Name above every other names

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Sunday, 13 April 2025 : Palm Sunday of the Passion of the Lord (Second Reading)

Liturgical Colour : Red

Philippians 2 : 6-11

Though He was in the form of God, He did not regard equality with God as something to be grasped, but emptied Himself, taking on the nature of a servant, made in human likeness, and in His appearance found as a Man.

He humbled Himself by being obedient to death, death on the cross. That is why God exalted Him and gave Him the Name which outshines all names, so that at the Name of Jesus all knees should bend in heaven, on earth and among the dead, and all tongues proclaim that Christ Jesus is the Lord to the glory of God the Father.

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Sunday, 24 March 2024 : Palm Sunday of the Passion of the Lord (Second Reading)

Liturgical Colour : Red

Philippians 2 : 6-11

Though He was in the form of God, He did not regard equality with God as something to be grasped, but emptied Himself, taking on the nature of a servant, made in human likeness, and in His appearance found as a Man.

He humbled Himself by being obedient to death, death on the cross. That is why God exalted Him and gave Him the Name which outshines all names, so that at the Name of Jesus all knees should bend in heaven, on earth and among the dead, and all tongues proclaim that Christ Jesus is the Lord to the glory of God the Father.

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Sunday, 10 April 2022 : Palm Sunday of the Passion of the Lord (Second Reading)

Liturgical Colour : Red

Philippians 2 : 6-11

Though He was in the form of God, He did not regard equality with God as something to be grasped, but emptied Himself, taking on the nature of a servant, made in human likeness, and in His appearance found as a Man.

He humbled Himself by being obedient to death, death on the cross. That is why God exalted Him and gave Him the Name which outshines all names, so that at the Name of Jesus all knees should bend in heaven, on earth and among the dead, and all tongues proclaim that Christ Jesus is the Lord to the glory of God the Father.

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Monday, 3 January 2022 : Monday after the Epiphany, Memorial of the Most Holy Name of Jesus (Homily and Scripture Reflections)

Liturgical Colour : White

Dear brothers and sisters in Christ, today we listened to the words of the Lord in which we are reminded of the works that the Lord had done in our midst through His Son, as we celebrate the Feast in honour of His Most Holy Name, the Feast of the Most Holy Name of Jesus. On this day as we still celebrate the glorious feast of Christmas, we remind ourselves constantly of the great deeds that Our Lord had done for our sake. Through His Incarnation, He has been given a name like any other, and yet, because He is at the same time the Almighty God, His Name is the Name above every other names.

In order to appreciate the importance of this Feast of the Most Holy Name of Jesus, all of us must understand how important and sacred the Name of God is to the people of Israel, as by the Law and customs of the Israelites dictated that the Holy Name of God was not to be misused or even spoken in vain. In fact, the Name of God was so holy and sacrosanct that it was not to be uttered at all. The Name of God, often transliterated as YHVH, was not meant to be spoken, as holy as it was deemed to be, and hence, usually other honorific such as Adonai or ‘My Lord’ was used instead.

The Lord has therefore made His Name utterable and approachable to us, as through the Archangel Gabriel who brought the Good News of His coming to Mary, God told us His very own Name, through the words, ‘And you shall name Him, Jesus’. Through this act, God’s Name that was unutterable and unapproachable had become tangible just as He has appeared before us all in the flesh, coming to dwell in our midst and to grace us with His Presence. Yet, this does not mean that we can then treat His Name with disdain and with ignorance as many of us have often done.

The Second Commandment stated that ‘you shall not take or speak the Lord’s Name in vain’, and this is very significant as if we truly believe that Our Lord Jesus Christ is truly our Lord and God, appearing before us and dwelling with us in the flesh, truly Human yet truly Divine, then we should treat His Name with the same honour, respect, and adoration as the manner of how the Name of God, YHVH, had been treated by the people of God in the past. The Holy Name of Jesus is truly the Name above every other names as although His Name is now approachable to us, yet, as the Name of the One Almighty God, it has power over all things.

As the Scriptures mentioned, through His coming into this world, the Lord has manifested His truth and love, and in the Person of Jesus Christ, God has shown us all the perfect manifestation of the love and all that He has prepared for us, for the purpose of our salvation and liberation from the tyranny of sin and the bondage to death. Through His Name, He has made Himself approachable to us and by invoking His Name with faith, even the devil and all others will submit to His will, and that is why when a priest exorcised the demons, at the mention of the Name of the Lord Jesus, they would tremble and succumb.

But we have seen how we tend to make light of the use of the Lord’s Name, even in expletives and in many situations where we should not have uttered His Name in vain. We treated His Holy Name like a plaything and did not take His Name seriously, and even used His Name to do bad things instead. Such a blatant misuse and disregard for the sacredness and sanctity of Our Lord’s Holy Name is something that we really need to address, especially if we ourselves have done that from that time to time in the past.

