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The Holy Name of Jesus
Catholic Exchange ^ | January 3, 2007 | Br. Peter Totleben, O.P.

Posted on 01/03/2008 7:25:06 AM PST by NYer

One of the best things that I have discovered in religious life is the power of the Name of Jesus Christ.  For the past year and a half, I have started more and more constantly to call on the Holy Name of Jesus and His mercy.  This has transformed my relationship with God, and sustained me through the difficult periods of growth that come along with Christian discipleship.

Jesus' Name is such a powerful prayer because names are powerful things.  If I do not know a person's name, then that person is a stranger to me.  But, as soon as I know his name, we are no longer strangers.  We have a relationship.  We can talk to one another and share our lives.  When we recall a person's name, that person becomes present to us.  When we name a person, we express something of their personality.

The Foretelling of His Name

The Bible frequently uses names in this way.  In Sacred Scripture, a name is rarely just a name.  In fact, when God desired to free his chosen people from bondage in Egypt, the very first thing He did after calling Moses was to reveal His Name.  He entrusted His Name to Moses as a testimony that He was with Moses and would deliver His people:  "Say this to the sons of Israel, 'I AM has sent me to you'" (Ex. 3:14).  From then on, the Name of the Lord would be the special possession of God's chosen people:  "This is my name for ever, and thus I am to be remembered throughout all generations" (Ex. 3:15).  Through the Name, God would be present to His people:  "For what great nation is there that has a god so near to it as the Lord our God is to us, whenever we call upon him?" (Dt. 4:7).

And yet, the covenant made with Israel was but a foretaste of the good things to come.  God still did not fully dwell among His people.  A sign of this was the use of the Name.  God's proper Name could only be uttered once a year by the high priest.

As the ages passed, the prophets foretold the coming of a Messiah who would inaugurate a new chapter in the history of the relationship between God and His People.  The prophets tried to describe the Messiah with names:  "Behold a virgin shall conceive and bear a son, and shall call his name Immanuel" (Is. 7:14), that is "God-with-us".  "His name will be called Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace" (Is. 9:6).  When the designated time had come, God came to save His people.  By becoming incarnate of the Holy Spirit and born of the virgin Mary, God dwelt among them as the Word made flesh.  Now, when we gaze on Jesus, we gaze on God Himself, and when we call upon the Name of Jesus, we invoke the very presence of God Himself.

Remaining in His Name

 Through his Holy Name, Jesus can become the constant companion of our souls.  By keeping His Name constantly within our hearts, He can be with us in all of our joys and sorrows.  This is the secret of sanctity.  One of the pitfalls that we must avoid in our spiritual life, especially in our distracted modern culture, is forgetting God.  We may be able to carve out regular time to pray.  But afterwards, does anything change?  Or after our communion with God in prayer, do we live the rest of our lives as if He did not exist?  By constantly remembering His Name, we constantly remember God and the true purpose of our lives.  The more we remember Jesus, the more we see His presence and His grace everywhere, turning all the moments of our lives into opportunities for sanctity.

By keeping Jesus' Name constantly on our lips and in our hearts, we remain in His presence, and this is the hidden source of the fruitfulness of all of our activities.  He is the vine who gives life to us, the branches, enabling us to bear fruit that will last.  As St. Hesychios of Sinai said, "The more the rain falls on the earth, the softer it makes it; similarly, Christ's holy name gladdens the earth of our heart the more we call upon it" (On Watchfulness and Prayer).

The Power and Sweetness of His Name

Because the Holy Name invokes the presence of Christ our Savior, there is real power in it.  "Whatever you ask in my name, I will do it, that the Father may be glorified in the Son; if you ask anything in my name I will do it... Until now you have asked nothing in my name; ask, and you will receive, that your joy may be full" (Jn. 14:13-14; 16:24).  The Holy Name of Jesus heals sickness and drives away demons; it brings joy and salvation.  The trials we face in this valley of tears easily overwhelm us.  It is often too much for us to combat on our own.  In these moments, sometimes the only thing we can do is to cry out to our Savior, like St. Peter did when he was sinking after walking on water (cf. Mt. 14:30).  This is the advice of the nineteenth century Russian Orthodox Bishop Ignatius Brianchaninov:  "From the midst of the most furious storm, with perseverance, courage, and weeping, you will cry to the Lord Jesus Christ, and He will rebuke the winds and waves.  And having learned from experience the omnipotence of Jesus, we shall render to Him due adoration, saying, 'Truly you are the Son of God'" (On the Prayer of Jesus).           

