Optional Memorial of Saint Bernardine of Siena, Priest

Franciscan preacher, St. Bernadine
promoted devotion to the Holy Name of Jesus

 Lectionary: 299

Holy Father, keep them in your name that you have given me,
so that they may be one just as we are one.
When I was with them I protected them in your name that you gave me,
and I guarded them, and none of them was lost except the son of destruction....

Saint Bernadine of Siena was especially eager to revive an apostolic tradition: invoking Jesus's Holy Name with its power to reconcile enemies and heal the sick. 

Long before the Council of Trent settled the discussion about how many sacraments there are (seven) and which rites of the Church are called sacraments, the Church might have regarded the Name of Jesus as a kind of sacrament. Certainly, as we find in the Epistles and Saint Luke's Acts of the Apostles, the first missionaries were eager to announce that Name and its authority. 

The Lord spoke of the Kingdom of God throughout his brief career. It was coming and was already here. It was a force to be recognised in one's heart and reckoned in the world. Although he was known as a Galilean and the Nazarene, he might have described himself as a citizen of no nation but the Kingdom of God. He had come to alert people to its authority; and they should repent of their sins before it appeared lest they be found unworthy to live within it. Its arrival would be a great and terrible day; and he wept over Jerusalem for its failure to recognize its visitation. 

After his ascension, rather than his Kingdom, the disciples spoke more often of Jesus's Name and its authority. Whether you think of God's Kingdom or Jesus' Name, you must acknowledge, be grateful and worship the Lord! There can be no other response. 

This worship is filled with delight, joy, and relief; nothing could be more wonderful than God's presence in our world and in one's heart. Unlike the passing achievements of a boxing champion or an army, the Name of Jesus triumphs over sin and death forever. Athletes, as Saint Paul remarked, may win a crown of laurel leaves, but the Lord's victory is more valuable, lasting, and powerful than anything like the forgetable victory of a virile young Adonis. Now that is worth singing about! And the song will last far longer than the huzzahs of a Superbowl champion. 

With his authority, Jesus has given us a Word to announce to the nations. They should respect our ambassadorial authority as any foreign representative is respected in another country -- unless they worship Satan and despise the One we serve -- which is often the case.  

But, like many immigrants, we can speak only one language and that is the Language of Truth. We rarely find any advantage in pandering, deceit, or outright lies. As Jesus said, 

They do not belong to the world
any more than I belong to the world.
Consecrate them in the truth.
Your word is truth.
As you sent me into the world,
so I sent them into the world.
And I consecrate myself for them,
so that they also may be consecrated in truth.”