In His Name

SO FAR YOU HAVE NOT ASKED FOR ANYTHING IN MY NAME

ASK AND IT WILL BE GIVEN

SO THAT YOUR JOY MAY BE FULL

Br. Peter Totleben, O.P.

The Holy Name of Jesus
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January 3, 2008
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).

Br. Peter Totleben, O.P. is a Dominican Friar in formation for the priesthood at the Dominican House of Studies in Washington, D.C.. Please visit their vocations blog at http://www.dominicanfriars.org/.