November 30, St. Andrew's Day

Today is my favorite saint’s day.  After all, it’s St. Andrew’s Day!  You shouldn’t get the idea, however, that I was intentionally named after him (although  in the long view of things, I like to think so).  The story goes that during the Great Depression (yes, I’m that old) my father was unable to render due payment to my mother’s obstetrician, Dr. Harvey Andrew Stein, for the services he provided during my delivery and birth into the God’s world.  With little or no money in hand, my father decided to honor (or pay!) the Dr. Stein, one of the finest Jewish obstetricians in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, by naming me after Dr. Stein.   So on my birth certificate, the nurse penned in my full name as Harvey Andrew Stein.  For whatever reasons (and I’m glad somebody decided to do so), the first name never stuck, and nobody ever called me Harvey.  To this day, I don’t use it ever and have always managed, when necessary to do something legal, to sign my Hancock as “H. Andrew Harnack.”

Be that as it may, I know I was baptized as Harvey Andrew Harnack on St. Andrew’s Day, and consequently (as I said, “in the long run”),  St. Andrew is and has been for 74 years my patron saint.   His icon now hangs in my study by the door so that I get to look at him many times during the day.  Although the icon itself displays St. Andrew as a rather dour-looking fellow (I am, of course, dour at times myself), I like to look at the icon appreciatively for at least two reasons.  First, it was to Andrew that Jesus said clearly, “You did not choose me; I chose you!”   And second, in Scripture it is St. Andrew who likes to introduce people to Jesus.  He is, after all, the disciple who introduced the first Pope to Jesus.   All of this reminds me that I am Andy only by the grace of God and that one of my jobs is to introduce as many people to Jesus as I possibly can.

So on this day, give thanks with me for my Holy Baptism into the life of the Most Holy Trinity and the Church created, sustained, and nourished by the grace of the Father through the gift of His son and the presence of the Holy Spirit.  And as often as possible, ask God to let me use my life and Praying Daily Blog as an introduction and invitation to resurrection with Jesus, our Lord.