Optional Memorial of the Most Holy Name of Jesus

Lectionary: 510/1

When eight days were completed for his circumcision,
the child was named Jesus, the name given him by the angel
before he was conceived in the womb.

 O n the third day of January, Franciscans celebrate the Holy Name of Jesus. The feast fairly leaps out of the Bible at us, especially as we read the Acts of the Apostles and the insistence of Saints Peter and Paul, that, 

"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.”

However, appreciation and delight in the name of  Jesus begin with the story of Abraham. The LORD has already led Abram through many adventures as he traveled from Ur, his homeland, to Palestine and Egypt before, in the sixth chapter of his story we find, 

"No longer will you be called Abram; your name will be Abraham, for I am making you the father of a multitude of nations." 

He also changed Sarai's name to Sarah as she would be the only ancestress of the Jewish people, and would not share the privilege with the slave woman Hagar or Hagar's son, Ishmael.  

One's name is more than a handle attached to a human being or their pets. It denotes a relationship; and sometimes a privileged relationship. In college, I knew a woman named Mimi. Everyone called her Mimi, or at least everyone I knew who knew her. And then I met her family who called her Maureen, and her father called her, "Mighty Mo!" And then I knew that she was only Mimi to me. As a guest in that household I could call her that, but I should not use her Dad's name for her. I would never know her as Mo or Maureen; and if I were to meet her again today I would still use the only name I ever knew. 

I too have a nickname from my college years. Only a few know of it and only three or four use it. It carries stories, memories, and connotations of a distant past in Saint Louis, Missouri. Nor could anyone, were they to take an interest in the stories, discover its essence. Were they to try it on me, it would not sound right and I would not know how to answer them.

The disciples, as we read in the Acts of the Apostles, insistently announced, used, and promoted the Name of Jesus. This is in striking contrast to the most sacred name which God gave to Moses in Exodus 3. It's imaged as YHWH, known as the tetragrammaton, and is never pronounced. We don't even know how to pronounce it since the word has no vowels. 

Jesus, the Son of God, never pronounced the name, nor did his disciples, and we do not find it in the New Testament. Pope Benedict XVI urged Catholics not to use the name, and it has since been deleted from recent song books. Some scholars have suggested that Christians explore ways to silently place the unspoken word before our congregations to give us a better grasp of God's supreme holiness. 

But, in any case, Christians have enthusiastically used the name of Jesus in our prayers, songs, catechesis, and conversation. It fills us with delight. (But it hurts when we hear it abused.) The holy name of Jesus is like a sacrament to us; it is a blessing, a song, an invocation, an invitation to know, embrace, relax, and be absorbed in communion with him. Although it is widely used and promoted, it remains for us a privilege to know the Lord so personally and intimately. 

But its greatest ceremony was described by Saint Paul in his Letter to the Philippians:

 

 H ave among yourselves the same attitude that is also yours in Christ Jesus,

Who, though he was in the form of God,

did not regard equality with God something to be grasped.

Rather, he emptied himself,

taking the form of a slave,

coming in human likeness;

and found human in appearance,

he humbled himself,

becoming obedient to death, even death on a cross.

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.

Memorial of Saints Basil the Great and Gregory Nazianzen, Bishops and Doctors of the Church

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Solemnity of the Blessed Virgin Mary, the Mother of God

Lectionary: 18

As proof that you are sons,  
God sent the Spirit of his Son into our hearts, crying out, “Abba, Father!”

 S aint Paul's Letter to the Galatians addressed the thorny, unexpected crisis of gentiles eagerly joining the Lord while his own Jewish people hesitated, refused, or refuted the Gospel. Who were these new people and what gave them the right to worship the Messiah whom they addressed with the Greek word Christ?

The answer: they were enthusiastically praying to the Father of Jesus with the Lord's own Hebrew expression, "Abba." Jesus had taken a Hebrew's address to their human father and converted it to a word of prayer. It expressed both respect and affection, and gentiles were delighted with it. 

Perhaps it was that same reverential address to the Father that sought the complementary mother. The Jews certainly never looked for a mother in God or the Earth. If Israel was God's unfaithful wife, she was rarely called mother; and if she appeared as mother it was in shame, as in Hosea. Although Proverb 8 described Wisdom as God's clever, playful, and very wise daughter, she was not a consort of God. That was for Jews and Christians unthinkable. 

(...at least until Saint Francis addressed Mary as "daughter and handmaid heavenly Father, the almighty King, Mother of our most high Lord Jesus Christ, and Spouse of the Holy Spirit.")

Christians have learned from the Lord and from his saints a child's affection for God. And we find in Jesus's explicit words, "Behold your Mother!" an invitation to know Mary which is both reassuring and insistent. We welcome the Angel's command to Saint Joseph, "Do not be afraid to take Mary your wife into your home." And even as we seek to do the Lord's will we hear her saying, "Do whatever he tells you!" 

During the past year, Catholics in the United States enjoyed a renewed appreciation for the Blessed Sacrament, which we know as the Body and Blood of Jesus. And we remember that Mary gave human flesh to the Son of God. She opened the way for knowing the Creator and Lord of the Universe in a way unimaginable to past generations. He is the Word made Flesh, and a human being like us. 

As we share the Body and Blood of the Lord we become his flesh and blood; and children of the Woman who remained with him when everyone else had fled. We are -- each one of us -- that Beloved Disciple who takes her into our homes at his behest, and because she is the Mother of God. If his lifeless body was laid in a tomb, her living body still needed our compassion and protection. And we needed her courage, faith, and devotion. 

Like God himself, Mary remains with us; and we, with them. Saint Mark describes the disciples of the Lord following him almost helplessly to Jerusalem. They don't seem able to describe why they must go with him; their answers to his questions are always inadequate and sometimes wrong. Those they get right are catechism answers at best -- "You are the Christ?" -- and poorly understood. But they stayed with him. Their hearts would not let them return to the old ways of life.

So do we stay with Jesus and his Father and Spirit, with Mary his Mother, with the apostles, martyrs, and saints, and with our fellow sinners, both clergy and lay. 

As Saint Francis said, "Great things have we promised unto God; but greater are the promises of God to us!"