A Simple Gesture
A gentle priest showed me a great deal with a simple gesture.
Every time the name of Jesus is said, he quietly bows his head: at Mass, during the Rosary, at casual conversations…
Little by little, our parish community started to catch on.
And then, my eyes (and ears) were opened.
I started to realize how much our society uses the name of the Lord in vain.
Or at least, how repulsive it is to hear His name used as an expletive.
How every time someone cusses on TV using the Holy Name of Jesus, my first reaction,now, is to bow and my second reaction is to rebel for the way it is being used.
I cringe at how in everyday conversations, people spit out His name, the same way we spit phlegm from our lungs.
It made me realize how often I have done it as well. And I ask God for forgiveness for using His name in vain.
In the Old Testament, to give your name, is to relinquish power over you.
God has humbled Himself further by giving us His name. What have we done with it?
Today is the Memorial of the Holy Name of Jesus. Could we do an act of reparation by asking for forgiveness for misusing His Holy Name so irreverently, personally, as a culture and as a society.
"Because of this, 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."
Phil 2:9-11
