"HALLOWED BE THY NAME" ^_[1]

ENCOUNTER WITH GOD

1.  When we pray, we worship God. To glorify God's name is to worship him. To worship God's name is to glorify him in prayer. Some persons might construe the worship of God's name as the worship of words, but this objection fails the test of divine revelation and human reason.

2.  God, who revealed himself to Moses, commissioned his prophet to reveal his name to pharaoh of Egypt, lest the Egyptian ruler punish Moses for daring to appear in his court without the backing of a sovereign power.  [cf. Exo 3:13-15]  We cannot underestimate the confrontation--dramatized in the agony of the ten plagues--between pharaoh and divine revelation.

3.  The king of Egypt whose greatness was measured by the boundaries of empire discovered that he had come face to face with I AM, the God of all reality in whom being and holiness are without bounds and eternal. Only after the agony of Egypt and the destruction of his army would pharaoh perceive that his conflict with Moses was not the point at all; the Egyptian king failed to understand the meaning of his encounter with God. Pharaoh, ruler of all Egypt, came to know that I AM was his suzerain. He was a mere vassal humbled by the Lord of all that is seen and unseen.  [cf. 2Cor 4:18]

TO SPEAK IS TO INVOKE

4.  The King of Egypt learned to his great sorrow that the living God and his sovereign name are one and the same reality. God's name does not exist apart from his being. God is his name. God is what his name says. The name of God is God and hence is coessential with his divine perfection. To speak the name of God, therefore, is to invoke God. By comparison, pharaoh's throne-name was a mere appropriation. God entrusted his name--"I AM who I am...this is my name for ever, and thus I am to be remembered throughout all generations"  [Gen 3:14-15]--to his servant Moses for the betterment of mankind and commanded the prophet and his chosen people to safeguard it always. What Moses received, Christ fulfilled in his divine and human personhood.

5.  To his apostles and his bride, the Church, the Lord confided the name Abba  (Aramaic, father), thus granting his followers a name by which they could approach God.  When the Church prays the Our Father, she glorifies God as I AM. She invokes the God of eternity, the "Alpha and the Omega, the one who is and who was and who is to come".  [Rev 1:8]  To increase the confidence of his Church, Jesus established his followers in right relationship to the fatherhood of God: "When Israel was a child, I loved him, and out of Egypt I called my son."  [Hos 11:1]  When her members pray Abba, they glorify I AM in his eternal fatherhood.They acknowledge the indissoluble unity of divine symbol and essence, divine revelation and reality. God who is called Father is Father. There is no separation between the vehicle and the divine nature, as if God's name had been conferred by an entity independent of God, or could be withdrawn or changed to reflect a new and different situation.

ADORATION OF GOD'S NAME 

6.  For our Divine Lesson today, we turn to the Lords Prayer--the preeminent emblem of goodness--to consider the phrase Hallowed be thy name.  [Mt 6:9; cf. Mt 6:9-13]  God's name is hallowed by the saints, angels and heavenly hosts in heaven and by the Church on earth. The adoration of God's name proceeds apart any boundary of time or space. The Book of Revelation describes the beauty of God's throne before which the twenty-four elders and four living creatures worship unceasingly:  "Worthy art thou, our Lord and God, to receive glory and honor and power, for thou didst create all things, and by thy will they existed and were created."  [Rev 4:11]  The Church on earth is invited by Christ to unite its voice to the eternal praise of the celestial choir. In addition to the Spirit which he entrusted to his Church, Our Lord entrusts the care of God's name.

7.  The Church is responsible for the exaltation of God's name in worship and prayer, most especially in the celebration of the seven sacraments. She is to teach the faithful to be respectful of God's name and attentive to its meaning in their lives. The well-being of the divine name is confided to missionaries and evangelists all over the world as a prerequisite to genuine faith for all persons who come to Christ. Further, its esteem is entirely dependent on the establishment of the habit of faithful discipleship. The care of God's name includes a proscription imposed by God in the form of the second commandment given to Moses:  "You shall not take the name of the Lord your God in vain."  [Exo 20:7]  Often misunderstood is the verbal auxiliary shall. It does mean may or may not. Shall not take expresses what is mandatory, that which is commanded.

