The Holy Name
by VP
Posted on Monday January 01, 2024 at 11:00PM in Sermons
"When We say the Lord's Prayer, my dear brethren, we pray that God's Name may be hallowed on earth as it is in heaven. So great is God and so worthy of our reverence that everything that belongs to Him or that has been devoted to His service partakes of this reverence. A church dedicated to His service is a holy place; the sacred vessels used in the sacrifice of the Mass are holy things, are set apart, and none but those who are ordained can touch them. Anything that came in contact with our Blessed Lord had a certain participation in His sanctity. At one time it was the mere touch of the hem of His garment that cured a woman of a lingering disease; at another it was His spittle that gave hearing to the deaf. As it is with these things, so it is with His holy Nameindeed, much more so.
For His Name to us is representative of all that He has done for us. It is significant of His divinity and of His office as the Redeemer. It was given to Him by the Eternal Father. By the ministry of an angel it was declared that He should be called Jesus, "for He shall save His people from their sins." "For there is no other name under heaven given to men," says St. Peter in today's Epistle, "whereby we must be saved." the same measure as His elevated above all creatures, so is His sacred Name above all other names, "that in the name of Jesus every knee should bow." "From the rising of the sun," says the Psalmist, "until the going down of the same, the name of the Lord is worthy of praise.”
Worthy of praise, my brethren; and yet what is our every-day experience? In all ranks of society, on the street, in the shop, in the home, in the presence of Christ's little ones, men swear, women swear; and little children ere they can use their tongues properly learn to lisp curses and blasphemies. Parents who are God's representatives, and who should love our Lord Jesus Christ and reverence His Name, instead of having a little patience, of acquiring some little control of their temper when anything goes wrong, give loose rein to their tongues and insult our Blessed Lord by their profane use of that Name which is the symbol of His love and mercy. How many there are who bow their head in reverence to that sacred Name in the house of God, and who go to their home or their occupation and use it only to add sin to their soul and give scandal to their neighbors! How often, alas! is that Holy Name dragged through the mire and filth of low, vulgar, and often obscene language.What a detestable vice this is? How worthy of the demon in its rebellion to God's express command, "Thou shalt not take the name of the Lord thy God in vain, for the Lord will not hold him guiltless who taketh His name in vain." Let this feast of the Holy Name serve as an occasion for a renewal of our love and reverence for the Name of Jesus. Let us today make some special acts of reparation to Him for the insults He receives in the profanation of that Holy Name. If we are unfortunate enough to be the slave of this dreadful habit, whether through bad example or carelessness, let the gracious promise of our Lord, "If you ask the Father anything in my Name, amen, I say, He will give it you," be an incentive to hope, be a stimulus to pray for the grace of freedom from that slavery. Habit is strong, but God's grace is stronger; His promise of help is never void.
Blessed be the Name of Jesus!"
Source: Five-minute Sermons for Low Masses on All Sundays of the Year by the Priests of the Congregation of St. Paul, 1893
The Golden Arrow Prayer:
May the most holy, most sacred, most adorable, most incomprehensible and unutterable Name of God be always praised, blessed, loved, adored and glorified in Heaven, on earth, and under the earth, by all the creatures of God, and by the Sacred Heart of Our Lord Jesus Christ, in the Most Holy Sacrament of the Altar. Amen.
Source: Sister Saint-Pierre and the Work of Reparation. Manual of the Archconfraternity of the Holy Face
The Divine Praises in Reparation for Blasphemies
Blessed be God.
Blessed be His Holy Name.
Blessed be Jesus Christ, true God and true Man.
Blessed be the Name of Jesus.
Blessed be His Most Sacred Heart.
Blessed be His Most Precious Blood.
Blessed be Jesus in the Most Holy Sacrament of the Altar.
Blessed be the Holy Spirit, the Paraclete.
Blessed be the great Mother of God, Mary most holy.
Blessed be her holy and Immaculate Conception.
Blessed be her glorious Assumption.
Blessed be the name of Mary, Virgin and Mother,
Blessed be St. Joseph, her most chaste Spouse.
Blessed be God in His Angels and in His Saints.
I salute, adore, and love Thee, O Jesus, my Savior, covered anew with outrages by blasphemers, and I offer Thee, through the heart of Thy blessed Mother, the worship of all the Angels and Saints, as an incense and a perfume of sweet odor, most humbly beseeching Thee, by the virtue of Thy Sacred Face, to repair and renew in me and in all men Thy image disfigured by sin. Amen
Source: Veronica, or the Holy Face of Our Lord Jesus Christ 1871
