"... And
Jacob asked him and said: Tell me, I pray thee,
thy name. And he said: Wherefore is it that thou
dost ask after my name? And he blessed him
there." Genesis 32:29
The invocation of the Name of Jesus can be put
into many frames. It is for each person to find
the form which is the most appropriate to his or
her own prayer. But, whatever formula may be
used, the heart and centre of the invocation
must be the Holy Name itself, the word Jesus.
There resides the whole strength of the
invocation.
The Name of Jesus may either be used alone or be
inserted in a more or less developed phrase. In
the East the commonest form is: "Lord Jesus
Christ, Son of God, have mercy upon me, a
sinner." One might simply say: "Jesus Christ",
or "Lord Jesus". The invocation may even be
reduced to one single word "Jesus".
This last form—the Name of Jesus only—is that
most ancient mold of the invocation of the
Name. It is the shortest, the simplest and, as
we think, the easiest. Therefore, without
depreciating the other formulas, we suggest that
the word "Jesus" alone should be used.
Thus, when we speak of the invocation of the
Name, we mean the devout and frequent repetition
of the Name itself, of the word "Jesus" without
additions. The Holy Name is the prayer.
The Name of Jesus maybe either pronounced or
silently thought. In both cases
there is a real invocation of the Name, verbal
in the first case, and purely mental in the
second. This prayer affords an easy transition
from verbal to mental prayer. Even the verbal
repetition of the Name, if it is slow and
thoughtful, makes us pass to mental prayer and
disposes the soul to contemplation.
2. THE PRACTICE OF THE
INVOCATION OF THE NAME
... And I
will wait on thy name. Psalm 52:9.
The invocation of the Name may be practiced
anywhere and at any time. We can pronounce the
Name of Jesus in the streets, in the place of
our work, in our room, in church, etc. We can
repeat the Name while we walk. Besides that
"free" use of the Name, not determined or
limited by any rule, it is good to set apart
certain times and certain places for a "regular"
invocation of the Name. One who is advanced in
that way of prayer may dispense with such
arrangements. But they are an almost necessary
condition for beginners.
If we daily assign a certain time to the
invocation of the Name (besides the "free"
invocation which should be as frequent as
possible), the invocation ought to be
practiced—circumstances allowing—in a lonely and
quiet place : "Thou, when thou prayest, enter
into thine inner chamber, and, when thou hast
shut thy door, pray to thy Father who is in
secret" (Matthew 6:6). The bodily posture does
not matter much. One may walk, or sit down, or
lie, or kneel. The best posture is the one which
affords most physical quiet and inner
concentration. One may be helped by a physical
attitude expressing humbleness and worship.
Before beginning to pronounce the Name of Jesus,
establish peace and recollection within yourself
and ask for the inspiration and guidance of the
Holy Ghost. "No man can say that Jesus is the
Lord, but by the Holy Ghost" (Á Corinthians
12:3). The Name of Jesus cannot really enter a
heart that is not being filled by the cleansing
breath and the flame of the Spirit. The Spirit
Himself will breathe and light in us the Name of
the Son.
Then simply begin. In order to walk one must
take a first step; in order to swim one must
throw oneself into the water. It is the same
with the invocation of the Name. Begin to
pronounce it with adoration and love. Cling to
it. Repeat it. Do not think that you are
invoking the Name; think only of Jesus himself.
Say his Name slowly, softly and quietly.
A common mistake of beginners is to wish to
associate the invocation of the Holy Name with
inner intensity or emotion. They try to say it
with great force. But the Name of Jesus is not
to be shouted, or fashioned with violence, even
inwardly. When Elijah was commanded to stand
before the Lord, there was a great and strong
wind, but the Lord was not in the wind; and
after the wind an earthquake, but the Lord was
not in the earthquake; and after the earthquake
a fire, but the Lord was not in the fire. After
the fire came a still small voice, "And it was
so, when Elijah heard it, that he wrapped his
face in his mantle, and went out, and stood..."
(I Kings 19.13) Strenuous exertion and the
search for intensity will be of no avail. As you
repeat the Holy Name, gather quietly little by
little, your thoughts and feelings and around
it; gather-.around it your whole being. Let the
name penetrate your soul as a drop of oil
spreads out and impregnates a cloth. Let nothing
of yourself escape. Surrender your whole self
and enclose it within the Name.
Even in the act of invocation of the Name, its
literal repetition ought not to be continuous.
The Name pronounced maybe extended and prolonged
in seconds or minutes of silent rest and
attention. The repetition of the Name may be
likened to the beating of wings by which a bird
rises into the air. It must never be labored and
forced, or hurried, or in the nature of a
flapping. It must be gentle, easy and~ let us
give to this word its deepest meaning ~ graceful.
When the bird has reached the desired height it
glides in its flight, and only beats its wing
from time to time in order to stay in the air.
So the soul, having attained the thought of
Jesus and filled itself with the memory of him,
may discontinue the repetition of the Name and
rest in Our Lord. The repetition will only be
resumed when other thoughts threaten to crowd
out the thought of Jesus. Then the invocation
will start again in order to gain fresh impetus.
Continue this invocation for as long as you wish
or as you can. The prayer is naturally
interrupted by tiredness. Then do not insist.
But resume it at any time and wherever you
maybe, when you feel again so inclined. In time
you will find that the name of Jesus will
spontaneously come to your lips and almost
continuously be present to your mind, though in
a quiescent and latent manner. Even your sleep
will be impregnated with the Name and memory of
Jesus. "I sleep, but my heart waketh" (Song of
Songs 5:2).
When we are engaged in the invocation of the
Name, it is natural that we should hope and
endeavor to reach some "positive" or "tangible"
result, i.e., to feel that we have established a
real contact with the person of Our Lord: "If I
may but touch his garment, I shall be whole"
(Matthew 9:21). This blissful experience is the
desirable climax of the invocation of the Name :
"I will not let thee go, except thou bless me"
(Genesis 32:26). But we must avoid an overeager
longing for such experiences; religious emotion
may easily become a disguise for some dangerous
kind of greed and sensuousness. Let us not think
that, if we have spent a certain time in the
invocation of the Name without "feeling"
anything, our time has been wasted and our
effort unfruitful. On the contrary this
apparently barren prayer may be more pleasing to
God than our moments of rapture, because it is
pure from any selfish quest for spiritual
delight. It is the prayer of the plain and naked
will. We should therefore persevere in assigning
every day some regular and fixed time to the
invocation of the Name, even if it seems to us
that this prayer leaves us cold and dry; and
such an earnest exertion of the will, such a
sober "waiting" on the Name cannot fail to bring
us some blessing and strength.
