Jimmy Pete

Discovering our true name

John 8:51-59

          Jesus said to the Jews: “Amen, amen, I say to you, whoever keeps my word will never see death.”  So the Jews said to him, “Now we are sure that you are possessed. Abraham died, as did the prophets, yet you say, ‘Whoever keeps my word will never taste death.’ Are you greater than our father Abraham, who died?  Or the prophets, who died? Who do you make yourself out to be?”  Jesus answered, “If I glorify myself, my glory is worth nothing; but it is my Father who glorifies me, of whom you say, ‘He is our God.’ You do not know him, but I know him. And if I should say that I do not know him, I would be like you a liar. But I do know him and I keep his word.  Abraham your father rejoiced to see my day; he saw it and was glad.”  So the Jews said to him, “You are not yet fifty years old and you have seen Abraham?” Jesus said to them, “Amen, amen, I say to you, before Abraham came to be, I AM.” So they picked up stones to throw at him; but Jesus hid and went out of the temple area.

          Names are funny things, sometimes they are literally funny.  I’ll never understand why some parents give their children names that rhyme.  At home, my parents called me and my brother and sister, “Polly,” “Jolly,” and “Dolly.”  When they yelled one of our names, all we heard was “olly,” and we all came running!  A dear friend of mine named all her children starting with the letter “C” – Courtney, Conner and Colin.  Of course, he name is "Carol"!  Know any parents who do that?  I’ll never forget when Bishop J. Peter Sartain at a Confirmation Mass told everyone a nickname he had growing up; it was “Jimmy Pete.”  After he said that, he turned and looked at all the priests who were present and warned us: “Don’t even think about it!”

            C. S. Lewis said that we’ll never know our true name, our deepest identity, until we get to heaven.  There, God will give us a “white stone” with a name that only we will know, or be able to understand.  Lewis quotes George MacDonald, saying, “It is only when the man has become his name that God gives him the stone with the name upon it, for then first can he understand what his name signifies.”  In other words, throughout our lives we’re slowly “becoming our true name,” and we won’t know our name till heaven, where we’ll receive the “white stone," with our name inscribed upon it.

            In the first reading today, Abraham gets the white stone early while he’s still on earth.  God gives him his true name saying, “No longer shall you be called Abram; your name shall be Abraham, for I am making you the father of a host of nations.”  Abraham was extraordinary and had already become his true name while he was on earth.  In the gospel Jesus declares to the Jews his own true name, saying, “Amen, amen, I say to you, before Abraham came to be, I AM.”  That is, I am the Son of God, that is real name and true identity the Father gave me from all eternity.  You see, the saints get their stones sooner than others.

            A friend of mine told me that the sweetest word in any language is the sound of our own name.  Just listen, “Father John” – don't you think those are the sweetest words in the English language?!  But you know, that’s not my real name.  Even at 45 years old, I’m still only beginning to learn my true name; I’m still “becoming my own name.”  This means we should have profound patience with each other, and with each other’s faults: with your spouse, with your children, with your parents.  You see, none of us is a saint like Abraham nor are we like Jesus, and we don't know our true name.  Our real names are not Jimmy Pete, or Courtney, Connor or Colin, and not Polly, Jolly, or Dolly.  Matthew Kelly says we’re all striving to become “the best version of ourselves.”  The best version of ourselves is that "name" written on that white stone, we hope to receive in heaven.

            Here’s the rest of the Lewis quote: “God’s name for a man must be the expression of his own idea of the man, that being whom he had in his thought when he began to make the child, and whom he kept in his thought through the long process of creation that went to realize the idea.  To tell the name is to seal the success – to say, ‘In thee also I am well pleased.’”

            Praised be Jesus Christ!