for ways to name the hopes that you have for them, to shine a sphere of light around them and be alert to the ways that God offers God’s love to you through others. In closing, I’ll offer you an excerpt of one of O’Donohue’s blessings: At The End of the Year As this year draws to its end, We give thanks for the gifts it brought And how they became inlaid within Where neither time nor tide can touch them... Days when beloved faces shone brighter With light from beyond themselves; And from the granite of some secret sorrow A stream of buried tears loosened. We bless this year for all we learned, For all we loved and lost And for the quiet way it brought us Nearer to our invisible destination.ii i. O’Donohue, John. To Bless the Space Between Us. Doubleday: New York, 2008, pp 185-186 ii. Ibid. pp 159-160