Moreover, the invocation of the Name seldom
leaves us in a state of dryness. Those who have
some experience of it agree that it is very
often accompanied by an inner feeling of joy,
warmth and light. One has an impression of
moving and walking in the light. There is in
this prayer no heaviness, no languishing, no
struggling. "Thy name is as ointment poured
forth... Draw me; we will run after thee" (Song
of Songs 1:3-4).
3. THE INVOCATION OF
THE NAME AS A SPIRITUAL WAY
I will strengthen them in the Lord, and
they shall walk tip and down in his name.
Zechariah 10:22
The invocation of the Name of Jesus maybe simply
an episode on our spiritual way (an episode is,
etymologically, something that happens "on the
way"). Or it may be for us a way, one spiritual
way among others. Or it may be the way, the
spiritual way which we definitely and
predominantly (if not exclusively) choose. In
other terms the invocation of the Name maybe for
us either a transitory act, a prayer which we
use for a time and leave it for others; or-more
than an act-a method which we continuously use,
but in addition to other forms and methods of
prayer; or the method around which we ultimately
build and organize our whole spiritual life. It
all depends on our personal call, circumstances
and possibilities. Here we are only concerned
with "beginners", with those who wish to acquire
the first notions about that prayer and a first
contact with the Holy Name, and also with those
who, having had this first contact, wish to
enter "the way of the Name". As to those who are
already able to use the invocation of the Name
as a method or as the only method, they do not
need our advice.
We must not come to the invocation of the Name
through some whim or arbitrary decision of our
own. We must be called to it, led to it by God.
If we try to use the invocation of the Name as
our main spiritual method, this choice ought to
be made out of obedience to, a very special
vocation. A spiritual practice and much more a
spiritual system grounded on a mere caprice will
miserably collapse. So we should be moved
towards the Name of Jesus under the guidance of
the Holy Spirit; then the invocation of the Name
will be in us a fruit of the Spirit itself.
There is no infallible sign that we are called
to the way of the Name. There may be, however,
some indications of this call, which we ought to
consider humbly and carefully. If we feel drawn
towards the invocation of the Name, if this
practice produces in us an increase of charity,
purity, obedience and peace, if the use of other
prayers even is becoming somewhat difficult, we
may, not unreasonably, assume that the way of
the Name is open to us.
Anyone who feels the attraction of the way of
the Name ought to be careful not to depreciate
other forms of prayer. Let us not say: "The
invocation of the Name is the best prayer". The
best prayer is for everybody the prayer to which
he or she is moved by the Holy Spirit, whatever
prayer it may be. He who practices the
invocation of the Name must also curb the
temptation of an indiscreet and premature
propaganda on behalf of this form of prayer. Let
us not hasten to say to God: "I will declare thy
name unto my brethren" (Psalm 22:22), if he is
not especially entrusting us with this mission.
We should rather humbly keep the secrets of the
Lord.
What we may say with soberness and truth is
this. The invocation of the Name of Jesus
simplifies and unifies our spiritual life. No
prayer is simpler than this "one-word prayer" in
which the Holy Name becomes the only focus of
the whole life.
Complicated methods often tire and dissipate
thought. But the Name of Jesus easily gathers
everything into itself. It has a power of
unification and integration. The divided
personality which could say: "My name is legion,
for we are many" (Mark 5:6) will recover its
wholeness in the sacred Name:
" Unite my heart to fear thy name" (Psalm
86:11).
The invocation of the Name of Jesus ought not to
be understood as a "mystical way" which might
spare us the ascetical purifications. There is
no short cut in spiritual life. The way of the
Name implies a constant watch over our souls.
Sin has to be avoided. Only there are two
possible attitudes in this respect. Some may
guard their mind, memory and will in order to
say the Holy Name with greater recollection and
love. Others will say the Holy Name in order to
be more recollected and wholehearted in their
love. To our mind the latter is the better way.
The Name itself is a means of purification and
perfection, a touchstone, a filter through which
our thoughts, words and deeds have to pass to be
freed from their impurities. None of them ought
to be admitted by us until we pass them through
the Name, and the Name excludes all sinful
elements. Only that will be received which is
compatible with the Name of Jesus. We shall fill
our hearts to the brim with the Name and thought
of Jesus, holding it carefully, like a precious
vessel, and defending it against all alien
tampering and admixture. This is a severe
asceticism. It requires a forgetfulness of self,
a dying to self, as the Holy Name grows in our
souls: "He must increase, but I must decrease"
(John 3:30).
We have to consider the invocation of the Holy
Name in relation to other forms of prayer. Of
liturgical prayer and of the prayers fixed by
some Community rule we shall say nothing, as we
are only concerned here with individual and
private prayer. We do not disparage or
undervalue in the least liturgical prayer and
the prayers settled by obedience. Their
corporate character and their very fixity render
them extremely helpful. But it is for Churchmen
and Community members to ascertain whether or
how far the invocation of the Name of Jesus is
compatible, in their own case, with the official
formularies. Questions may be raised about some
other forms of individual prayer. What about the
"dialogue prayer", in which we listen and speak
to God at about the purely contemplative and
wordless prayer, "prayer of quiet" and "prayer
of union"? Must we leave these for the
invocation of the Holy Name, or inversely. Or
should we use both? The answer must be left for
God to give in each individual case. In some
rare cases the divine call to the invocation of
the Name maybe exclusive of all other forms of
prayer. But we think that, generally speaking,
the way of the Name is broad and free; it is, in
most cases, perfectly compatible with moments of
listening to the inner Word and answering it and
with intervals of complete inner silence.
Besides, we must never forget that the best form
of prayer which we can make at any given moment
is that to which we are moved by the Holy
Spirit.
