From the Pastor: 'A Sign of a Special Relationship'

A Weekly Column by Father George Rutler

Pope Benedict XVI baptises a newborn baby in Michelangelo's Sistine Chapel

IN Baptism, the Holy Spirit unites our pasts and futures with Christ who is the Beginning and the End. Our baptismal name is a sign of that relationship. Parents choose a name for their child because they are procreators on behalf of the Creator. This is indicated in the Creation narrative when the first man and woman are allowed to name every living creature. This taxonomy is a sign of cooperation with God's plan of salvation. So the authority to name is more significant than the name chosen, but the name also is important because it symbolizes an appeal to God.

In the Bible, names are changed to signify a new circumstance. Abram became Abraham in the old dispensation, and in the new covenant Saul became Paul. The first pope to change his name was John II in 533. His name had been that of the pagan god Mercury, whose figure sculpted by Jules Coutan faces us each day over the façade of Grand Central Terminal, a fine symbol for travel as he represents speed, but not suitable as a name for a Bishop of Rome, where time is measured in centuries rather than minutes. It is not clear why his father Projectus named him Mercurius, save that it might have been fashionable. By being fashionable, fashion quickly becomes unfashionable.

Joseph Ratzinger had one of the best Christian names, but he called himself Benedict as pope in tribute both to St. Benedict, whose monasticism became a core of European civilization, and to Benedict XV, who desperately tried to save Europe from self-destruction. When he baptized 21 infants this month in the Sistine Chapel, Benedict XVI remarked on the importance of names as signs of divine adoption: "Every baptised child acquires the character of the son of God, beginning with their Christian name, an unmistakable sign that the Holy Spirit causes man to be born anew in the womb of the Church.”

There is a tendency to name children now for perfumes, celebrities and sports equipment. The retired bishop of La Spezia in Liguria, Italy, remarked that in 2008, of 500 girls baptized in his city, "not one was registered or baptized with the name Maria." Any decent name can become Christian, but the Catechism teaches that names not be given that are "foreign to Christian sentiment," and that the names of saints are models for children. "The name is the icon of the person. It demands respect as a sign of the dignity of the one who bears it" (#2158). Whatever our name, may we be faithful to our Lord who has a plan for each one of us: "To him who overcomes, to him I will give some of the hidden manna, and I will give him a white stone, and a new name written on the stone which no one knows but he who receives it” (Rev. 2:17).

Fr. George W. Rutler is the pastor of the Church of our Saviour in New York City. His latest book, Coincidentally: Unserious Reflections on Trivial Connections, is available from Crossroads Publishing.