When Jesus is constantly present in our lives through His Name, He can provide us with an example of how to live and provide us with aid in times of temptation.  As St. Bernard said, "Nothing so curbs the onset of anger, so allays the upsurge of pride.  It cures the wound of envy, controls unbridled extravagance, and quenches the flame of lust; it cools the thirst of covetousness and banishes the itch of unclean desire... For when I name Jesus, I set before me a man who is meek and humble of heart, kind, prudent, chaste, merciful, flawlessly upright and holy in the eyes of all; and this same man is the all-powerful God whose way of life heals me, whose support is my strength." (Sermon 15 On the Song of Songs).

After a fall, we can call upon Jesus' Name and begin to re-enter His presence.  His Name can become for us a healing balm, and we can discover in a personal way the mercy and loving kindness that He has brought into this world.

Because it is such a treasure, the Name of Jesus should become more and more the focus of our lives.  When we make the Holy Name of Jesus the constant companion of our hearts' devotion and our tongues' speech, we can say with St. Bernard:  "Write what you will, I shall not relish it unless it tells of Jesus.  Talk or argue about what you will, I shall not relish it if you exclude the name of Jesus.  Jesus to me is honey in the mouth, music in the ear, a song in the heart" (Sermon 15 On the Song of Songs).


TOPICS: Apologetics; Catholic; Theology; Worship
KEYWORDS: jesus
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1 posted on 01/03/2008 7:25:11 AM PST by NYer
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To: Salvation; narses; SMEDLEYBUTLER; redhead; Notwithstanding; nickcarraway; Romulus; ...

2 posted on 01/03/2008 7:26:49 AM PST by NYer ("Where the bishop is present, there is the Catholic Church" - Ignatius of Antioch)
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To: NYer

Great post!

The more central Jesus is in ones life, the less the world is. Focus on the Messiah, the Savior, the one true mediator between man and the Father!


3 posted on 01/03/2008 7:33:46 AM PST by Ottofire (For by grace you have been saved through faith; and that not of yourselves, it is the gift of God)
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To: drstevej; OrthodoxPresbyterian; CCWoody; Wrigley; Gamecock; Jean Chauvin; jboot; AZhardliner; ...

A GRPL Jesus’ Name Ping!

Sola Christus!


4 posted on 01/03/2008 7:35:59 AM PST by Ottofire (For by grace you have been saved through faith; and that not of yourselves, it is the gift of God)
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To: Ottofire

As long as the focus is on Him and His Word - and not on images/statues/stained-glass.

I’m under a current conviction over images of Christ being a violation of the 2nd Commandment.


5 posted on 01/03/2008 7:47:58 AM PST by ItsOurTimeNow ("Never get involved in a land war in Asia.")
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To: ItsOurTimeNow
Who ever said Catholics sole focus is on "images/statues/stained-glass?"

Here's one of the earliest defense of holy images.

Apologia of St. John Damascene Against Those Who Decry Holy Images

6 posted on 01/03/2008 7:56:01 AM PST by Pyro7480 ("Jesu, Jesu, Jesu, esto mihi Jesus" -St. Ralph Sherwin's last words at Tyburn)
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To: Pyro7480

Who ever said I said anything about Catholics?

I’ve seen “images” of Christ in Protestant churches as well. Many thousands of evangelicals flocked to see “The Passion”.