The advice and discreet guidance of some
spiritual "elder" who has a personal experience
of the way of the Name may very often be found
useful by the beginner. We personally would
recommend resort to some such conductor. It is,
however, not indispensable. "When the Spirit of
truth is come, he will guide you into all truth"
(John 16:13).
4. THE INVOCATION OF
THE NAME AS WORSHIP
... I will glorify thy name for evermore.
Psalm 86:12
We have considered until now the invocation of
the Name of Jesus in a general manner. Now we
must consider the diverse aspects of this
invocation. The first aspect is adoration and
worship.
Too often our prayers are limited to petition,
intercession and repentance. As we shall see the
Name of Jesus can be used in all these ways. But
the disinterested prayer, the praise given to
God because of His own excellence the regard
directed towards Him with the utmost respect and
affection, the exclamation of Thomas: "My Lord
and my God! "--this ought to come first.
The invocation of the Name of Jesus must bring
Jesus to our mind. The Name is the symbol and
bearer of the Person of Christ. Otherwise the
invocation of the Name would, be mere verbal
idolatry. "The letter killeth, but the spirit
giveth life" (II Corinthians 3:6). The presence
of Jesus is the real content and the substance
of the Holy Name. The Name both signifies Jesus'
presence and brings its reality.
This leads to pure adoration. As we pronounce
the Name, we should respond to the presence of
Our Lord. "They... fell down and worshipped him"
(Matthew 2:11). To pronounce thoughtfully the
Name of Jesus is to know the allness of Our Lord
and our own nothingness. In this knowledge we
shall adore and worship. "God also hath highly
exalted him and given him a name which is above
every name: that at the name of Jesus every knee
should bow" (Philippians 2:9-10).
5. THE HOLY NAME AS A
MYSTERY OF SALVATION
... Save me, o God, by thy name. Psalm
54.1
The Name of Jesus brings us more than his
presence. Jesus is present in his Name as
Savior, for the word "Jesus" means just this:
savior or salvation. "Neither is there salvation
in any other; for there is none other name under
heaven given among men, whereby we must be
saved" (Acts 4:12). Jesus began his earthly
mission by healing and forgiving, i.e., by
saving men. In the same manner the very
beginning of the way of the Name is the
knowledge of Our Lord as our personal Savior.
The invocation of the Name brings deliverance to
us in all our necessities.
The Name of Jesus not only helps us to obtain
the fulfillment of our needs ("Whatsoever ye
shall ask the Father in my name, he will give it
you. Hitherto have ye asked, nothing in my name:
ask, and ye shall receive" [John 16:23-24] ).
But the Name of Jesus already supplies our
needs. When we require the succour of Our Lord
we should pronounce his Name in faith and hope,
believing that we already receive in it what we
ask for. Jesus Himself is the supreme
satisfaction of all men's needs. And He is that
now, as we pray. Let us not regard our prayer in
relation to fulfillment in the future, but in
relation to fulfillment in Jesus now. He is more
than the giver of what we and others need, He is
also the gift. He is both giver and gift,
containing in Himself all good things. If I
hunger he is my food. If I am cold he is my
warmth. If I am ill he is my health. If I am
persecuted he is my deliverance. If I am impure
he becomes my purity. He "is made unto us...
righteousness, and sanctification and
redemption" (I Corinthians 1:30). This is quite
another thing than if he had merely given them
to us. Now we may find in his Name all that He
is. Therefore the Name of Jesus, in so far as it
links us with Jesus Himself, is already a
mystery of salvation.
The Name of Jesus brings victory and peace when
we are tempted. A heart already filled with the
Name and presence of Our Lord would not let in
any sinful image or thought. But we are weak,
and often our defenses break down, and then
temptation rises within us like angry waters. In
such case do not consider the temptation, do not
argue with your own desire, do not think upon
the storm, do not look at yourself. Look at Our
Lord, clinging to Him, call upon His holy Name.
When Peter, walking upon the waters to come to
Jesus, saw the tempest, "he was afraid" (Matthew
14:30) and began to sink. If, instead of looking
at the waves and listening to the wind, we
single-heartedly walk upon the waters towards
Jesus, He will stretch forth his hand and take
hold of us. The Name may then be of great use,
as it is a definite, concrete and powerful shape
able to resist the strong imagery of temptation.
When tempted, call upon the Holy Name
persistently, but quietly and gently. Do not
shout it nor say it with anxiety or passion. Let
it penetrate the soul little by little, till all
thoughts and feelings come together and coalesce
around it. Let it exercise its power of
polarization. It is the Name of the Prince of
Peace; it must be invoked in peace, and then it
will bring us peace, or, better still, it will
(like Him whose symbol it is) be our peace.
The Name of Jesus brings forgiveness and
reconciliation. When we have grievously sinned
(and so much the more when we have sinned
lightly), we can, within one second, cling to
the Holy Name with repentance and charity and
pronounce it with our whole- heart, and the Name
thus used (and through which we have reached the
person of Christ) will already be a token of
pardon. After sin let us not "hang about", delay
and linger. Let us not hesitate to take up again
the invocation of the Name, in spite of our
unworthiness. A new day is breaking and Jesus
stands on the shore. "When Simon Peter heard
that it was the Lord he cast himself into the
sea" (John 21:7). Act like Simon. Say "Jesus",
as though beginning life afresh. We sinners
shall find Our Lord anew at the invocation of
His Name. He comes to us at that moment and as
we are. He begins again where He has left us, or
rather, where we have left Him. When he appeared
to the disciples after the Resurrection, He came
to them as they were-unhappy, and lost, and
guilty-and, without reproaching them with their
past defection, He simply
entered anew into their everyday life”. He said
unto them: 'Have ye here any
meat? And they gave him a piece of a broiled
fish and of an honeycomb'" (Luke 24:41-42). In
the same manner, when we say "Jesus" again,
after an act of sin or a period of estrangement,
He does not require from us long apologies for
the past, but He wants us to mix, as before, His
Person and his Name with the detail and routine
of our life—with our broiled fish and our
honeycomb—and to re-plunge them in the very
middle of our existence.