Whenever the Holy Name of Jesus is mentioned, we should remind ourselves that this Name is the One by which we have been saved and received the promise of eternal life and true happiness. We should respect it and pay attention to it, and as commanded by the laws of the Church, at every mention of the Holy Name of Our Lord at the Mass, we ought to make a bow to show our respect to His Name, and not only a bow of our head, but also a bow from our heart. It is easy for us to make the gesture of a bow, but it is often more difficult to honour Him from our hearts.

Brothers and sisters in Christ, let us all from now on make use of the Holy Name of Jesus Christ, Our Lord and Saviour, in the right and respectful way while always remembering all that He had done for our sake, in reaching out to us with His most generous love. By His coming into this world, He has shown us His love and the commitment He made to the Covenant He had created with us. In honouring His Name with genuine faith, love and devotion, we are responding to His call and to His outreach to us, answering the great love that He has always shown us all these while.

Let us all therefore continue to remind ourselves of all the love God has shown us as we still progress through this current Christmas season. Let us inspire one another to live our lives with Christ ever at the centre and as the focus of our daily living, and honour His Holy Name at every opportunity. Let us remember Him through His Name, for all the wonderful things He had done for us and for all the blessings, particularly the love with which He has offered Himself for our sake, shedding His Most Precious Body and Blood as the worthy offerings for the atonement of our sins.

May Our Lord Jesus Christ, Whose Holy Name we glorify and praise today, be with us always, and may He bless us all in our every good works and endeavours, now and always. May all of us draw ever closer to Him and trust ever more in the power of His Holy Name. Amen.

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Monday, 3 January 2022 : Monday after the Epiphany, Memorial of the Most Holy Name of Jesus (Gospel Reading)

Liturgical Colour : White

Matthew 4 : 12-17, 23-25

When Jesus heard that John had been arrested, He withdrew into Galilee. He left Nazareth and went to live in Capernaum, a town by the lake of Galilee, at the border of Zebulun and Naphtali.

In this way the word of the prophet Isaiah was fulfilled : Land of Zebulun and land of Naphtali, crossed by the Road of the Sea, and you who live beyond the Jordan, Galilee, land of pagans : The people who lived in darkness have seen a great Light; on those who live in the land of the shadow of death, a Light has shone.

From that time on, Jesus began to proclaim His message, “Change your ways : the kingdom of heaven is near.” Jesus went around all Galilee, teaching in their synagogues, proclaiming the Good News of the kingdom, and curing all kinds of sickness and disease among the people.

The news about Him spread through the whole of Syria, and the people brought all their sick to Him, and all those who suffered : the possessed, the deranged, the paralysed, and He healed them all. Large crowds followed Him from Galilee and the Ten Cities, from Jerusalem, Judea and from across the Jordan.

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Monday, 3 January 2022 : Monday after the Epiphany, Memorial of the Most Holy Name of Jesus (Psalm)

Liturgical Colour : White

Psalm 2 : 7-8, 10-11

I will proclaim the decree of the Lord. He said to Me : “You are My Son. This day I have begotten You. Ask of Me and I will give You the nations for Your inheritance, the ends of the earth for Your possession.”

Now therefore, learn wisdom, o kings; be warned, o rulers of the earth. Serve the Lord with fear and fall at His feet; lest He be angry and you perish when His anger suddenly flares. Blessed are all who take refuge in Him!

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Monday, 3 January 2022 : Monday after the Epiphany, Memorial of the Most Holy Name of Jesus (First Reading)

Liturgical Colour : White

1 John 3 : 22 – 1 John 4 : 6

Then whatever we ask we shall receive, since we keep His commands and do what pleases Him. His command is that we believe in the Name of His Son Jesus Christ and that we love one another, as He has commanded us. Whoever keeps His commands remains in God and God in him. It is by the Spirit God has given us that we know He lives in us.

My beloved, do not trust every inspiration. Test the spirits to see whether they come from God, because many false prophets are now in the world. How will you recognise the Spirit of God? Any spirit recognising Jesus as the Christ Who has taken our flesh is of God. But any spirit that does not recognise Jesus is not from God, it is the spirit of the antichrist. You have heard of his coming and even now he is in the world.

You, my dear children, are of God and you have already overcome these people, because the One Who is in you is more powerful than he who is in the world. They are of the world and the world inspires them and those of the world listen to them. We are of God and those who know God listen to us, but those who are not of God ignore us. This is how we know the spirit of truth and the spirit of error as well.

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Sunday, 28 March 2021 : Palm Sunday of the Passion of the Lord (Second Reading)

Liturgical Colour : Red

Philippians 2 : 6-11

Though He was in the form of God, He did not regard equality with God as something to be grasped, but emptied Himself, taking on the nature of a servant, made in human likeness, and in His appearance found as a Man.

He humbled Himself by being obedient to death, death on the cross. That is why God exalted Him and gave Him the Name which outshines all names, so that at the Name of Jesus all knees should bend in heaven, on earth and among the dead, and all tongues proclaim that Christ Jesus is the Lord to the glory of God the Father.