(’Holy Images’ is a misnomer - an inanimate object cannot be holy. Holiness is a status of the soul, for sentient beings)


7 posted on 01/03/2008 7:59:18 AM PST by ItsOurTimeNow ("Never get involved in a land war in Asia.")
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To: NYer
The Holy Name of Jesus

Devotion to the Holy Name [of Jesus]

The Name of Jesus: Its Power in Our Lives

The Holy Name of Jesus

Devotion to the Holy Name of Jesus

The Holy Name of Jesus

8 posted on 01/03/2008 8:01:50 AM PST by Salvation (†With God all things are possible.†)
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Comment #9 Removed by Moderator

To: ItsOurTimeNow
"’Holy Images’ is a misnomer - an inanimate object cannot be holy. Holiness is a status of the soul, for sentient beings."

That's not true. God is holy, and people, places, and things, days, times and seasons are holy exactly and only to the the extent that they are related to God.

Genesis 2:3
And God blessed the seventh day and made it holy

Exodus 3:5
Do not come any closer, God said. Take off your sandals, for the place where you are standing is holy ground

Exodus 15:13
In your unfailing love you will lead the people you have redeemed. In your strength you will guide them to your holy dwelling

Exodus 16:23
He said to them, This is what the LORD commanded: 'Tomorrow is to be a day of rest, a holy Sabbath to the LORD.

Exodus 19:6
you will be for me a kingdom of priests and a holy nation.'

Exodus 19:23
Moses said to the LORD, The people cannot come up Mount Sinai, because you yourself warned us, 'Put limits around the mountain and set it apart as holy.'


As for images: God Himself instructed the making of images of both earthly and heavenly creatures (lions, bulls, and angels) to adorn His temple in Jerusalem. Before the Incarnation, one couldn't make an image of God Himself because He is bodiless; but things are different now. Since the Incarnation,


"Christ, who is the image of God"

God has made it possible for us not only to see Him, but to portray Him

Colossians 1:15
He is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn over all creation.

This has been true rom the earliest days of Christianity. The catacombs under the city of Rome, where Christians from the first century AD buried their dead, hid, gathered, and worshipped, has many images of Christ.

10 posted on 01/03/2008 8:39:58 AM PST by Mrs. Don-o (C'est la Vie.)
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To: ItsOurTimeNow

Images, statues, and stained glass were tools used by the early church to teach the Christian faith to the illiterate, rustic people of the time. Remember, the printing press was not invented until the 15th century. That is why so many Catholic and Orthodox churches are filled with rich immages of scenes from the bible, images of apostles, saints, angels, etc.. They were teaching moments for the first 15 centuries of Christianity.

Because Protestantism arose in the 16th century to challenge the Catholic and Orthodox churches, it was easy for those who were against the Catholic Church for whatever reason doctrinally, to also curse the use of images. It was a simplistic way to condemn all those churches with images as idolatrous. Afterall, everyone should read the bible, right?

But, bibles were not available for the first 15 centuries of Christianity.

A better perspective of history would go a long way to understand this difference of opinion on the use of images.


11 posted on 01/03/2008 8:46:20 AM PST by Gumdrop
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To: ItsOurTimeNow
You might find this information about sacramentals as sacred things interesting.

Being Catholic: Sacred Things, Sacred Images: Statues and Other Icons

12 posted on 01/03/2008 8:53:41 AM PST by Salvation (†With God all things are possible.†)
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To: NYer; All
Mat 1:25 but kept her a virgin until she gave birth to a Son; and he called His name Jesus.

Jesus in English from

Iesous in the Koine Greek from

Yah'shua in Hebrew;

They all mean

YHvH is my salvation

Which is why if you call on His Name, you will be saved.

Rom 10:13 for "WHOEVER WILL CALL ON THE NAME OF THE LORD WILL BE SAVED."
b'SHEM Yah'shua
13 posted on 01/03/2008 9:32:42 AM PST by Uri’el-2012 (you shall know that I, YHvH, your Savior, and your Redeemer, am the Elohim of Ya'aqob. Isaiah 60:16)
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To: Gumdrop
Images, statues, and stained glass were tools used by the early church to teach the Christian faith to the illiterate, rustic people of the time. Remember, the printing press was not invented until the 15th century. That is why so many Catholic and Orthodox churches are filled with rich immages of scenes from the bible, images of apostles, saints, angels, etc.. They were teaching moments for the first 15 centuries of Christianity.