Thus the Holy Name can bring about
reconciliation after our actual sins. But it can
give us a more general and fundamental
experience of the divine forgiveness. We can
pronounce the Name of Jesus and put into it the
whole reality of the cross, the whole mystery of
the atonement. If we link the Name with faith in
Jesus as propitiation for the sins of all men,
we find in the Holy Name the sign of the
Redemption extended to all times and to the
whole universe. Under this Name we find "the
lamb slain from the foundation of the world"
(Revelation 13:8), "the lamb of God which taketh
away the sin of the world" (John 1:29).
All this does not gainsay or tend to lessen the
objective means of penitence and remission of
sins offered to us by the Church. We are here
only concerned with the hidden life of the soul.
What we have in view is the inner absolution
which repentance produced by charity already
obtains, the absolution which the publican
received after his prayer in the temple and of
which the Gospel says: "This man went down to
his house justified" (Luke 18:14).
6. THE NAME OF JESUS
AND THE INCARNATION
... And the Word became flesh. John
1:14
We have considered the "saving" power of the
Holy Name; we must now go further. In proportion
as the Name of Jesus grows within us, we grow in
the knowledge of the divine mysteries. The Holy
Name is not only a mystery of salvation, the
fulfillment of our needs, the abatement of our
temptations, the forgiveness of our sins. The
invocation of the Name is also a means of
applying to ourselves the mystery of the
Incarnation. It is a powerful means of union
with Our Lord. To be united to Christ is even
more blessed than to stand before Him or to be
saved through Him. Union is greater than
presence and meditation.
You may pronounce the Name of Jesus in order
"that Christ may dwell in your hearts"
(Ephesians 3:17). You may, when His Name is
formed on your lips, experience the reality of
His coming in the soul: "I stand at the door and
knock: if any man hear my voice, and open the
door, I will come in to him, and will sup with
him, and he with me" (Revelation 3:20). You may
enthrone His Person and His Name, as signifying
the Person, within yourselves "They have built
Thee a sanctuary therein for Thy name" (II
Chronicles 20:8). It is the "I in them" of Our
Lord's priestly prayer (John 17:26). Or we may
throw ourselves into the Name and feel that we
are the members of the Body of Christ and the
branches of the true vine. "Abide in me" (John
15:4). Of course nothing can abolish the
difference between the Creator and the creature.
But there is, made possible by the Incarnation,
a real union of mankind and of our own persons
with Our Lord,--a union which the use of the
Name of Jesus may express and strengthen.
Some analogy exists between the Incarnation of
The Word and the indwelling of the Holy Name
within us. The Word was made flesh. Jesus became
man. The inner reality of the Name of Jesus,
having passed into our souls, overflows into our
bodies. "Put ye on the Lord Jesus Christ"
(Romans 13:14). The living content of the Name
enters physically into ourselves. "Thy Name is
as ointment poured forth" (Song of Songs 1:3).
The Name, if I repeat it with faith and love,
becomes a strength able to paralyze and overcome
"the law of sin which is in my members" (Romans
7:23). We can also put on ourselves the Name of
Jesus as a kind of physical seal keeping our
hearts and bodies pure and consecrated: "Set me
as a seal upon thine heart, as a seal upon thine
arm" (Song of Songs 8:6). But this physical seal
is not a piece of wax or lead. It is the outward
sign and the Name of the living Word.
7. THE NAME OF JESUS
AND TRANSFIGURATION
... The fullness of Him that filleth all
in all. Ephesians 1:2-3
The use of the Holy Name not only brings anew
the knowledge of our own union with Jesus in His
Incarnation. The Name is also an instrument by
which we may obtain a wider view of Our Lord's
relation to all that God has made. The Name of
Jesus helps us 'to transfigure the world into
Christ (without any pantheistic confusion). Here
is another aspect of the invocation of the Name:
it is a method of transfiguration.
It is so in regard to nature. The natural
universe may be considered as the handiwork of
the Creator: "... The Lord that made heaven and
earth" (Psalm 134:3) can be considered as the
visible symbol of the invisible divine beauty:
"The heavens declare the glory of God" (Psalm
19:1)"Consider the lilies of the field... "
(Matthew 6:28). And yet all this is
insufficient. Creation is not static. It moves,
striving and groaning, towards Christ as its
fulfillment and end. "The whole creation
groaneth and travail in pain" (Romans 8:22) till
it be "delivered from the bondage of corruption
into the glorious liberty of the children of
God" (Romans 8:21). What we call the inanimate
world is carried along by a Christward movement.
All things were converging towards the
Incarnation. The natural elements and the
products of the earth, rock and wood, water and
oil, corn and wine, were to acquire a new
meaning and to become signs and means of grace.
All creation mysteriously utters the Name of
Jesus: "I tell you that, if these should hold
their peace, the stones would immediately cry
out" (Luke 19:40). It is the utterance of this
Name that Christians should hear in nature. By
pronouncing the Name of Jesus upon the natural
things, upon a stone or a tree, a fruit or a
flower, the sea or a landscape, or whatever it
is, the believer speaks aloud the secret of
these things, he brings them to their
fulfillment, he gives an answer to their long
and apparently dumb awaiting. "For the earnest
expectation of the creature waiteth for the
manifestation of the sons of God" (Romans 8.19).
We shall say the Name Jesus in union with all
creation: ".,. at the name of Jesus every knee
should, bow, of things in heaven and things in
earth and thing under the earth ..."
(Philippians 2.10).
The animal world may also be transfigured by us.
When Jesus remained forty days in the
wilderness, he "was with the wild beasts" (Mark
1.13). We do not know what happened, then, but
we may be assured that no living creature is
left untouched by Jesus' influence. Jesus
himself said of the sparrows that "not one of
them is forgotten before God" (Luke 12.6). We
are like Adam when he had to give a name to all
the animals. "Out of the ground the Lord God
formed every beast of the field, and every fowl
of the air; and brought them unto Adam to see
what he would call them" (Genesis 2.19).
Scientists call them as they think fit. As to
us, if we invoke the Name of Jesus upon the
animals, we give them back their primitive
dignity which we so easily forget, - the dignity
of living beings being created and cared for by
God in Jesus and for Jesus. "That was the name
thereof” (Genesis 2.19).
