“Calling upon the hallowed name of the Lord” by Fr. Thomas for Texas Catholic.
Jesus poses a problem when He instructs us to pray to the Father with the words “hallowed be Thy name” (Matthew 6:9). Many Psalms exhort the faithful to praise or call upon the name of the LORD (Psalm 113:1; 116:13; 148:13), and others assert that “Our help is in the name of the LORD” (Psalm 124:8). But how can human beings hallow — that is, make holy — the name of the LORD (in Hebrew, YHWH), Who is already, always, and automatically holy, utterly beyond our ability to add to or subtract from, to influence or change?
It is the mediation of Jesus Christ, the eternal Son of God, that makes possible our relationship to the LORD God as our Father: “All things have been handed over to me by my Father,” Jesus tells us; “No one knows the Son except the Father, and no one knows the Father except the Son and anyone to whom the Son wishes to reveal Him” (Matthew 11:27).
Jesus addresses YHWH as Father and teaches His disciples to do the same in the LORD’s prayer. In Matthew’s Gospel, though, the name through which divine authority is channeled is almost always the name of Jesus, which means “YHWH saves” in Hebrew. Jesus is called LORD on various occasions, and it is the authority of God the Father that Jesus channels to His disciples (see, for example, 7:22; 10:22; 18:20; 21:9; 23:39; 24:9). This identification of the name of Jesus with the name of YHWH also prepares us for the initial hint that God is ultimately a communion of Persons: In the last verses of Matthew’s Gospel, the risen Jesus instructs His disciples to proclaim the Gospel to all the nations, “baptizing them in the (singular!) name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit” (28:19).
The identification of Jesus as LORD is found in other New Testament books. The name of Jesus is highlighted as the unique source of salvation throughout the Acts of the Apostles (see 2:21, 38; 19:17; 21:13). And Saint Paul compresses this insight about names into one unforgettable chorus of praise: Because of the eternal Son’s self-emptying into our frail flesh and His willingness to endure death on the cross, “God greatly exalted Him / and bestowed on Him the name / that is above every name, that at the name of Jesus / every knee should bend, / of those in heaven and on earth and under the earth, / and every tongue confess that / Jesus Christ is LORD, / to the glory of God the Father” (Philippians 2:9-11).
But the problem remains: How are we to hallow the name of the LORD? Since it is absurd to think that we could make God holy in any way, we must take the instruction to mean that the LORD wants His name to be hallowed in us and by us. Negatively, this entails observing the second commandment: not taking the LORD’S name in vain or uttering blasphemies (Exodus 20:7). Positively, this invites us to imitate the sacrificial and self-emptying love that Jesus Christ demonstrated for us. If we dare to identify ourselves as Christians, we must therefore desire to channel Christ’s holiness through everything we say and do.
The greatest hallowing of the LORD’s name was done by the woman who named Him Jesus. Mary did not need to be told to hallow the LORD’s name; having just accepted the vocation to be the mother of Jesus, she proclaims joyfully and confidently, “From this day all generations will called me blessed. / The Mighty One has done great things for me, / and holy is His name” (Luke 1:48-49). She humbly boasts in this way, because she is perfectly docile to the divine mystery, totally obedient to the will of God. Mary rejoices in her unique status as the first Christian, since the LORD emptied Himself into our human flesh through her. Everything about Mary’s life makes holy the name of the LORD; she is the first and the best of Christians. We selfish sinners, on the other hand, need to hear “hallowed be Thy name” as a summons to bear the name of Christian worthily. This verse must enkindle in us an ever-expanding desire that the LORD’s name would be made holy to others through our words and deeds, no matter how heart-piercing the cross of Christ might be for us.