OUT OF OBEDIENCE

8.  Those who have bound their lives to Christ are never to take the name of God in vain, regardless of its form or the divine person to which a curse may be directed. Not one of the many names of God may be subjected to abuse. All Christians are bound to observe the Mosaic commandment. Our Lord Jesus Christ, anticipating persons who would attempt to legitimize habitual carelessness as an acceptable form of discipleship, remarked, "Think not that I have come to abolish the law and the prophets; I have come not to abolish them but to fulfill them. For truly, I say to you, till heaven and earth pass away, not an iota, not a dot, will pass from the law until all is accomplished."  [Mt 5:17-18] 

9.  The fact that Christ emptied himself of his divine prerogatives and consented to be born as a man in conditions of humility cannot not be invoked as a rationalization for the vulgar treatment of his name. Our Lord's servant-discipleship is not a sociological study of the conditions of informality. The Saviour humbled himself, not as an expression of slovenliness, but out of obedience to his Father, an obedience proven on the cross. He became a human being, not for the purpose of glorifying man's name, but precisely to lead "a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, God's own people, that you may declare the wonderful deeds of him who called you out of darkness into his marvelous light".  [2Pet 2:9] That many persons in the Church are Christian in name only is lamentable. Thus the respect of the divine name is not merely a matter of prohibition, that is to say, a personal commitment to refrain from its abuse, but it is prescriptive as well. True respect is given to God's name by the Christian who upholds his law:  "He has showed you, O man, what is good; and what does the Lord require of you but to do justice, and to love kindness, and to walk humbly with your God?"  [Mic 6:8] 

REFLECTIVE OF THE GOOD

10.  From the age of reason forward, therefore, every human being must confront the existential task of choosing for the good:  "...so that the genuineness of your faith, more precious than gold which though perishable is tested by fire, may redound to praise and glory and honor at the revelation of Jesus Christ."  [1Pet 1:7]  It is universally accepted that the well-being of the human person is reflective of the good that he chooses; both the good and well-being seem to be superimposable, that is to say, the former is the cause of the latter. Rational people, to be sure, would never argue that choosing for evil is in the best interest of human beings. Considerable argument occurs, however, when one attempts to define the good that governs a choice or is protected by a law.

11.  What makes one choice good and another bad? Is a choice good simply because it is preferred? Does its goodness reside in the merits of the person making it? Must a person be good to do good things? Is a choice good because it did not cause serious harm? Is the choice good because its outcome is successful? Is a choice good because the person making it possesses decisive information? Is a decision good because it maximizes the decision-maker's pleasure? From the relevance of these questions and the various ways in which they may be answered, man is cognizant that good exists and that good is good. To this discussion, the Catholic Church adds that good exists objectively and is known as that which all men desire.

LIVING MEMORIES

12.  Moreover, the good of any person is that which brings about the perfection of his humanity. Aware that mankind is universally attracted to good and desires to pursue the good, we, too, want to be known as good persons. We want to be remembered for being good-natured, good to our friends and known as good in the community in which we live. It is not enough to write on tombstones; we want those who bury us to revere our names in their living memories. From all that has been said, to seek the good is to seek God; man's authentic search for the divine begins with the humble acknowledgement of all degrees of his present imperfection and hence his requisite dependence on God. If it is accompanied by a fundamental commitment to active goodness, a person's search for God and inevitably directs him to the person of Jesus Christ.

13.  Submitting to the Lord of Lords and King of Kings  [cf. 1Tim 6:15], he covenants his life in the Sacraments of Initiation.^[2] He binds himself to Christ to become a living and uniquely human incarnation of God's most holy name, the surpassing emblem of man's humanity. In this way we know that seeking the good and attaining it is beneficial, and that God's resplendent name is the perfect expression of absolute good. Being good and choosing for the good evidence man's right order to the compelling task of his own perfection and the consummation of his relationship with God.  The perfection of goodness ennobles his dignity and confers meaning on his existence. It complements and nourishes his eternal soul and constitutes the hope of his body's resurrection from the dead.