It is mainly in relation to men that we can
exercise a ministry of transfiguration. The
risen Christ appeared several times under an
aspect which was no longer the one his disciples
knew. "He appeareth in another form..." (Mark
16.12); the form of a traveller on the road to
Emmaus, or of a gardener near the tomb, or of a
stranger standing on the shore of the lake. It
was each time in the form of an ordinary man
such as we may meet in our everyday life. Jesus
thus illustrated an important aspect of his
presence among us, - his presence in man. He was
thus completing what he had taught: "I was an
hungered and ye gave me meat. I was thirsty and
ye gave me drink... naked and ye clothed me. I
was sick, and ye visited me. I was in prison,
and ye came unto me... Inasmuch as ye have done
it unto one of the least of these my brethren,
ye have done it unto me" (Matthew 25.35-36,40).
Jesus appears now to us under the features of
men and women. Indeed this human form is now the
only one under which everybody can, at will, at
any time and in any place, see the Face of Our
Lord. Men of today are realistically minded;
they do not live on abstractions and phantoms;
and when the saints and the mystics come and
tell them "We have seen the Lord", they answer
with Thomas: "Except I shall... put my finger
into the print of the nails and thrust my hand
into his side, I will not believe" (John 20.25).
Jesus accepts this challenge. He allows Himself
to be seen and touched, and spoken to in the
person of all his human brethren and sisters. To
us as to Thomas He says: "Reach hither thy hand
and thrust it into my side, and be not
faithless, but believing" (John 20.27). Jesus
shows us the poor, and the sick, and the
sinners, and generally all men, and tells us:
"Behold, my hands and my feet... Handle me and
see; for a spirit hath not flesh and bones, as
ye see me have" (Luke 24.39). Men and women are
the flesh and bones, the hands and feet, the
pierced side of Christ, — His mystical Body. In
them we can experience the reality of the
Resurrection and the real presence (though
without confusion of essence) of the Lord Jesus.
If we do not see Him, it is because of our
unbelief and hard-heartedness: "Their eyes were
holden that they should not know Him" (Luke
24.16).
Now the Name of Jesus is a concrete and
powerful means of transfiguring men into their
hidden, innermost, utmost reality. We should
approach all men and women — in the street, the
shop, the office, the factory, the bus, the
queue, and especially those who seem irritating
and antipathetic — with the Name of Jesus in our
heart and on our lips. We should pronounce His
Name over them all, for their real name is the
Name of Jesus. Name them with his Name, within
His Name, in a spirit of adoration, dedication
and service. Adore Christ in them, serve Christ
in them. In many of these men and women — in the
malicious, in the criminal — Jesus is
imprisoned. Deliver Him by silently recognizing
and worshipping Him in them. If we go through
the world with this new vision, saying "Jesus"
over every man, seeing Jesus in every man,
everybody will be transformed and transfigured
before our eyes. The more we are ready to give
of our-selves to men, the more will the new
vision be clear and vivid. The vision cannot be
severed from the gift. Rightly did Jacob say to
Esau, when they were reconciled: "I pray thee,
if now I have
found grace in thy sight, then receive my
present at my hand, for therefore I have seen
thy face as though I had seen the face of God"
(Genesis 33.10).
8. THE NAME OF JESUS
AND THE CHURCH
... To gather together in one all things
in Christ, both which are in heaven and which
are on earth. Ephesians 1.10.
In pronouncing the Name of Jesus we inwardly
meet all them that are united with Our Lord, all
them of whom He said: "Where two or three are
gathered together in my name, there am I in the
midst of them" (Mathew 18.20).
We should find all men in the heart of Jesus and
in His love. We should throw all men into His
Name and enclose them therein. Long lists of
inter-cessions are not necessary. We may apply
the Name of Jesus to the name of this or that
person who is in particular need. But all men
and all just causes are already gathered
together within the Name of Our Lord. Adhering
to Jesus is to become one with Him in His
solicitude and loving kindness for them.
Adhering to Our Lord's own intercession for them
is better than to plead with Him on their
behalf.
Where Jesus is, there is the Church. Whoever is
in Jesus is in the Church. If the invocation of
the Holy Name is a means of union with Our Lord,
it is, also a means of union with that Church
which is in Him and which no human sin can
touch. This does not mean that we are closing
our eyes to the problems of the Church on earth,
to the imperfections and disunity of Christians.
But we only deal here with this eternal, and
spiritual, and "unspotted" side of the Church
which is implied in the Name of Jesus. The
Church thus considered transcends all earthly
reality. No schism can rend her. Jesus said to
the Samaritan woman: "Believe me, the hour
cometh, when ye shall neither in this mountain,
nor yet at Jerusalem, worship the Father.. The
hour cometh, and now is, when the true
worshippers shall worship the Father in spirit
and in truth" (John 4 .1, 23). There is an
apparent contradiction in the words of Our Lord:
how could the hour be still coming and yet
already be? This paradox finds its explanation
in the fact that the Samaritan woman was then
standing before Christ. On the one hand the
historical opposition between Jerusalem and
Garizim still existed, and Jesus, far from
treating it as a trifling circumstance,
emphasized the higher claims of Jerusalem: 'Ye
worship ye know not what. We know what we
worship: for salvation is of the Jews" (John
4.22).In that sense the hour was not yet, but
was still coming. On the other hand the hour
already was, because the woman had before her
Him who is greater than Jerusalem or Garizim,
Him who "will tell us all things" (John 4.25)
and in Whom alone we can fully "worship in
spirit and in truth" (John 4.24). The same
situation arises when, invoking the Name of
Jesus, we cling to His Person. Assuredly we do
not believe that all the conflicting
interpretations of the Gospel which we hear on
earth are equally true nor that the divided
Christian groups have the same measure of light.
But, fully pronouncing the Name of Jesus,
entirely surrendered to His Person and His
claims, we implicitly share in the wholeness of
the Church, and so we experience her essential
unity, deeper than all our human separations.
The invocation of the Name of Jesus helps us to
meet again, in Him, all our
departed. Martha was wrong when, speaking of
Lazarus, she said to our Lord: "I know that he
shall rise again in the resurrection at the last
day" (John 11.24). Overlooking the present she
was projecting all her faith into the future.
