From the author:
This series continues the young adult group that started in the Love in Andauk series. In this scene, some characters are talking about the names they might choose as saint or vocation names. What name would you choose?
From the book:
Jessica wanted to start with a general question before getting to the Saint of the week. “Some of the Saints we’ve discussed are known by names that are not their birth names. Some of them chose new names when they joined a religious order. So I thought it might be fun to ask – just hypothetically – if you were going to pick a name for yourself that could eventually be your Saint name, what would you pick?”“We’re imagining we’re going to join a religious order today?”
“That might be harder for those of us already married.”
“Not necessarily,” Jessica said. “I mean, not necessarily joining a convent or anything. Let’s call it a vocation name. Maybe we’ll just go around the room. Tori?” She nodded at the woman to her left.
Tori drew in a long, stalling breath. “Well… I might have a different answer if I had time to think about it, but off the top of my head I’d say Mary. If I’m picking a Saint name, I might as well pick the queen of the Saints. Right?”
A few people nodded. Cassidy was next. “Okay. You all are going to think I’m super weird, but this is actually something I’ve thought about before.”
Sarah thought it was weird but not exactly shocking. She’d occasionally noticed Cassidy staring off into space as though her thoughts were miles and miles away.
“I think,” Cassidy continued, “that if I did join an order where I was expected to choose a name, I would choose Elizabeth. We don’t know a lot about her other than she was considered barren before she became the mother of John the Baptist. And then Mary rushed to see her after Gabriel offered her pregnancy as evidence of God’s power. It’s like… she was connected to these super important people and events without really… I wonder if she knew that what she might have seen as a punishment from God, her inability to have children sooner, was so important to God’s plan. I don’t know if I’m explaining it right. Anyway, it’s that connectedness that I like, the idea that I could be connected to something big I just don’t see.”
“Wow,” Emily said. “That’s really interesting to think about. I mean, putting yourself in the place of people in the Bible like that. But now I want to know if Jackson knows you’ve thought about joining a convent.”
A couple of people laughed, including Sarah.
Ella mumbled something that made Jessica laugh harder. She gestured to Ella. “She said, ‘Don’t tell my mom.’”
Ella was Jackson’s sister. Everyone knew their mom was eager for her kids to get married and give her more grandkids.