 |
| Holy Name Altar, St Dominic’s SF |
The Readings for Tuesday in the 18th Week of Ordinary Time (B2)
Statimque Jesus locutus est eis, dicens : Habete fiduciam : ego sum, nolite timere.
At once Jesus spoke to them, “Take courage, it is I; do not be afraid.”
Then Came Henry.
And Cramner
To destroy and ruin all that had been built.
But they could not destroy this devotion and so the English Church, even in her Babylonian captivity, kept this feast beyond king Nebuchadnezzar’s death, beyond the fateful reigns of all his children and their children, this devotion held together with the memory of this feast. The 1662 BCP held this feast, the Anglo Catholics remembered in during that revival in the 19th Century, and held on to it. Nowadays, though, many folks just stick with 8 Days after Christmas. Still this lovely feast in Early August… It’s not in the Roman calendar, but when I was Western Rite Orthodox it was on our calendar. And my monastery kept this feast as well. It’s in our old OSB Breviary – copied from the C of E’s attempt at an OSB Revivial in the great house of Nashdom – although the texts are not special for this day: they are just copied over from January.
And so this feast… what is it about the Name of Jesus? The devotion is not just Catholic. The Orthodox have it. Protestants have it. And it’s nearly the same in all forms: just a meditation and mulling on the name, itself.
The heathens have this same sense as well, for not a one of them will ever curse in the name of Allah, nor any Sikh guru. No one will settle for a “God damn it” in a meeting when they can utter the all powerful name of Jesus in a blasphemy. Their piety is twisted, but they know. And they will say it even when they don’t know a Christian is in the room. They’re not doing it to offend or get a rise, they are making a powerful statement on purpose.
There’s something about that name.
If you are of the Eastern Rite, you have a long form of devotion to the name, the reciting of the Jesus Prayer whilst using the prayer rope. In the west, the Litany of the Holy Name is a very good, daily practice. But there is another western devotion, dating back to the Henrican Reformation. Published in 1520, the Jesus Psalter was a very popular devotion.
Best said on a Rosary, in my opinion, it begins with a ten-fold recitation of the Holy Name and some invocation:
It is divided into three sets of five decades each, and so it pairs well with the Rosary of Our Lady for daily recitation or for use as one long prayer at a Holy Hour. I find it very useful at a Latin Mass where I suspect it was used most. A full text is here, although there are a number of variants available. Some are in print, arranged for group recitation. Some few are in other places online. Using these invocations and images to meditate on the name of Jesus gives not only a more-full sense of what the English were on about, but also will expand your sense of what the Name of Jesus (“God Saves”) is all about. Salvation does not mean “keep me out of hell” although that’s a part of it, nor does it mean “Take me to heaven when I die”. Salvation in the name of Jesus is an on-going, all-encompassing event. It fills everything: filtering out fears, sorting through friends, navigating tough choices, making every knee bow, of things in Hell, things on Earth, and things in the Heavens.
This is why, in the end, the English Martyrs remembered this prayer as only one line:
So a blessed feast that was. And may the Holy Name fill you with joy.
Doxos 