Jesus corrected her mistake: "I am the
resurrection and the life" (John 11.25). The
life and the resurrection of the departed is not
merely a future event (although the resurrection
of the individual bodies is such). The person of
the risen Christ already is the resurrection and
the life of all men. Instead of trying to
establish — in our prayer, or in our memory, or
in our imagination — a direct spiritual contact
with our departed, we should try to reach them
within Christ, where their true life now is. One
can, therefore, say that the invocation of the
Name of Jesus is the best prayer for the
departed. The invocation of the Name, giving us
the presence of Our Lord, makes them also
present to us. And our linking of the Holy Name
with their own names is our work of love on
their behalf.
These departed, whose life is now hidden with
Christ, form the heavenly Church. They belong to
the total and eternal Church, of which the
Church now militant on earth is but a very small
part. We meet in the Name of Jesus the whole
company of the Saints: "His Name shall be in
their foreheads" (Revelation 22.4). In it we
meet the angels; it is Gabriel who, first on
earth, announced the Holy Name, saying to Mary:
"Thou shalt call his name Jesus" (Luke 1.31). In
it we meet the woman "blessed among women" to
whom Gabriel spoke these words and who so often
called her son by His name. May the Holy Spirit
make us desire to hear the Name of Jesus as the
Virgin Mary first beard it and to repeat that
Name as Mary and Gabriel uttered it! May our own
invocation of the Name enter this abyss of
adoration, obedience and tenderness!
9. THE NAME OF JESUS AS
EUCHARIST
... This do in remembrance of me.
Luke, 22.1,9
The mystery of the Upper Room was a summing -up
of the whole life and mission of Our Lord. The
sacra-mental Eucharist lies outside the scope of
the present considerations. But there is a "eucharistic"
use of the Name of Jesus in which all the
aspects which we have seen till now are gathered
and unified.
Our soul also is an Upper Room where an
invisible Lord's Supper may be celebrated at any
time. Our Lord secretly tells us, as of old:
"With desire I have desired to eat this
Passover
with you (Luke 22.15) • • • Where is the
guest-chamber where I shall eat the Passover
with my disciples (Luke 22.11)... There make
ready" (Luke 22.11). These words do not solely
apply to the visible Lord's Supper. They also
apply to his interior Eucharist, which, though
only spiritual is very real. In the visible
Eucharist Jesus is offered under the signs of
bread and wine. In the Eucharist within us He
can be signified and designated by His Name
alone. Therefore the invocation of Holy Name may
be made by us a Eucharist.
The original meaning of "Eucharist" is:
thanksgiving. Our inner Lord's Supper will first
be a thanks-giving over the great gift, the gift
made to us by the Father in the person of His
Son. "By him... let us offer the sacrifice of
praise to God continually..." (Hebrews 13.15).
The Scripture immediately explains the nature of
this sacrifice of praise: "... that is, the
fruit of our lips giving thanks to His name." So
the idea of the Name is linked with that of
thanksgiving. Not only may we, while pronouncing
Jesus' Name, thank the Father for having given
us His Son or direct our praise towards the Name
of the Son himself, but we may make of the Name
of the Son the substance and support of the
sacrifice of praise rendered to the Father, the
expression of our gratitude and our offering, of
thanks.
Every Eucharist is an offering. "That they may
offer unto the Lord an offering in righteousness
" (Malachi 3.3). We cannot offer to the Father a
better offering than the person of His Son
Jesus. This offering alone is worthy of the
Father. Our offering of Jesus to His Father is
one with the offering which Jesus is eternally
making of Himself, for how could we, alone,
offer Christ? In order to give a concrete shape
to our offering we shall probably find it
helpful to pronounce the Name of Jesus. We shall
present the Holy Name to God as though it were
bread and wine.
The Lord, in His Supper, offered to His
disciples bread which was broken and wine which
was shed. He offered a life which was given, His
body and blood ready for the immolation. When we
inwardly offer Jesus to his Father, we shall
always offer Him as a victim— both slain and
triumphant: "Worthy is the Lamb that was slain
to receive... honor, and glory, and blessing"
(Revelation 5.12). Let us pronounce the Name of
Jesus with the awareness that we are washed and
made "white in the blood of the Lamb"
(Revelation 7.14). This is the sacrificial use
of the Holy Name. This does not mean that we
think of a new sacrifice of the cross. The Holy
Name, sacrificially used, is but a means to
apply to us, here and now, the fruits of the
oblation once for all made and perfect. It helps
us, in the exercise of the universal priesthood,
to make spiritually actual and, present the
eternal sacrifice of Christ. The sacrificial use
of the Name of Jesus will also remind us that we
cannot be one with Jesus, priest and victim if
we do not offer within Him, within His Name, our
own soul and body: "In burnt offerings and
sacrifices for sin thou hast had no pleasure :
Then said I, Lo, I come" (Hebrews 10.6-7).
There is no Lord's Supper without a communion.
Our inner Eucharist also is what tradition has
called "spiritual communion", that is, a feeding
by faith on the Body and Blood of Christ without
using the visible elements of bread and wine.
"The bread of God is he which cometh down from
heaven, and giveth life unto the world... I am
that bread of life" (John 6.33,48). Jesus always
remains the bread of life which we can receive
as a food, even when we do not partake of any
sacramental element : "It is the spirit that quickeneth; The flesh profiteth nothing" (John
6.63). We can have a purely spiritual and
invisible access to the Body and Blood of
Christ. This Inner, but very real, mode of
approach to Our Lord is something distinct from
any other approach to His Person, for here is a
special gift and benefit, a special grace, a
special relationship between Our Lord, as both
feeder and food, and ourselves partaking (though
invisibly) of that food. Now this spiritual
communion of the divine Bread of life, of the
Body and Blood of the Saviour, becomes easier
when it is given expression in the Holy Name,
receiving from the Name of Jesus its shape, its
frame and support. We can pronounce the Name of
Our Lord with the special intention of feeding
our soul on it, or rather on the sacred Body and
precious Blood which we try to approach through
it. Such a communion maybe renewed as often as
we desire. Far from us the error of treating
lightly or lowering in esteem the Lord's Supper
as practiced in the Church. But it is to be
hoped that everybody who follows the way
of the Name may experience that the Name of
Jesus is a spiritual food and communicates to
hungry souls the Bread of life. "Lord, evermore
give us this bread" (John 6.34). In this bread,
in this Name, we find ourselves united with all
them that share in the same Messianic meal: "We
being many are one bread, and one body: for we
are all partakers of that one bread" (1
Corinthians 10.17).
