¶ The Power and Identity of Names
Welcome to Slaking Thirst, a podcast that's all about bringing the thirst deep within our hearts for love and communion to the heart of Christ, a divine heart, who is seeking our love and communion in return. The hope is that the two thirsts would meet and both thirsts would be slaked. So friends, continuing the story this morning with Moses. I just want to begin with this.
One of the beautiful things about priesthood is that you get to journey with a lot of friends who have a lot of babies. It's a really beautiful thing that one of the things that you give up is something that you get constantly surrounded by. I've got friends who are expecting right now, friends who just had babies, and it's funny the different approach that parents take when it comes to naming their children, right? Some parents have...
Like a really secretly guarded, you know, we're not sharing the name with anybody. There's others who start telling people, you know, at five weeks, this is... Mikey, I don't know. But there's a different approach all along the way with different people. And I think, though, that every parent feels the same thing. At least all the ones that I know, they feel the same thing. This real profound sense of awe and wonder that...
Like, you mean I get to name this person that I have the burden, the responsibility of designating the identity? I get to name another human being determining their name? It's wild when you actually stop and think about it. Because our names are, there's so much more than titles. It's a window into our identity. It's the identifying. label of personhood, right? Of selfhood. Knowing your name gives me, in some sense, access to you. I can call out to you. I can
I can call you. I can address you. Most of all, a name gives me the ability to be in relationship with you. It's one of the hard things right now, being still brand new at St. Bart's. I'm still trying to learn every person's, I mean... Trying to learn people's names, every person's name. We'll see how many years that takes. But just trying to get names, it's really, really difficult. I would suggest this is a window into...
the significance of this first reading that we have today from Exodus. Moses, he asks the one who's speaking to him out of the burning bush, when I go to the children of Israel and say to them, the God of your fathers has sent me to you. If they ask, what is his name? What am I to tell them? And then God tells us his name. This is the first time in the scriptures where God reveals his name. I am who am. I am who am. I am that I am. St. Thomas Aquinas, he spends
years contemplating the depth of those words, mining them for all of their philosophical, theological richness. Well, it's a different homily for a different day, but suffice it to say, there's a lot going on in that name.
¶ God's Name and Concerned Presence
God gives us in this way, he gives us his name, which is a way of saying he puts himself in reach. He gives himself... There's like a handhold on his heart now that we can grab on to him. We can call out to him. And then God, he continues. He says, I'm the God of your fathers. I'm the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, the God of Jacob. He's saying to Moses, he's saying, I am the God of that story. I'm the God of those promises. I am the one who bound myself to Abraham, who rescued Abraham.
Isaac, who blessed Jacob, this is who I am. This is who I am. And then this line, which really stopped me in my tracks, he says, I'm concerned about you. about the way you are being treated in Egypt. I would really encourage you to just take some time today. Just let yourself keep saving those words. Hear the Lord saying, I'm concerned about you.
And the way that you're being treated in Egypt. Remember, Egypt, scripturally speaking, is this rich, symbolic, I don't know, it symbolizes this fallen world. This fallen world, this world under the dominion of Satan, this world where we guard our hearts, this world where we...
suffer lies and wounds and backstabbing and pain and all that stuff. He's saying, I see how you're being treated in Egypt. And he says, I'm concerned about you. And in this line, he says even further, so I've decided to lead you up out.
¶ Discipleship as Accepting God's Gift
of the misery of Egypt. I've decided to lead you up and out of the misery of Egypt. Christianity, just like Judaism, Christianity is the story of humanity responding to the thing that God has done for us on our behalf. So discipleship, following Jesus, it's not meant to be simply this Herculean effort of... trying to attract God's love. No, like discipleship is finally, in the final analysis, it's an acquiescing. It's a...
It's a surrendering to a love that precedes me, that awaits me, that surrounds me. It's accepting the gift that's already been given. I will lead you out of this place of misery. It's the Lord's promise. I just want to invite us to savor and contemplate that today. Amen. To listen to more homilies, talks, and reflections from Fr. Ryan and Fr. Patrick, please check out slakingthirst.com and consider becoming a subscriber to the Slaking Thirst YouTube channel.