Thoughts after Morning Prayer: Holy Name Day used to be called The Feast of the Circumcision...

                                                     _Genesis 17:5, 10-13, 1515/ Luke 2:15_

 

This image 
has been 
in my files
for years: 
saw it as 
Jesus sweetly 

reaching for
Jospeh's face,
as  babies do.
January 1st 
is now celebrated as Holy Name Day, but growing up in the days before the 1979 Prayer Book,  the day was called The Feast of the Circumcision.  I don’t know 
how I could have Not seen until now that the image shows quite  graphically  that aspect of the day. (Maybe I just averted my gaze!)  Being “of the house and lineage of David" and so a true son of Abraham, his parents would as a matter 
of course have had him circumcised 
on the 8th day after his birth as the 
sign of the covenant that  God had 
made with Abraham.  Which makes
the image all the more poignent and
 ambiguous since Jesus is reaching
out to the preson who is conducting
the בְּרִית מִילָה‬,... I remember when I first 
realized the significnace of   the 
words of the hymn Jesus, Name
of wondrous love!

                        Jesus, Name of mercy mild,

                 Given to the Holy Child, 

        When the cup of human woe, 

   First he tasted here below. 

   ( https://youtu.be/ZwjhMP0XzNg

Jesus was also givne his name at that ceremony:  “And he was called Jesus, 
the name given by the angel before he was conceived in the womb,” as new names had been given to Abraham (Abram) & Sarah (Sarai) at the time that God had made the covenant with Abraham.