The Holy Name of Jesus

Today, we have the feast of the Holy Name of Jesus. This feast is a beautiful occasion to venerate and to make reparation for the flippant use of the name that means, God saves.

St. Paul in his Letter to the Philippians wrote, “So that at Jesus’ name every knee must bend in the heavens, on the earth and under the earth, and every tongue proclaim to the glory of God the Father: Jesus Christ is Lord” (2:10-11).

May all who reverently call on the holy name of Jesus know the saving power and healing love of God. Four gifts when reverently invoking the Holy Name:

1. help in bodily needs;
2. help in spiritual trials;
3. help against Satan and his temptations;
4. every grace and blessing through the Holy Name of Jesus.

With the Novus Ordo observance of Epiphany the two liturgical observances can cohere. Some may be familiar with the Holy Name Society, first organized in 1274 and granted the status of a confraternity in 1564. Connecticut used to have the HNS in great numbers and now reduced to a handful today. I can think of only one and even there it is only a social group with no apologetic thrust.

One point that brings this feast into focus for those of us who follow the Benedictine charism is that the feast necessarily involves reverence for the Holy Name of Jesus, especially if we take seriously the role intercession before the Throne of Grace and adoration of the Lord. Keep this in mind.

Pray the Litany of the Holy Name of Jesus

Holy Name of Jesus

“You shall call His name Jesus, for He shall save His people from their sins.”

The Latin Church has today as the Feast of the Holy Name of Jesus; it is historically associated with the Feast of the Circumcision of Jesus celebrated on the 8th Day of Christmas, January 1. Both the Latin and Eastern Churches have the Feast of the Circumcision of Jesus. It is not only the shedding of skin but the giving of the name according to Jewish Law thus making the baby a member of God’s household committed to the Covenant.

We know that the name ‘Jesus’ means ‘God Saves’ and is the name that St. Joseph was instructed by an angel to name the Child. By Divine Will, it is the sacred name before which “every knee should bend, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and every tongue should confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father” (Phil. 2:10-11). The only name that saves.

Devotion to the Most Holy Name of Jesus was popularized by the Franciscan St. Bernardine of Siena in the 15th century, often symbolized by the monogram IHS (denoting the first three letters of the Greek spelling of Jesus’ name). The feast was given to the Order of Friars Minor by Clement VI.  But it is known by the Cistercians with the preaching of St. Bernard before this time; it is the same monogram that Loyola used for the Jesuits. By 1721, Innocent XII gave the feast of the Holy Name to the entire Church as the Emperor Charles VI.

Today the feast of the Holy Name of Jesus is celebrated on January 3rd. And the month of January is dedicated to the Holy Name.

Holy Name of Jesus

JesusMay the Most Holy Name of Jesus be praised and worshiped now and forever! By no other name are we saved!

Saint Bernadine of Siena preached:

“O glorious name, graceful name, lovely and excellent name! Through you crime slackens, enemies are conquered, the oppressed are liberated, those who suffer difficulties are strengthened and delighted! You, honor of believers, you, teacher of preachers, you, giver of strength to those who labor, you, supporter of the tired. Desires revive with the light and warmth of your fire, suffrages are asked for, contemplative souls are inebriated, and all those who triumph in the heavenly glory are glorified. And you, most sweet Jesus, make us reign with them through your most Holy Name.”

The Catechism teaches (430-435):

Jesus means in Hebrew: “God saves.” At the annunciation, the angel Gabriel gave him the name Jesus as his proper name, which expresses both his identity and his mission. Since God alone can forgive sins, it is God who, in Jesus his eternal Son made man, “will save his people from their sins”. In Jesus, God recapitulates all of his history of salvation on behalf of men.

In the history of salvation God was not content to deliver Israel “out of the house of bondage” by bringing them out of Egypt. He also saves them from their sin. Because sin is always an offence against God, only he can forgive it.  For this reason Israel, becoming more and more aware of the universality of sin, will no longer be able to seek salvation except by invoking the name of the Redeemer God.

The name “Jesus” signifies that the very name of God is present in the person of his Son, made man for the universal and definitive redemption from sins. It is the divine name that alone brings salvation, and henceforth all can invoke his name, for Jesus united himself to all men through his Incarnation, so that “there is no other name under heaven given among men by which we must be saved.”

The name of the Saviour God was invoked only once in the year by the high priest in atonement for the sins of Israel, after he had sprinkled the mercy seat in the Holy of Holies with the sacrificial blood. the mercy seat was the place of God’s presence. When St. Paul speaks of Jesus whom “God put forward as an expiation by his blood”, he means that in Christ’s humanity “God was in Christ reconciling the world to himself.”

