Where our names are

Growing up in England with a foreign name meant I never saw my name in flowery gold writing on mass-produced 'personalised' keyrings, pendants and trinkets in gift shops. And I only occasionally saw it in shops and stalls in Italy! It took me a long time to realise that this was because Silvana has always lain well outside the top 100 favourite names for Italian baby girls, in any generation, and manufacturers were never going to spend money creating something for such a limited market. Yes, it is lovely to have such an unusual name - but not if you're a child who would like a bracelet or badge just like more commonly-named girls! Although, rather beautifully, the few things with my name on them I have ever possessed, precious because of their rarity, are doubly precious because they were specially personalised and purchased for me by someone's thoughtfulness. 

Keyring manufacturers might not bother with unusual or foreign names, or even unusual spellings, but - thankfully - God does! Ours is a God who knows each one of us by name; and who calls us in this very personal way, just as Jesus addressed Mary Magdalene, Peter and others. But more than that, in Sunday's Gospel (Luke 10), Jesus tells his disciples to rejoice that their names are written in heaven - a humbling, almost unbelievable promise for each of them, and indeed for each one of us. But as I read these words, I remembered, and went back to find, an especially tender paragraph in Dilexit nos, Pope Francis' encyclical about the Sacred Heart, in which he quotes St Francis de Sales...

“This most adorable and lovable heart of our Master, burning with the love which he professes to us, [is] a heart on which all our names are written… Surely it is a source of profound consolation to know that we are loved so deeply by our Lord, who constantly carries us in his heart”. With the image of our names written on the heart of Christ, Saint Francis sought to express the extent to which Christ’s love for each of us is not something abstract and generic, but utterly personal, enabling each believer to feel known and respected for who he or she is... “Each of us can look therein and see our name carved in letters of love, which true love alone can read and true love has written...” (# 115)

Wow, I thought the first time I read this... and wow, I still think, re-reading this now. And whether we can truly believe that each one of our names are written in Jesus' Heart... or in heaven... we can know that they - we - are known intimately, and held forever by Love. And it is Love who has written them: not on a nameplate or cheap trinket; not mass-produced, but exquisitely personalised; not faintly, or with easily erased pencil; not even with a marker pen; but indelibly, permanently carved, in letters which Love alone can read... Wow!