My baptismal name was Audrey Jean.
Somehow I hated the name Audrey and asked my mom how I happened to get that name.
She told me that my father wanted to name me Angela, but she wanted to call me Audrey after a street in Ludlow. What? A street in Ludlow!
One of my teachers even introduced me to a visiting priest as Jean Autrey!
By the time I started High School I didn’t even tell people my first name, so I glided along from then on as plain Jean.
After graduation from high school I entered St. Walburg Monastery with six other young ladies. When the time to receive the habit and receive our nun name arrived, we were asked to submit three names in the order of our preferences.
My first choice was Victoria after Mary’s title, Our Lady of Victory. I was excited to receive my first choice and to have Mary as my patron.
The day after the ceremony the superior informed me that my feast day would be December 23, feast of St. Victoria. I asked whether I could celebrate on October 7, the feast of “Our Lady of Victory.” After a little thought the superior said that the recently deceased Sr. Victoria celebrated on December 23, Feast of St. Victoria, and that changing the date would only confuse people. Believe me I was both confused and unhappy.
Shortly after it was time to elect a new prioress, I decided to try again by explaining to her my desire to celebrate my feast day on October 7 in honor of Our Lady of Victory. No problem! By that time most in the community would not remember when the departed Victoria celebrated her feast day.
Years later Pope John XXIII changed the title of the feast to the “Feast of our Lady of the Rosary.” That event actually expanded my love for the name.
When the sisters of our community had the option of returning to our Baptismal name, I chose to remain Victoria. The name had created a close bond between me and my heavenly mother. My baptismal name would not provide such a frequent reminder of that intimate connection.
The name Victoria also seemed to have a joyful ring, and I wanted to reflect joy and surrender as Mary so often did.
A quotation I discovered recently provided a perfect reason to associate joy with my name: “Joy is the most infallible sign of the presence of God.”
My final reflection is that the life I live and the good I do will lend beauty to my name as it will to any name.
Sr. Victoria Eisenman, O.S.B. belongs to the Benedictine Sisters of St. Walberg
Monestary. She wrote this for “Reflections from the School for the Lord’s Service.”