Optional Memorial of the Most Holy Name of Jesus

Lectionary: 510/1

...Because of this, God greatly exalted him and bestowed on him the name that is above every name, that at the name of Jesus every knee should bend, of those in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and every tongue confess that
Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.

The Memorial of the Most Holy Name of Jesus is a Franciscan feast. The Poverello's preachers studied the Bible intensely and learned from Saint Luke's Gospel and the Acts of the Apostles a great reverence for the name of Jesus. There are over forty references to the Sacred Name in the Acts. The great preacher, Saint Bernadine of Siena, had a particular devotion to the name of Jesus and promoted reverence for it throughout Italy. 

He went so far as to urge his people to tag the name onto the end of their brief prayer, which was, "Hail Mary, full of grace, the Lord is with you. Blessed are you among women and blessed is the fruit of your womb." 

(Sound familiar? The two-sentence prayer echoed the words of Gabriel and Elizabeth from the first chapter of Saint Luke's Gospel. The rest of the prayer would come later as Europe suffered the Black Death.)

Peter, Paul, and the first missionaries understood their mission as simply announcing to the whole world the grace, mercy, and healing authority that was now available to those who know the name of Jesus. Where the Jews had such an intense reverence for the Name of God they would never utter it aloud even in their most solemn prayers, everyone -- Jew and Greek alike -- should pray, rejoice, sing, and dance in the name of Jesus. It would be the first word to stir them from the torpor of morning and their last, reassuring thought upon retiring at night. 

Today, as Catholics enjoy another revival of intense devotion to the Word of God, and rediscover the importance of God's name -- that name above all names which remains in the silence of our hearts -- we can revive our delight and reverence for the Most Holy Name of Jesus. 

Although the name was not unusual in his day, it was clearly the name God had chosen for the Messiah. It is not an afterthought when Gabriel announced to Joseph and Mary the Good News of his birth:

"Behold, you will conceive in your womb and bear a son, and you shall name him Jesus." (Luke 1:31) and

"She will bear a son and you are to name him Jesus, because he will save his people from their sins.” (Matthew 1:21)

When Saint Peter discovered the Spirit within him to heal a crippled man at the Beautiful Gate of the Temple, he immediately invoked the Name: “I have neither silver nor gold, but what I do have I give you: in the name of Jesus Christ the Nazorean, [rise and] walk.”

And then when the authorities demanded that he explain what he had done, he said, 

...all the people of Israel should know that it was in the name of Jesus Christ the Nazorean whom you crucified, whom God raised from the dead; in his name this man stands before you healed. He is ‘the stone rejected by you, the builders, which has become the cornerstone.’

There is no salvation through anyone else, nor is there any other name under heaven given to the human race by which we are to be saved.”

Of all the Christmas gifts we give to one another, and especially to our children, Jesus should be the greatest gift of all.