I love the Feast of the Epiphany. In fact, I love it so much that I chose the name ‘Elaine’ to be added to ‘Ruth’ when I made First Profession so I could claim it as my Name/Feast Day. We have the option of changing our names when we make Profession so I was considering what my name should be. That meant I had to change my baptismal name of ‘Ruth’ to something else or add a middle name to ‘Ruth.’ I really didn’t want to totally change ‘Ruth’ because I had been called that the last 31 years of my life and wasn’t keen on getting used to something else. So, I decided to try and find an appropriate middle name.
I had been considering choosing a name that would relate to one of three different feasts as I went through my 2nd year of novitiate. I had narrowed it down to Pentecost, the Transfiguration and Epiphany. What helped me choose Epiphany was a homily I heard during Mass on this feast. The priest talked about how the Magi were searching for something and they had to travel in the dark in order to be guided by the light that caught their attention. They were willing to put up with the hardships of desert travel and leave the security of their homes to embark on the search. There was no guarantee of what they would find at the end of their search but they just knew they had to go looking.
Those words struck me as so similar to my own spiritual seeking and journey to God. I felt like I was in a ‘desert’ much of the time and traveling by night without a lot of light. Yet I kept going. I was constantly asking God for more light but seemed to be only getting what you can see in the ring of a dim flashlight when walking outside at night.
So after pondering his homily I decided the Epiphany was meant to be my feast day. I then had to find a name to connect with it. The name ‘Epiphanata’ didn’t appeal to me or ‘Epiphania‘ or ‘Manifestina’ :)
My last name is the fine German name of ‘Starman’ but I knew that wasn’t enough to make the cut for choosing the Epiphany as my nameday. (I’ve often thought how cool it would have been to be an astronomer or astronaut with my name but God didn’t lead me down those paths)
I can honestly say the name ‘Elaine’ just kind of popped into my head one day as one to consider. Somebody handed me a book of baby names where the meaning of each name is listed. So I excitedly looked up ‘Elaine’ and to my delight found it to be a derivative of ‘Helen’ which means light. So it all seemed to be very God inspired.
I've always loved going out to look at the stars. In my growing up years on the farm in Nebraska I would often head outdoors to walk down our lane and lay on my back and gaze at the constellations. I suppose it's one reason I've always preferred living in the country, I don't have to go too far to get away from all the artificial light.
My journey can still often feel like I'm in the desert and I'm mostly in the dark. But I do know that one has to lose the bright light of day in order to see the beauty of the stars at night...even if the dark is a little scarier.
