What's in a Name?

“Our Father in heaven,
   hallowed be your name,
   your kingdom come,
   your will be done,
   on earth as in heaven.” Matthew 6:9-10

Hallowed be your name. Of all the petitions in this prayer taught us by our Lord, none is more misunderstood, and thus glazed over, than this. And, insofar as nothing can make the name of the Lord unholy, it seems to cross from the misunderstood to the unnecessary. Yet it begins and is the foundation of our Lord's prayer—without acknowledging God's name, the prayer is fruitless.

There are two things that are helpful to remember at this point: 1) the prayers of Christ, because He is God, are always and completely fulfilled, and 2) every “action” of God is for Him in this sense: it is for us, that we may be drawn to Him, and magnify His glory.

Though Christ taught His disciples this prayer for them, He was the first to pray it. It is fulfilled, and it is fulfilled in His name: it is an oath, a covenant—the covenant.

God's name is holy, and need not become holy. His name is holy because he is holy, and He and His name are One. And because His prayer is bound to His name, we have the same assurance in the “Our Father” as we do the sacraments, as we do in our salvation through the cross: “everyone shall be saved who calls on the name of the Lord” (Acts 2:21).

And if this prayer is self-fulfilling, we should not have far to look in this world to get a foretaste of the next. “On earth as it is in heaven.” And it is so. We may have to look past the worldliness of the world to see it, but the divine has His fingerprints all over the place. From the splendor of creation to the gift of free will, his mark is plain for all who want to see it. But the real glimpses of heaven are a little more hidden. The easiest way to find them is to find evidence of the devil's work, because what is most treasured by God is certainly most hated by Satan.

Moral relativism vs. absolute truth. The indulgence of self vs. the gift of love. The foolishness of rationalization vs. the wisdom of obedience. “All religions are one” vs. “there is only one religion”. “Love” produces families vs. the family as love.

The point is, that the latter in all these cases reflects things as they are, and no amount of deceit and destruction can make it unso. We have God's promise. What we need to do now is to dig out these diamonds of truth and make them so irresistible that the deceiver is rendered incapable of hiding them again. We must be the discoverers and champions of truth. For we have sworn by God's own name that it is so.

Queen of Heaven and Mother of the Church,
Guide us, illumine us.
Make us wise, and make us strong.
Grant us firmness in truth, but softness of heart.
Fill us with the riches of your Son,
And make us worthy of our name:
Anointed.