Through the Eucharist we "do show the Lord's
death till he come" (i Corinthians 11.26). The
Eucharist is an anticipation of the eternal
Kingdom. This "eucharistie" use of the Name of
Jesus leads us to its "eschatological" use, that
is, to the invocation of the Name in connection
with the "end" and with the Coming of Our Lord.
Each invocation of the Holy Name should be an
ardent aspiration to our final re-union with
Jesus in be heavenly kingdom. Such an aspiration
is related to the end of the world and the
triumphal Coming of Christ, but it has a nearer
relation to the occasional (and, as we should
ask, more and more frequent) breakings in of
Christ into our earthly existence, His wonderful
forcible entrances into our, everyday life, and
still more to the Coming of Christ to us at the
time of our death . There is a way of saying
"Jesus" which is a preparation for death, an
aspiration towards death conceived as the
long-expected appearing of the Friend "whom
having not seen, ye love" (i Peter 1.8), a call
for this supreme meeting, and here and now a
throwing of our heart beyond the barrier. In
that way of saying "Jesus", the longing
utterance of Paul, "When Christ, who is our
life, shall appear. .. " (Colossians 3.4) and
the cry of John, "Come, Lord Jesus" (Revelation
22.20), are already implied.
10. THE NAME OF JESUS
AND THE HOLY SPIRIT
... I saw the Spirit descending from
heaven like a dove, and it abode upon him.
John, 1-32
The Name of Jesus occupied a pre-eminent place
in the message and action of the Apostles. They
were preaching in the Name of Jesus, healing the
sick in His Name; they were saying to God:
"Grant unto thy servants... that signs and
wonders may be done by the name of thy holy
child Jesus" (Acts 4.29,30). Through them "the
name of the Lord Jesus was magnified" (Acts
19.17). It is only after Pentecost that the
Apostles announced the Name "with power". Jesus
had told them: 'Ye shall receive power, after
that the Holy Ghost is come upon you" (Acts
1.8). In this "Pentecostal" use of the Name of
Jesus we find clear evidence of the link between
the Spirit and the Name. Such a Pentecostal use
of the Name is not restricted to the Apostles.
It is not only of the Apostles, but of all "them
that believe" that Jesus said : "In. my name
shall they cast out devils; they shall speak
with new tongues... they shall lay hands on the
sick, and they shall recover" (Mark 16.17-18).
Only our lack of bold faith and charity prevents
us from calling upon the Name in the power of
the Spirit. If we really follow the way of the
Name, a time must come when we become able
(without pride, without looking at ourselves) to
manifest the glory of Our Lord and to help other
men through "signs". He whose heart is become a
vessel of the Holy Name should not hesitate to
go about and repeat to those who need spiritual
or bodily relief the words of Peter: "Silver and
gold have I none; but such as I have give I
thee: in the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth
rise up and walk" (Acts 3.6). o that the Spirit
of Pentecost may come and write within us the
Name of Jesus in flames!
The Pentecostal use of the Name is but one
aspect of our approach to the Holy Ghost through
the Name of Jesus. The Name will lead us to some
other and more inward experiences of the Spirit.
While pronouncing the Name we may obtain a
glimpse of the relationship between the Spirit
and Jesus. There is a certain attitude of the
Spirit towards Jesus and a certain attitude of
Jesus towards the Spirit. In repeating the Name
of Jesus we find ourselves at the crossroads, so
to speak, where these two "movements" meet.
When Jesus was baptized "The Holy Ghost
descended in a bodily shape like a dove upon
Him" (Luke 3.22). The descent of the dove is the
best expression of the attitude of the Spirit
towards Our Lord. Now let us, while saying the
Name of Jesus, try to coincide, if we may say
with the Jesus-ward movement of the Spirit, with
the Spirit directed by the Father' towards
Jesus, looking to Jesus, coming to Jesus. Let us
try to unite ourselves — as much as a creature
can unite itself to a divine action — to this
flight of the dove ("Oh that I had wings like a
dove..." (Psalm 55.6)) and to the tender
feelings expressed by her voice: "The voice of
the turtle is heard in our land" (Song of Songs
2.12). Before making "intercession for us with
groanings which cannot be uttered" (Romans
8.26), the Spirit was and eternally remain
sighing after Jesus. The book of Revelation
shows us the Spirit, together with the Bride
(that is, the Church), crying to Our Lord. When
we utter the Name of Jesus, we can conceive it
as the sigh and aspiration of the Holy Ghost, as
the expression of the Spirit's desire and
yearning. We shall thus be admitted (according
to our feeble human capacity) into the-mystery
of the loving relation-ship between the Holy
Ghost and the Son.
Conversely the Name of Jesus may also help us to
coincide with the attitude of Our Lord towards
the Spirit. Jesus was conceived by Mary "of the
Holy Ghost" (Matthew 1.20). He remained during
His whole earthly life (and still remains) the
perfect receiver of the Gift, He let the Spirit
take complete possession of Him, being "led up
of the Spirit" (Matthew 4.1) or driven by it. He
cast out devils "by the Spirit of God" (Matthew
12.28). He returned from the desert "in the
power of the Spirit" (Luke 4.14). He declared:
"The Spirit of the Lord is upon me" (Luke 4.18).
In all this Jesus shows a humble docility
towards the Holy Ghost. In pronouncing the Name
of Jesus we can (as far as it is given to man)
make ourselves one with Him in this surrender to
the Spirit. But we can also make ourselves one
with Him as with the starting point from which
the Spirit is sent to men: "He shall take of
mine, and shall shew it unto you (John 16-15)...
I will send him unto you" (John 14.7). We can
see the Name of Jesus as the focus from which
the Spirit radiates towards mankind: we can see
Jesus as the mouth from which Spirit is
breathed. Thus, in the utterance of the Name of
Jesus, we can associate ourselves with these two
moments: the filling of Jesus with the Spirit,
the sending of the Spirit by Jesus. To grow in
the invocation of the Holy Name is to grow in
the knowledge of the "Spirit of his Son"
(Galatians 4.6).