EXCURSUS TO PERFECTION

14.  A life directed toward the good, therefore, is essential to the temporal and spiritual well-being of the human person. Man's destiny is inseparable from goodness and bound to the goodness of  kindred spirits. He seeks especially the impeccable beauty of God. So compelling for man is this excursus to perfection that he has established intelligent and penetrating symbols for its communication, not the least of which is the esteem and recognition accorded to divine names and naming. The name man finds its true meaning only in the name God:  "Say this to the people of Israel, 'I am has sent me to you."  [Exo 3:14]   I AM commanded Jesus to approach John for baptism in the Jordan River. As the baptism takes place, the Holy Spirit cleaves the sky in two above the head of God's Son and prophesies its power to the world, anointing Jesus "in bodily form as a dove".  [Lk 3:22]  A voice from heaven proclaims: "Thou art my beloved Son; with thee I am well pleased."  [Lk 3:22] 

15.   Thus is Jesus revealed to Israel and centered in the midst of all creation as the messiah (Heb. anointed one), the only-begotten Son of the heavenly Father. That all Christians share in the name of Christ is instructive. In the Sacrament of Baptism the Holy Spirit anoints the believer as a sublime sacramental sign of regeneration. Baptism by water and Spirit quickens man's very being and prepares him to bear the name Christian, the name which authenticates the meaning of his identity and his existence, and which orients him to the Father as the sublime object of his search for goodness. Man's glorification of Gods name adds nothing to his majesty, nor can man's profanation of the divine name change the reality of His unsurpassed excellence. Both glorification and profanation, however, redound to the condition and fate of man. The former conveys the perfection of his goodness in God, the latter renders worthless man's own name and condemns him:  "Therefore I want you to understand that no one speaking by the Spirit of God ever says 'Jesus be cursed!' and no one can say 'Jesus is Lord!' except by the Holy Spirit." [1Cor 12:3] 

LACKING IN NOTHING

16.  We pray the Our Father to glorify God's eternal, unchanging and holy name:  "Let them praise the name of the Lord, for his name alone is exalted; his glory is above earth and heaven."  [Psa 148:13]  We pray hallowed be thy name to confess the name of God "which is above every name"  [Phi 2:9], to worship the sovereign God who governs all creation and to strengthen the faith of one another. The Blessed Virgin Mary prophesies in her Magnificat man's participation in Gods divine economy:  "For he who is mighty has done great things for me, and holy is his name."  [Lk 1:49]  The word hallow means to revere or venerate. To hallow the name of God is to enter into the mystery of God's indescribable holiness; it may be said that God's name is a passage to the origin of divine grace. Because God's name is lacking in nothing, we are obliged to distinguish it apart from all other names "in heaven and on earth and under the earth".  [Phi 2:10] 

17.  The Christ is announced to the world by the prophets and angels as the Father's only-begotten son. Joseph of the house of David is instructed to name the son of Mary Jesus Emmanu-el  (Heb. God with us)  for the fulfillment of Israel and the inauguration of the new covenant.  [Mt 1:23]  Hence the prophetic, angelic and fatherly witnesses reveal Jesus' divine sonship, and in like manner, the pleasing character of their Father-Son relationship. To hallow the heavenly Father's name, therefore, is to acknowledge the sonship of Christ and the inviolable dignity of the father-son relationship. This reality is attested most clearly in the Church's celebration of the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass. By Word and Eucharist the gathered Church offers to God the fitting praise and worship due his great name:  "For he who sanctifies and those who are sanctified have all one origin. That is why he is not ashamed to call them brethren, saying, I will proclaim thy name to my brethren, in the midst of the congregation I will praise thee."  [Heb 2:11-12]  

ROMAN CATHOLIC

18.  By taking the name Christian, the believer testifies to the power of Jesus' name to regenerate the human person and further the Spirit's mission of reconciliation. The English words hallow and thy boast an ancestry of at least a thousand years. No longer in common use, these words persistently remind us that God's name is established above all other names and titles of kings, prime ministers and presidents. Few possessions are so valued as one's own name; a persons name is inseparable from his identity. One's name is so significant that its reverent use can summon him from the abyss of grave illness or from the brink of catastrophic danger. Spoken with love, the sound of our name can nurture us and satisfy our deep human longing to be known and understood. 

19.  A name is so powerful a symbol of one's personhood that it can be used to mock him and to reject or even to destroy him. Yet, it seems to be a law that no person curses his enemy or the world by the name of his beloved. The scoundrel who abuses God's name cannot love the God he slanders. The holy name of God summons mankind to render a sacrificial offering; accordingly God's name must never be squandered by coarse or vulgar use.  [Isa 56:6-7]  If the name of one's beloved is dear to him, let him know then how much more to be adored is the name of the Lord. Cursing God or cursing with God's most sacred name, therefore, is a malignant sin which cannot go unconfessed except at the peril of one's eternal soul. Any individual who follows Christ with a sincere heart bears the surname Christian. But let us not forget the illustrious and worthy name conferred on the Church by the Holy Spirit: Roman Catholic. To this we can attest by the dogmatic authority of the Apostle's Creed: one, holy, catholic and apostolic Church.^[3] 

