Are we living up to our calling? Are we living up to our name? Many have never given a second thought on how they were named or if it matters at all that their names mean something or not. Others may only be concerned of how their names look on their office doors or on the plaques of their firms. In fact in many cultures, the family are more concerned about the last names or rather of how the family name is carried forward!
What about our baptismal name? As Christians should we not have the same high regard for our baptismal names as those newly baptised into the faith? After all is it not the name we bear for Christ? And if so when are our names are called to mind, will others remember us as followers of Christ? As His disciples? As loving and caring individuals after the heart of our Lord and Saviour?
Jesus my Lord grant me the grace to serve You and my brethren well, that through my love of You put into action they will say; indeed the hand of the Lord was with him (her). Amen
First reading – Malachi 3:1-4,23-24
Before my day comes, I will send you Elijah my prophet
The Lord God says this: Look, I am going to send my messenger to prepare a way before me. And the Lord you are seeking will suddenly enter his Temple; and the angel of the covenant whom you are longing for, yes, he is coming, says the Lord of Hosts. Who will be able to resist the day of his coming? Who will remain standing when he appears? For he is like the refiner’s fire and the fullers’ alkali. He will take his seat as refiner and purifier; he will purify the sons of Levi and refine them like gold and silver, and then they will make the offering to the Lord as it should be made. The offering of Judah and Jerusalem will then be welcomed by the Lord as in former days, as in the years of old.
Know that I am going to send you Elijah the prophet before my day comes, that great and terrible day. He shall turn the hearts of fathers towards their children and the hearts of children towards their fathers, lest I come and strike the land with a curse.
Gospel – Luke 1:57-66
‘His name is John’
The time came for Elizabeth to have her child, and she gave birth to a son; and when her neighbours and relations heard that the Lord had shown her so great a kindness, they shared her joy.
Now on the eighth day they came to circumcise the child; they were going to call him Zechariah after his father, but his mother spoke up. ‘No,’ she said ‘he is to be called John.’ They said to her, ‘But no one in your family has that name’, and made signs to his father to find out what he wanted him called. The father asked for a writing-tablet and wrote, ‘His name is John.’ And they were all astonished. At that instant his power of speech returned and he spoke and praised God. All their neighbours were filled with awe and the whole affair was talked about throughout the hill country of Judaea. All those who heard of it treasured it in their hearts. ‘What will this child turn out to be?’ they wondered. And indeed the hand of the Lord was with him.
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