Hallowed Be Thy Name
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In the Our Father, Jesus teaches to ask for seven things.
The First thing we ask is “Hallowed be thy Name.” Let your name be holy.
What are we asking for here? That God be more holy? That doesn’t sound right.
· God can’t be more Holy
· And His name cannot become more Holy
· However, those who bear His Name, those who call themselves “Christian” can certainly become more holy
With this Prayer we are asking God to make us Holy, to make us saints.
Is that what you want?
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Is Holiness the goal of your life? What is the goal of your life?
Most Christians would say it’s to get to heaven.
But the Catechism says Heaven does not mean a place but a way of being. (2794)
A way of being like what?
Again the Catechism says “Those who die in God’s grace and friendship and are perfectly purified live forever with Christ. They are like God forever…(1023)
The CCC tells us that Heaven means to be like God.
As we are told in 1 John 3:2 we shall be like him because we shall see him as he really is.
If Heaven is to be like God, and our goal is to get to Heaven, then I guess our goal IS to be like God, it is to be Holy, to be a Saint.
I don’t meet many people who have made that their life goal.
But if your destination is heaven and to be in heaven is to be holy, then it is our calling, and we must begin our preparation now.
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Well, how do we prepare for Heaven? How do we become a saint?
The first step is to accept that we are powerless on our own to make ourselves holy.
We cannot make ourselves holy.
We can’t even do the first step. We can’t make ourselves sons or daughters of God.
To become sons and daughters of God, He must give us His divine life.
This is precisely what God offers everyone in Baptism. By baptism the Most Holy Trinity, Father, Son and Holy Spirit come to dwell in our soul, enabling us to share in divine life becoming sons and daughters of God.
Then Jesus offers to nourish and increase His life in us through the Eucharist because the Eucharist is Jesus, it is God.
And when we diminish His life in us by sin, he comes to heal us and restore his life in us by confession.
So if we want to prepare for Heaven, then we need God to give us His life, increase it constantly and heal it when we fall.
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Then next step to prepare for Heaven is by daily meditation and a resolution
Lent is about conversion and growth. The infallible means to growth in friendship with Jesus and conversion from vice to virtue is Daily Meditation. The Catechism suggests two ways to do daily meditation through Lectio Divina, that is, to prayerfully read the Bible or through the Rosary.
Either way, in meditation we do three things:
A. We listen to God by reading or recalling His Word in Scripture, Tradition and the teaching of the Church. This is the way God speaks to us.
B. Then we reflect or think about what God has said and done to understand it, to love God for it and to form firm convictions.
C. We form a resolution to put into practice what God has said to us that day.
If we do this every day we will convert from vice to virtue and grow. If we do not do this – we will not convert and grow.
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It is very hard to grow in holiness all by yourself. We need all need spiritual friendship.
We all need a small group of family and friends with whom we commit to share life regularly, ideally once a week. And when we gather, invite them to pray the Rosary and then ask them what struck them during the Rosary.
Build your team and commit to meet regularly.
God commanded us to set aside Sundays for friendship with him and spiritual friendship with others.
Let’s reclaim Sunday’s as the day for relationship with God and others.
Finally – let’s not forget our Lenten Challenge.
We all have family and friends for whom a full Rosary is too big of a leap. Instead, invite them to pray one-decade a day.
Each day we create a one minute meditation with the one-decade of the Rosary.
If you invite four others, that makes five. Joined together you pray one Rosary every day.