NEED TO RECOVER

20.  To adore or hallow God's name is to confront humanity's need to recover the goodness God apportioned to it from the beginning and obtain the plenitude of grace offered to mankind by God's only-begotten Son in obedience to his will. Apart from the divine proscription--you must eschew the tree of the knowledge of good and evil and likewise the tree of life  [cf. Gen 2:17, 22]--Adam and Eve's participation in goodness was intuitive and comprehensive. By sinning against God, they incurred the penalty of two-fold exile: banishment from Eden and forfeiture of the primordial grace that sustained them in God's goodness. Fortunately man's participation in the divine image and likeness  [cf. Gen 1:26 ], though diminished by his fall in sin, was not obliterated.

21.  Having forfeited tragically his original God-given portion of divine goodness and the primordial grace sustaining his harmonic cooperation, man must--until the parousia  (Gk. second visible coming of Christ)--situate himself in right relationship to goodness by attaining to its proper understanding and practice. Only by God's grace can man's feeble efforts accomplish this. God's name is exalted by the Christian who exalts him in thought, word and deed. The integrity of God's name is indissolubly bound to the spiritual integrity of his people. If the meaning of Christian discipleship is undone or broken or annulled by any nation or people or tribe, the excellence of God's name is degraded in the heart of that people.

CONSANGUINITY OF NAME AND DISCIPLESHIP

22.  Respect for God's name cannot be construed as the mere avoidance of its indiscriminate use. One can only marvel at the hypocrisy of a nominal Christian who regards God's name in his or her common conversation yet who makes war on the most innocent and helpless members of society, the unborn. Or the nominal Christian who never uses God's name at all, because he never worships or prays or even thinks about God except perhaps in the context of an occasional appointment. The Lord will not hold these persons guiltless for their offenses against his holy name. The punishment for those who persist in their indifferentism until death is hell and everlasting separation from the love and liberality of God.

23.  The faithful follower of Jesus Christ, on the other hand, will present to unbelievers an impeccable image of his God. Lest anyone doubt the consanguinity of God's name and the demands of discipleship, the Lord Jesus has this to say, "Whoever then relaxes one of the least of these commandments and teaches men so, shall be called least in the kingdom of heaven; but he who does them and teaches them shall be called great in the kingdom of heaven."  [Mt 5:19]  Let the people of God, therefore, make the name of the Lord holy in the substance of their lives. Let them keep the name of the Lord holy in their assemblies, sacred in the marketplace and inviolable before the rulers of this world's principalities and powers. Understand as well that the goodness of God is your shield against the attacks of the Evil One.

SPREADING WINGS OF GOD'S NAME

24. Arm yourself with the saving cross of Christ! Shelter yourselves in the grace-filled community which Christ himself named as his Church! Fulfill the Church's mission in proclaiming God's sovereignty over all goodness. Lead men and women of good will to glorify the holy names of God. The Father wills, through the perfect humanity of Jesus, that all men share in His divine goodness. To call Jesus Lord is the consummation of faith, yet mysteriously it is but faith's inception. As disciples of our Lord, we are called by Christ to be holy as our heavenly Father is holy  [cf. Lev 11:44-45]:  "I will make he who conquers a pillar, in the temple of my God, says the Lord, never shall he go out of it, and I will write on him the name of my God, and the name of the city of my God, the new Jerusalem which comes down from my God out of heaven, and my own new name."  [Rev 3:12] 

25.  Thus human perfection does not lead man to himself but rather to God who, as divine creator, is the fullness of goodness itself. Man's very desire for good demonstrates that his perfection remains painfully incomplete. In Sacred Scripture we read, "Then God said, 'Let us make man in our image, after our likeness.'"  [Gen 1:26]   It follows, then, that one's goodness evidences the degree to which he has perfected God's image and likeness within him, in the measure that God's name is written on his heart. The path of perfection leads the human creature to desire his Creator as both the means and end of his own perfection.  Man needs God to perfect his humanity, and the beatitude of his humanity demands that he shelter under the spreading wings of God's glorious name  [cf. Deu 32:10-11; Psa 91]--not merely for the sake of participation in God's goodness, and here we recall the stipulation of Eden--but to know God as he is himself:  "...because the creation itself will be set free from its bondage to decay and obtain the glorious liberty of the children of God!"  [Rom 8:21]