Jesus’ Resurrection glorifies the name of the Saviour God, for from that time on it is the name of Jesus that fully manifests the supreme power of the “name which is above every name”. The evil spirits fear his name; in his name his disciples perform miracles, for the Father grants all they ask in this name.

The name of Jesus is at the heart of Christian prayer. All liturgical prayers conclude with the words “through our Lord Jesus Christ”. The Hail Mary reaches its high point in the words “blessed is the fruit of thy womb, Jesus.” the Eastern prayer of the heart, the Jesus Prayer, says: “Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me, a sinner.” Many Christians, such as St. Joan of Arc, have died with the one word “Jesus” on their lips.

Holy Name of Jesus with Pope Francis

IHS at the GesuThe Mass for the Feast of the Most Holy Name of Jesus, the titular feast day for the Society of Jesus, was offered today by Pope Francis in the Church of Jesus. Today the Church reminds us “to let the center of … [our] heart be occupied by Christ.”

Gathering for prayer was an opportunity for the Holy Father to gather with his religious community in Rome to give God thanks for the many blessings received, and to give thanks for the new Jesuit saint Peter Faber (Pierre Favre). Several bishops and priests concelebrated the Mass: Cardinal Angelo Amato (Saints); Cardinal Agostino Vallini (vicar general of Rome); Archbishop Luis Francisco Ladaria Ferrer, SJ (CDF secretary); Bishop Yves Boivineau of Annecy, France, in whose diocese Faber was born, and the vicar general Father Alain Fournier-Bidoz; and the Jesuit superior general Father Adolfo Nicolas, SJ, with seven younger Jesuit priests.

Peter Faber was canonized and thereby added to the long list of Jesuit saints by Pope Francis on 17 December 2013. Faber was the first companion of Saint Ignatius of Loyola, the first priest of the Society and is known as “the second Jesuit.” Faber is also known for his competency in giving the Spiritual Exercises. The tombs of Saint Ignatius and Saint Peter Faber are located in the Church of Jesus. This is the second time since being elected the bishop of Rome that Francis has offered Mass with the Jesuits at the Jesus Church.

In his homily Francis said,

We heard Saint Paul tell us: “Have this mind among yourselves, which was in Christ Jesus, who, though he was in the form of God, did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped, but emptied himself, taking the form of a servant” (Philippians 2:5-7). We, Jesuits, want to be conferred the name of Jesus, militate under the standard of his Cross, and this means: to have the same sentiments of Christ. It means to think like Him, love like Him, see like Him, walk like Him. It means to do what He did and with his same sentiments, with the sentiments of his Heart.

The heart of Christ is the heart of a God who, out of love, “emptied” himself. Every one of us Jesuits who follow Jesus should be willing to empty himself. We are called to this abasement: to be of the “emptied.” To be men that do not live centered on themselves because the center of the Society is Christ and his Church. And God is the Deus semper maior, the God who always surprises us. And if the God of surprises is not at the center, the Society becomes disoriented. Because of this, to be a Jesuit means to be a person of incomplete thought, of open thought: because one always thinks looking at the horizon which is the ever greater glory of God, who ceaselessly surprises us. And this is the restlessness of our void, this holy and beautiful restlessness!

However, because we are sinners, we can ask ourselves if our heart has kept the restlessness of the search or if, instead, it has atrophied; if our heart is always in tension: a heart that does not settle down, a heart that does not shut itself in on itself, but which beats the rhythm of a journey to undertake together with all the faithful people of God. It is necessary to seek God to find Him, and to find him in order to seek Him again and forever. Only this restlessness gives peace to the heart of a Jesuit, a restlessness that is also apostolic, which must not make us grow tired of proclaiming the Kerygma, of evangelizing with courage. It is the restlessness that prepares us to receive the gift of apostolic fruitfulness. Without restlessness we are sterile.

This is the restlessness that Peter Favre [Faber] had, man of great desires, another Daniel. Favre was a “modest, sensible man of profound interior life and gifted with the gift of close relations of friendship with persons of all sorts” (Benedict XVI, Address to Jesuits, April 22, 2006). However, he was also a restless, uncertain and never satisfied spirit. Under the guidance of Saint Ignatius he learned to unite his restless but also gentle — I would say exquisite –, sensibility with the capacity to take decisions. He was a man of great desires; he took charge of his desires, he acknowledged them. In fact for Favre, it was precisely when difficult things were proposed that his true spirit was manifested which moved him to action (cf. Memoriale, 301). Authentic faith always implies a profound desire to change the world. Here is the question we should ask ourselves: do we also have great visions and dash? Are we also daring? Does our dream fly high? Does zeal devour us (cf. Psalm 69:10)? Or are we mediocre and content with our laboratory apostolic programs? Let us remember always: the strength of the Church does not lie in herself and in her organizational capacity, but is hidden in the profound waters of God. And these waters agitate our desires and desires enlarge the heart. It is what Saint Augustine says: pray to desire and desire to enlarge the heart. In fact it was in his desires that Favre could discern God’s voice. Without desires one goes nowhere and it is because of this that we must offer our desires to the Lord. Stated in the Constitutions is that “one’s neighbor his helped with desires presented to God our Lord” (Constitutions, 638).