But
NasbU Romans 10:17 So faith comes from hearing,
and hearing by the word of Christ
b'SHEM Yah'shua
14 posted on 01/03/2008 9:39:46 AM PST by Uri’el-2012 (you shall know that I, YHvH, your Savior, and your Redeemer, am the Elohim of Ya'aqob. Isaiah 60:16)
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To: Ottofire; Pyro7480; sandyeggo; Salvation; All


Novena in Honor of
the Holy Name of Jesus

Jesus most merciful, in early infancy You began Your office of Savior by shedding Your Precious Blood and assuming for us that Name which is above all names. I thank You for such early proofs of Your infinite love.

I venerate Your sacred Name in union with the deep respect of the Angel who first announced it to the earth. I also unite my affections to the sentiments of tender devotion which Your adorable Name has, in all ages, enkindled in the hearts of Your servants.

Jesus, You said, "Whatever you ask the Father, He will give you in My Name" (Jn 16:23). I earnestly ask the Father in Your Name for an increase of faith, hope, and charity, and the grace to lead a good life and to die a happy death.

Jesus, You said, "Anything you ask Me in My Name I will do" (Jn 14:13). I earnestly ask You in Your Name to save my soul. I also ask in Your Name for the following favor: (Mention your request.)

Jesus, Your most holy Name means "Savior". Be my Savior, dearest Jesus. Mercifully grant me through Your adorable Name—which is the joy of heaven, the terror of hell, the consolation of the afflicted, and the solid ground of my unlimited confidence—all the petitions I make in this prayer.

Blessed Mother of our Redeemer, you shared so closely in the suffering of your dear Son from the moment that He shed His Precious Blood and assumed for us the Name of Jesus, till His last breath on the Cross. Obtain for me and all those I love, as well as for all the faithful, the grace of eternal salvation through the holy Name of Jesus.

Beg also that a most ardent love for Your Divine Son may imprint that sacred Name upon our hearts; that it may be always in our minds, and frequently on our lips; that it may be our defense in temptation, our refuge in danger during our lives, and our consolation and support in the hour of death. Amen.

Contrition

Good Jesus, according to Your great mercy, have mercy on me. Most merciful Jesus, by that Precious Blood which You willingly shed for sinners, I beg You to wash away all my sinfulness and to look graciously upon me, a poor and unworthy sinner, as I call upon Your holy Name. Therefore, Jesus, save me for the sake of Your holy Name.

Prayer

God, You appointed Your only-begotten Son to be the Savior of mankind, and You commanded His Name to be called Jesus. Mercifully grant that we may enjoy the vision of Him in heaven, whose holy Name we venerate on earth. Through the same Christ our Lord. Amen.


Litany of the Most Holy Name of Jesus

Lord, have mercy on us.
Christ, have mercy on us.
Lord, have mercy on us. Jesus, hear us.
Jesus, graciously hear us.

R. Have Mercy On Us

God the Father of Heaven...
God the Son, Redeemer of the world...
God, the Holy Spirit...
Holy Trinity, One God...
Jesus, Son of the Living God...
Jesus, Splendor of the Father...
Jesus, Brightness of eternal light...
Jesus, King of glory...
Jesus, Sun of justice...
Jesus, Son of the Virgin Mary...
Jesus, most amiable...
Jesus, most admirable...
Jesus, mighty God...
Jesus, Father of the world to come...
Jesus, Angel of great counsel...
Jesus, most powerful...
Jesus, most patient...
Jesus, most obedient...
Jesus, meek and humble of heart...
Jesus, Lover of chastity...
Jesus, Lover of humanity...
Jesus, God of peace...
Jesus, Author of life...
Jesus, example of virtues...
Jesus, zealous Lover of souls...
Jesus, our God...
Jesus, our Refuge...
Jesus, Father of the poor...
Jesus, Treasure of the faithful...
Jesus, Good Shepherd...
Jesus, True Light...
Jesus, Eternal Wisdom...
Jesus, Infinite Goodness...
Jesus, our way and our life...
Jesus, joy of Angels...
Jesus, King of Patriarchs...
Jesus, Master of the Apostles...
Jesus, Teacher of the evangelists...
Jesus, strength of martyrs...
Jesus, light of confessors...
Jesus, purity of virgins...
Jesus, crown of all saints...

