290 What’s In A Name?

Transcript Speaker 1: When the time arrived for Elizabeth to have her child, she gave birth to a son. Her neighbors and relatives heard that the Lord had shown his great mercy toward her, and they rejoiced with her. When they came on the eighth day to circumcise the child, they were going to call him Zechariah after his father. But his mother said in reply, no. He will be called John. But they answered her, there is no one among your relatives who has this name. So they made signs asking his father what he wished him to be called. He asked for a tablet and wrote, John is his name and all were amazed. You are listening to Scripture for your inner outcasts. It is Wednesday, June 24th, 2026, the feast of the Nativity of Saint John the Baptist. I will be providing the reflection for today's episode. My name is Elizabeth and I'm the producer and host of this podcast. So today is the feast of the Nativity of Saint John the Baptist, one of the patrons of this podcast. And in honor of him, I'd like to read a selection from today's gospel. Luke chapter one, verses 57 to 63. When the time arrived for Elizabeth to have her child, she gave birth to a son. Her neighbors and relatives heard that the Lord had shown his great mercy toward her, and they rejoiced with her. When they came on the eighth day to circumcise the child, they were going to call him Zechariah after his father. Speaker 1: But his mother said in reply, no, he will be called John. But they answered her, there is no one among your relatives who has this name. So they made signs asking his father what he wished him to be called. He asked for a tablet and wrote, John is his name. And all were amazed. Here we have the story of John the Baptist's being named. But before I speak about him, I'd like to speak about Mary. We know from earlier in the Gospel of Luke that Mary stayed with Elizabeth for three months during both of their pregnancies, and we know that this was in the beginning of Mary's pregnancy and at the end of Elizabeth's pregnancy. And although we don't know with scriptural certainty. There is a theory that Mary was present at the birth of John the Baptist, and even that she might have assisted at the birth. In fact, the modern day term for a woman who assists at birth a doula is the Greek word for handmaiden, which Mary calls herself a few verses earlier in the Canticle of Mary, when she says, for he has looked on his handmaidens lowliness. So I just want to mention that because it's reasonable to believe that Our Lady was intimately involved in John the Baptist's birth, and it's also reasonable to imagine that Elizabeth would have discussed the naming of her son with her cousin Mary. Speaker 1: And because we all hope that our own parents consulted Mary, as in prayed to her when making decisions about us as little kids. It's interesting to think about Elizabeth doing the same. And of course, we can extrapolate that idea to think about us in our innermost self, naming the parts of us, our little children within us. Okay, so now to get into the meat and potatoes of what I want to say, I really want to speak on the importance of a name. When someone asks you, who are you? Your answer will most likely be I am Elizabeth, I am John, I am Stephanie, Sam, Roger, whatever your name is, that is how you most easily express your identity and thus your name is so important. Some of you in the audience right now might have a name that you love, and others might have a name that has never quite felt like it fits you. And that's where I'd like to turn your attention now. So for those of you in the audience who are familiar with parts work or with internal family systems line of thinking, you know that a big element of parts work is giving names to your parts. And depending on your journey in parts work, you might have asked your parts to name themselves or you, meaning your innermost self or a manager part might have chosen their names for them. Speaker 1: You might have actual first names that you give to your parts, like Amy or Cindy, or you might name them after their roles, like the surrender part or the shame bearer part, or the feisty part. Now I'd like to turn my attention and my speech to the exiled parts of you audience members, and to those exiled parts who are listening. I would just like to gently ask you, what is your name? Who are you? Do you feel like the name you've been given resonates with who you are? Is there another name you'd like to have? And do you even have a name at all? And again, two exiled parts. If your relationship allows for it, perhaps tell the answer to those questions to your manager parts and to your innermost self and just see what kind of response you get. Thanks for listening everyone. If the content of this podcast is bearing fruit in your lives, then you could look for more content. Along a similar vein on our website, Souls and hearts.com/content. And with that, we'll end with our invocations. Our Lady, our Mother, Untier of knots. Pray for us, Saint Joseph, pray for us. Saint John the Baptist pray for us.