11. THE NAME OF JESUS
AND THE FATHER
... He that hath seen me hath seen the
Father. John, 14-9
Our reading of the Gospel will remain
superficial as long as we only see in it a
message directed to men or a life turned towards
men. The very heart of the Gospel is the hidden
relationship of Jesus with the Father. The
secret of the Gospel is Jesus turned towards
Him. This is the fundamental mystery of the life
of Our Lord. The invocation of the Name of Jesus
may afford us some real, though faint and
transient, partaking in that mystery.
"In the beginning was the Word" (John 1.1). The
Person of Jesus is the living Word spoken by the
Father. As the Name of Jesus, by a special
divine dispensation, has been chosen to mean the
living Word uttered by the Father, we may say
that this Name partakes to some extent in this
eternal utterance. In a some-what
anthropomorphic manner (easy to correct) we
might say that the Name of Jesus is the only
human word which the Father eternally
pronounces. The Father eternally begets His
word. He gives Himself eternally in the
begetting of the Word. If we endeavour to
approach the Father through the invocation of
the Name of Jesus, we have first, while
pronouncing the Name, to contemplate Jesus as
the object of the Father's love and self-giving.
We have to feel (in our little way) the
outpouring of this love and this gift on the
Son. We have already seen the dove descending
upon Him. It remains to hear the Father's voice
saying: "Thou art my beloved Son; in thee I am
well pleased" (Luke 3.22).
And now we must humbly enter into the filial
consciousness of Jesus. After having found in
the word "Jesus" the Father's utterance: "My Son
! ", we ought to find it in the Son's utterance:
"My Father ! Jesus has no other aim than to
declare the Father and be His Word. Not only
have all Jesus' actions, during His earthly
life, been acts of perfect obedience to the
Father "My meat is to do the will of him that
sent me" (John 4.34); not only has the
sacrificial death of Jesus fulfilled the supreme
requirement of the divine love (of which the
Father is the source): "Greater love hath no man
than this, that a may lay down his life..."
(John 15.13) — not only the deeds of Jesus, but
His whole being were the perfect expression of
the Father. Jesus is "the brightness of his
glory, and the express image of his person"
(Hebrews 1.3). The Word was "towards God" (John
1.1) - the translation "with God" is inaccurate.
It is this eternal orientation of the Son
towards the Father, his eternal turning to Him,
which we should experience within the Name of
Jesus. There is more in the Holy Name than the
"turning to" the Father. In saying "Jesus" we
can in some measure join together the Father and
the Son, we can realize and appropriate their
oneness. At the very moment when we utter the
Holy Name, Jesus Himself says to us as He said
to Philip: "Believest thou not that I am in the
Father and the Father in me?... Believe me that
I am in the Father, and the Father in me" (John
14.10,11).
12. THE NAME AND THE
TOTAL PRESENCE
... that ye may be filled unto all the
fullness ... Ephesians 3.19
We have considered the main aspects of the
invocation of the Name of Jesus. We have
disposed them according to a kind of ascending
scale, and we think that this scale corresponds
to the normal progress of the life of the soul.
Nevertheless God, who, "giveth not the Spirit by
measure" (John 3.34), overpasses all our limits.
These aspects of the Name intermingle; a
beginner may straightway be raised to the
highest perception of the content of the Name,
while somebody who has been waiting on the Name
for years may not go beyond the elementary
stages (it is not this that matters, the only
thing that matters is to do what Our Lord wants
us to do). So the pattern which we have followed
is, to a large extent, artificial and has but a
relative value.
This becomes quite evident to anybody who has
had some experience of all the aspects of the
Name which have been described here. At that
stage — the reaching of which does not
necessarily imply a greater perfection, but
often some intellectual and spiritual acumen,
some quickness of perception and discrimination
concerning the things of God — it becomes
difficult, even wearisome and tedious, and
sometimes even impossible, to concentrate on
this or that particular aspect of the Name of
Jesus, however lofty it may be. Our invocation
and consideration of the Holy Name then becomes
global. We become simultaneously aware of all
the implications of the Name. We say "Jesus",
and we are resting in the fullness and totality
of the Name of Our Lord; we are unable to
disjoin and isolate its diverse aspects, and yet
we feel that all of them are there, as a united
whole. The Holy Name is then bearing the whole
Christ and introduces us to His total Presence.
This total Presence is more than the Presence of
proximity and the Presence of indwelling of
which we have already spoken. It is the actual "givenness"
of all the realities to which the Name may have
been for us an approach: Salvation, Incarnation,
Transfiguration, Church, Eucharist, Spirit and
Father. It is then that we apprehend "what is
the breadth and length and depth and height..."
(Ephesians 3.18), and that we perceive what to
"gather together in one all things in Christ"
(Ephesians 1.10) means.
This total Presence is all. The Name is nothing
without the Presence. He who is able constantly
to live in the total Presence of Our Lord does
not need the Name. The Name is only an incentive
to and a support to the Presence. A time may
come, even here on earth, when we have to
discard the Name itself and to become free from
everything but the nameless and unutterable
living contact with the person of Jesus.
When we separately consider the aspects or
implications of the Name of Jesus, our
invocation of the Name is like a prism which
splits up a beam of white light into the several
colors of the spectrum. When we call on the
"total Name" (and the total Presence) we are
using the Name as a lens which receives and
concentrates the white light. Through the means
of a lens a ray of the sun can ignite some
combustible substance. The Holy Name is this
lens. Jesus is the burning Light which the Name,
acting as a lens, can gather and direct till a
fire is kindled within us. "I am come to send
fire on the earth..." (Luke 12.49).
The Scripture often promises a special blessing
to them that call on the Name of the Lord. We may
apply to the Name of Jesus which is said of the
Name of God. We shall therefore repeat: "Look
upon me, and be merciful unto me, as thou
wouldst do unto those that love thy name" (Psalm
119.132). And of every one of us may the Lord
say what he said to Saul: "He is a chosen vessel
unto me, to bear my name..." (Acts 9.15).