PEACE ON EARTH

GOODWILL TOWARD ALL MEN, WOMEN AND CHILDREN, BORN AND UNBORN

Thursday, December 16, 2010

What's in a Name

Everything.

There are litanies to the Names of God. He has a number of them. Jehovah Jirah (God the Provider)- Kaballah or the Zohar I believe teaches there are some sixty at least names of God.
Here is one that Mary the Blessed Mother of Jesus called him in speaking to the Angel Gabriel after learning she would conceive a child because she was so highly favored: HOLY.

HOLY is your name. Blessed be the Lord, HOLY is his name.
That's what she is reported to have said. Wow. I am pregnant! HOLY is the Name of the Lord.
Blessed be the Lord, Holy is his Name. Jehovah Holy.
Holiness connotes a Wholeness. It means the highest sanctity -the highest virtue, the highest
perfection of heart's goodness. Holy. There are not even words adequate in any human language to really express what it means, because it means GOD. HOLY. Holy is his name. Kadosh Kadosh Kadosh.

That is why an entire clerical construction that elevates celibate childlessness as a higher virtue in the name of holiness is way way off base. It wasn't the virginity of Mary that was holy (she was a virgin before she said it)- it was her belief in her procreative potential, it was the fact she was with child by ACT OF GOD. Wow. Holy. High-five Gabriel.

She did not apparently say- Yeah! I am still a perpetual virgin in spite of that baby thing going on. Holy is your name! But that is what you might think she said given how the church has distorted the theology around this.

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