What brand are YOU?

What brings great consolation to the saints and can do the same for all on the road to sanctity, is the faith and knowledge that our destinies are written in the palm of God’s hand.

Bishop Edward B. Scharfenberger

What brand are you? Whose brand are you? We start off in life with a lot of unknowns and maybe even more unknowables. Who are we? What will we become? Some of it is already written into our genes — our DNA — from the moment of conception. Our biology to be sure, whether we know it, like it or agree with it, sets the stage for much about our future. The gametes of our biological parents, however they may have come together, assign a good part of our identity, in the order of God’s providence, which nonetheless is only beginning to unfold. For there is so much more.

The newly conceived already has an unrepeatable identity which begins to take shape, interacting with the mother and with everyone and everything in her immediate environment. Voices, sounds and emotions are already registering on the developing brain which, as we are learning, is connected neurologically to every part of the growing being who is and will never be less than human. From that instant of generation by which we assume a unique identity we are already social, connected to an ever-expanding network beyond ourselves and our ability to control it.

We are by nature made for relationship. Thus we naturally seek to become part of something larger than ourselves: a family, a team, a society, a nation. As we begin to mature, we become “socialized,” as it is said by our experiences in church, school and the playgrounds of our neighborhoods. Most of us will discover our favorite sport or sports teams, and find our clubs or gathering places. Depending upon local options and influences, it might be a gang or a country club that further defines our sense of who we are and where we belong, often heavily influenced by income, ethnicity or parental status. Membership might be displayed by a signature as removable as decals on car windows or political posters on a front lawn, or they could be as personally stamped as tattoos. Whatever the form of branding, it will be recognizable to all members of the group, often meant to tell outsiders, you are (or are not) one of us.

In recent years, branding has been taken to greater limits including experimentation with biological form to conform with personal perceptions of gender identity not aligned with one’s natural anatomy. Some have struggled with anorexia and other dysphoria that to others may seem incomprehensible and absurd, yet present wrenching emotional and physical challenges to the host beset by the condition. The manifestation of what may be labeled, justly or unjustly, as genetic anomalies may have profound consequences for a person’s well-being in society, even their most intimate family circles. Yet is there not something all of us feel in the depths of our humanity that proclaims loudly: you are more than a brand, more than a diagnosis?

At the beginning of this article, I proposed the question, what (or whose) brand are you. Many of us have no problem with the titles, labels or names that have been assigned to us or which we have acquired over the years. We may be proud of or be seeking to acquire American citizenship. Most readers will likely have had some affinity to the Catholic faith or be in the process of growing closer to it, even while wrestling with questions about some of its tenets. If we are among the baptized, whether specifically Catholic or not, how many of us realize that we are branded with a kind of “soul tattoo,” as I like to characterize the mark of the Holy Spirit that I so delight in confirming young Catholics with as an essential part of my episcopal ministry.

It is true. At baptism we are given a kind of soul branding — even more than strictly spiritual — which entitles us to admission into the Kingdom of Heaven. It works like a passport which enables us to cross over or be given entry into a place we belong, which we can call home. “(O)ur citizenship is in heaven,” St. Paul says, adding “and from it we also await a savior, the Lord Jesus Christ” (Ph 3:20). The next verse, I think, is quite significant. “He will change our lowly body to conform with his glorified body by the power that enables him to bring all things into subjection to himself” (Ph 3:21). This promise and prophecy is worth pondering.

When and how does this happen? If we are already citizens of heaven then this is our birthright if we are willing to claim it. “Heaven” may be something that we are accustomed to think of as a “place” in our future. Nothing in the Scriptures or our Catholic doctrine requires us to envision heaven exclusively as a place “up there” or beyond. In our own experience we sometimes use metaphors to describe our feelings as like being in heaven — or its counterpart, “this feels like hell on earth.” Such observations may be closer to reality than we realize.

It is indeed a part of our teaching that we have a guardian angel. I am not so sure about the old nun’s tale about “a good angel and bad angel” on each side of us, but who among us have not felt at times the odd and unwelcome sense of being “under attack,” as it were, by a wicked force. We have even been hearing about a rise in demands for exorcisms. 

My point is that we are connected to realities that profoundly affect our true identity, which are more than what our poor egos construct or our wills and desires dictate. We are more than what we “feel — God help us! — at any given time or season. Were that really the case, what parent would put up with the behaviors of a cantankerous child so patiently throughout the years? Something about love does not imprison a person only in the state of their digestion!

What brings great consolation to the saints and can do the same for all on the road to sanctity, is the faith and knowledge that our destinies are written in the palm of God’s hand (cf. Is 49:16). God’s love for us is engraved in his very being. Not only are we not defined by our past, our upbringing, let alone our genetic or medical history, we are loved and willed into existence by a love beyond our imagination, a “brand” that marks us with the sign of the Cross and ensures us of a destiny that, if we accept it, frees us from all other brands. We are who we truly are by the grace of God.