Favre had the real and profound desire to “be dilated in God”: he was completely centered on God, and because of this he could go, in the spirit of obedience, often also on foot, everywhere in Europe to speak to all with gentleness, and to proclaim the Gospel. The thought comes to me of the temptation, which perhaps we might have and that so many have, of connecting the proclamation of the Gospel with inquisitorial blows of condemnation. No, the Gospel is proclaimed with gentleness, with fraternity, with love. Favre’s familiarity with God led him to understand that interior experience and apostolic life always go together. In his Memoriale he wrote that the first movement of the heart must be that ofdesiring what is essential and original, that is, that the first place be left to the perfect solicitude of finding God our Lord” (Memoriale, 63). Favre demonstrates the desire “to let Christ occupy the center of the heart” (Memoriale, 68). Only if one is centered on God is it possible to go to the fringes of the world! And Favre traveled ceaselessly also on the geographic frontiers, so much so that it was said of him: “It seems that he was born not to stay put in any place” (MI, Epistolae I, 362). Favre was devoured by the intense desire to communicate the Lord. If we do not have his same desire, then we need to pause in prayer and, with silent fervor, ask the Lord, through the intercession of our brother Peter, that he fascinate us again: that fascination of the Lord that led Peter to all his apostolic “lunacies.”

We are men in tension; we are also contradictory and inconsistent men, sinners, all. But men who want to walk under the gaze of Jesus. We are little, we are sinners, but we want to militate under the standard of the Cross of the Society conferred with the name of Jesus. We who are egoistic want, however, to live an agitated life of great desires. We renew now our oblation to the Eternal Lord of the universe so that with the help of his glorious Mother we may want, desire and live the sentiments of Christ who emptied himself. As Saint Peter Favre wrote, “We never seek in this life a name that is not connected with that of Jesus” (Memoriale, 205). And we pray to Our Lady to be messengers with her Son.

A Vatican Radio report can be heard here.

Saint Bernardine of Siena

English: Saint Bernardino of Siena

The liturgical feast of Saint Bernardine of Siena (+1444), a Franciscan preacher known to be a well-received preacher. He’s also known to have been devoted to the Holy Name of Jesus and was the promoter of the Name in every place he went. You may notice the symbol “IHS” in architecture, vestments, hosts, artwork: this is due to work of Bernardine of Siena. Othes like the Jesuits also popularized the use of IHS. Today’s saint was a moral reformer which got him noticed by many.

As Bernardine lay dying, so the story goes, the friars were singing the Divine Office, and the line that his soul left his body was, “Father, I have shown forth your Name to men, and I am coming to you.”

At the Office of Readings today for Saint Bernardine we hear him preach holy name of Jesus, “the glory of preachers.”
Bernardine’s mission was to proclaim the name of Jesus so that it may be heard and followed. Adherence to the Name shed light in a darkened world. Scripture reveals that it is God who calls us into his marvelous light, a people who once lived in darkness, but now live in light of the Lord; hence by baptism we walk in the Lord.
The name of Jesus, we are exhorted, must be preached by a worthy instrument so that it may be heard. The worthiness of the preacher is critical, otherwise an unworthy preacher is a detraction from the holiness of God. It is a sin against the virtue against religion, that is, God’s honor. As the Lord once said: he is to carry my name because “truth was a like a great candle shining out the name of Jesus”
Our Christian life is meant to bless His holy name and to proclaim salvation who is Jesus, our Savior. Recall, salvation is not a state of mind, or a thing, but a person. Hence, we believe that Jesus is nothing less than our personal salvation: at the name of Jesus every knee, including in heaven, will bend.
The great saints and religious orders have all had a profound respect and devotion to the Holy Name of Jesus. It is time to recover a deep respect for that which is held holy. It is hoped that as we prepare for death we, too, might have on our lips the Holy Name of Jesus.

Holy Name of Jesus

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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.

(Phil 2:10-11, entr. ant.)

We honor the Holy Name of Jesus today. In the middle of Christmastide, we take time to recall the saving power of the holy name of Jesus: He who saves, He who is the eternal Word of the Father.

The Church prays,

O God, who founded the salvation of the human race on the Incarnation of your Word, give your peoples the mercy they implore, so that all may know there is no other name to be invoked but the Name of your Only Begotten Son.