Be merciful, spare us, O Jesus.
Be merciful, graciously hear us, O Jesus

R. Deliver Us, O Jesus

From all evil...
From all sin...
From Your wrath...
From the snares of the devil...
From the spirit of fornication...
From everlasting death...
From the neglect of Your inspirations...
By the mystery of Your holy incarnation...
By Your nativity...
By Your infancy...
By Your most Divine Life...
By Your labors...
By Your agony and passion...
By Your cross and abandonment...
By Your sufferings...
By Your death and burial...
By Your resurrection...
By Your ascension...
By Your institution of the Most Holy Eucharist...
By Your joys...
By Your glory...

Lamb of God, Who takes away the sins of the world,
Spare us, O Jesus.
Hear us, O Jesus.
Lamb of God, Who takes away the sins of the world,
Have mercy on us, O Jesus.

Jesus, hear us.
Jesus, graciously hear us.

Let Us Pray

O Lord, Jesus Christ, You have said: "Ask and you shall receive, seek and you shall find, knock and it shall be opened to you." Mercifully attend to our supplications and grant us the gift of Your Divine Charity. May we ever love You with our whole heart and with all our words and deeds. May we never cease praising You. Give us, O Lord, a perpetual fear and love of Your Holy Name, for You will never fail to help and govern those whom You bring up in Your steadfast fear and love; Who lives and reigns forever and ever. Amen.

15 posted on 01/03/2008 9:47:02 AM PST by NYer ("Where the bishop is present, there is the Catholic Church" - Ignatius of Antioch)
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To: NYer

Bump for Jesus!!


16 posted on 01/03/2008 10:00:03 AM PST by diamond6 (Everyone who is for abortion has been born. Ronald Reagan)
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To: ItsOurTimeNow; Ottofire
I'm under a current conviction over images of Christ being a violation of the 2nd Commandment.

It is difficult to disagree with that belief given the simple words of the 2nd commandment.

I think the 2nd commandment works to keep our hearts focused on the power and intent of the Gospel via the Holy Spirit who "renews our minds" rather than on images and pictures which appeal to the more temporal senses.

That's why Scripture is number one in Protestant churches while it seems that images and incense and sensory stimulation are stressed in the RCC.

17 posted on 01/03/2008 10:08:14 AM PST by Dr. Eckleburg ("I don't think they want my respect; I think they want my submission." - Flemming Rose)
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To: Pyro7480
Who ever said Catholics sole focus is on "images/statues/stained-glass?"

You are being overly defensive. Lots of protestant churches are plastered with pictures of Jesus.

On the other end of the scale, most RC churches can't hold a candle to the EO for iconography.

18 posted on 01/03/2008 10:34:00 AM PST by PAR35
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To: PAR35
You are being overly defensive

Perhaps. And you are, sadly, correct about RC churches, at least with RC churches built in the past 40 years or so.

19 posted on 01/03/2008 10:35:15 AM PST by Pyro7480 ("Jesu, Jesu, Jesu, esto mihi Jesus" -St. Ralph Sherwin's last words at Tyburn)
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To: Dr. Eckleburg

Agree 100%

It’s also easier for an authority to keep control over the populace if there’s an ignorance to Scripture, and a reliance on objects/relics/images.

As history has shown.


20 posted on 01/03/2008 10:44:45 AM PST by ItsOurTimeNow ("Never get involved in a land war in Asia.")
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