You may want to seek out your Bible to discover, or re-discover some passages. Look at the first three Commandments, plus Psalm 99:3, Mark 16:17-18, Luke 1:31, Acts 3:6; 9:34; 9:40, John 16:23, and Philippians 2:9-11.

It seems to me that with all this good teaching as an invitation to my own conversion, I need to watch what I say with regard to the Lord’s Name. Instead of using the name of Jesus in a vulgar manner, I ought to have the habit of making the aspiration, “Jesus” slowly and deliberately.

Pray the Litany of the Holy Name today.

In the Pope’s teaching on January 2 where he picks up Pilate’s question of the origin of Jesus. A question that all of us ought to ask. It is more than an intellectual exercise, it is a matter of truth, it is a matter of our following the One sent by our Creator. If you can’t answer this question immediately, keep on reading. Pope Benedict says,

We can answer that “…from the beginning of the Gospels, what Jesus’ true origin is: He is the only begotten Son of the Father. He comes from God. We are facing the great and disconcerting  mystery that we celebrate in this time of Christmas: the Son of God, by the power of the Holy Spirit, became man in the womb of the Virgin Mary. This is an announcement that resounds every new and which carries with it hope and joy to our hearts because each time it gives us the certainty that, even if we often feel weak, poor, incapable of facing the difficulties and the evil of the world, the power of God is always acting and works wonders precisely in our weakness. His Grace is our strength.”

Saints such as Bernard, Bernardine of Siena, Ignatius of Loyola among others have promoted the devotion to the Holy Name of Jesus. The image of IHS comes from the first 3 letter of Jesus’ name written IHESUS.

AND, His name is our glory.

Peace with God firmly linked with faith, Pope preaches on Jan. 1


Do you ever ask what peace really is? What are the horizons of peace? Why is the name of Jesus held holy, revered, not to be easily used in common speech? What brings every man, woman and child peace? Who is Mary, and why is she important? Pope Benedict answers these questions in a homily at a Mass he celebrated today to mark the New Year, the World Day of Peace, the solemnity of Mary, the Holy Mother of God.

The Theotokos of Vladimir, one of the most ven...

The Theotokos of Vladimir.

“May God bless
us and make his face to shine upon us.” We proclaimed these words from Psalm 66
after hearing in the first reading the ancient priestly blessing upon the
people of the covenant. It is especially significant that at the start of every
new year God sheds upon us, his people, the light of his Holy Name, the Name
pronounced three times in the solemn form of biblical blessing. Nor is it less
significant that to the Word of God – who “became flesh and dwelt among us” (Jn
1:14) as “the true light that
enlightens every man” (1:9) – is given, as
today’s Gospel tells us, the Name of Jesus eight days after his birth (cf. Lk
2:21).

It is in this Name that we are gathered here today. I cordially greet
all present, beginning with the Ambassadors of the Diplomatic Corps accredited
to the Holy See. I greet with affection Cardinal Bertone, my Secretary of
State, and Cardinal Turkson, with all the officials of the Pontifical Council
for Justice and Peace
; I am particularly grateful to them for their effort to spread
the Message for the World Day of Peace, which this year has as its theme
“Blessed are the Peacemakers”.

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Continue reading Peace with God firmly linked with faith, Pope preaches on Jan. 1

Mary, the Holy Mother of God

Mother of God Greco.jpg

No better way to begin a new year of the Lord, on this beautiful 8th day of Christmastide, than to pray the Mass. The 8th day observance is the traditional Jewish practice of naming the child. Today, the Gospel recalls the babe receiving the name, Jesus. We might also call this day the “giving of the holy name.” A liturgical observance is held on January 2. Keeping our lives close to Mary, the holy Mother of God is essential. With the Church we pray,
O God, who through the fruitful virginity of Blessed Mary bestowed on the human race the grace of eternal salvation, grant, we pray, that we may experience the intercession of her, through whom we were found worthy to receive the author of life, our Lord Jesus Christ, your Son.

May Mary intercede before her Son for  our families, friends, clergy and religious and civil leaders. Oh, for ourselves, too.

Holy Name of Jesus

In the Name of Jesus let every knee bow, of those that
are in heaven, on earth, and under the earth: and let every tongue confess that
the Lord Jesus Christ is in the glory of God the Father. (Ps.8. 2). O Lord
our Lord: how admirable is Thy Name in the whole earth!

O God, Who didst constitute Thine only-begotten Son
the Savior of Mankind, and didst bid Him to be called Jesus: mercifully grant,
that we who venerate His holy Name on earth, may fully enjoy also the vision of
Him in heaven.

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“If you ask the Father anything in my name he will
give it you.” (John 16:23)
 
By no other Name are we saved!