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Friday, 3 January 2020 : Weekday of Christmas Time, Memorial of the Most Holy Name of Jesus (Homily and Scripture Reflections)

Liturgical Colour : White

Dear brothers and sisters in Christ, on this day we celebrate the feast of the Most Holy Name of Jesus, Our Lord and Saviour, recalling the words of the Archangel Gabriel to Mary, the mother of Our Lord at the Annunciation. The Archangel Gabriel told Mary that her Son, Who would be conceived by the Holy Spirit, is the Son of God, and He would be known as Jesus, that according to St. Paul in the second chapter of his Epistle to the Philippians, is the Name above every other names.

That is why today we celebrate this special occasion in which we recall this important fact of how by this Name, this special Name of the Lord all of us have been saved. There is no other names by which we have received salvation and only at the Name of Our Lord Jesus, we have received Him Who is our Saviour and Liberator, the One Who freed us from bondage to sin and to the punishment of death.

And we will understand its significance better when we know how in the historical past, the Holy Name of God, written in the Hebrew Tetragrammaton as YHVH, often translated into Yahweh in the modern use of the English language, is a Name that is taboo and not to be uttered in any way, for the Holy Name of God is so holy that uttering the Name was a grave sin and breach of the Jewish traditions and laws, and even more so if the Name was used in vain.

That is why, based on this historical precedent, the Church has never used the Holy Name of God in the form of YHVH or Yahweh unlike what some others have adopted or used, and instead preferring to use the title ‘Lord’ to refer to God in the Biblical context whenever the Holy Name is invoked and recorded. But it is kind of different with the Name, ‘Jesus’ which we focus on today, as this Name is indeed the Name of God too, because we believe that Jesus, the Son of God, is God. But yet, unlike the name ‘YHVH’ mentioned earlier, the Name Jesus can be used.

Why is that so? That is because if we understand it more clearly, we can make the link with how God, Who was once invisible and beyond our ability to grasp and perceive, has chosen to make Himself apparent and available to us, appearing in the Flesh; in the form of Man, by the incarnation of the Divine Word, the Son, into the humanity that He united to His divinity, in Jesus Christ, Our Lord and Saviour.

Since the beginning of time, God has given each and every one of us our identity, beginning with the naming of our first ancestors, Adam, who in turn named his wife, Eve. All mankind have been known by their names, and upon the birth of a baby, each and every one of them receive a name to distinguish themselves from one another. And just as how Adam named the animals and plants of the earth, we mankind also use names to identify objects and living things around us, in our own diverse languages.

Therefore, as Jesus was born as the Son of Man through His mother Mary, He also received this Name, Jesus, just like all of us have received our names. But what makes this Name so special and so far beyond any other names is the fundamental fact that Jesus is not just Man, but also fully God, incarnate in the Flesh. And that is why, if the name ‘YHVH’ was considered to be so holy and a grave taboo to be mentioned, the Name ‘Jesus’ is also holy and sacred.

That was why Pope Gregory X at the Second Council of Lyons in the year 1274 proclaimed that all Christians ought to bow reverently at the every mention of the Holy Name of Jesus, the Name special above all other names, the Name by which all of us have received our salvation and promise of eternal life, in accordance to what St. Paul had also written in his Epistle to the Philippians in our first reading today, that at the Name of Jesus, all knees shall bend, those on earth, in heaven and in the place below earth, that is hell and more.

Pope Gregory X mentioned this venerable practice and tradition of bowing at the Holy Name of Jesus which should be done reverently because if we can truly bend our heads to bow at the Name of Our Lord, inwardly this will indeed affect our hearts that will also bow and submit ourselves in humble obedience and love towards Him, for bowing is indeed a sign of humility, of love and of great respect and veneration, all of which we should give to God for the love He has shown to us all.

Unfortunately the sad reality is how few of the faithful practice this still mandatory and important practice of bowing at the Holy Name of Jesus, not to mention the related rule to also bow, although less profound, at the name of Mary, and also the saints on their feast days. Many among the priests and bishops themselves no longer practice this, and as a result, the respect once accorded to the Holy Name gradually became lost. We end up seeing how the Holy Name of Jesus was used in vain in many occasions, not just in secular use but even within the Church.

We make use of the Name of Jesus so lightly and at occasions when it is really inappropriate for us to mention His Name. Do we realise that in doing so we actually sin against God and cause even greater propagation of this lack of respect and adoration we ought to give God through His Holy Name? That is why we have this Feast of the Most Holy Name of Jesus, which had been instituted almost three hundred years ago in the year 1721 by Pope Innocent XIII. It is to remind us of the sanctity and the importance of the Holy Name of Jesus to us all.

Brothers and sisters in Christ, in the Holy Name of Our Lord Jesus Christ, we have God Who has made Himself tangible to us and accessible to us all, by extending His love to us dwelling among us in the Flesh. By His incarnation, all of us are now able to call Him by Name, just as we are also able to call Him Father, because of Christ, Who is our brother, sharing in the same Father as He is, and becoming God’s adopted sons and daughters.

Let us all reflect on this, brethren, and let us cultivate in us a new respect and honour for the Holy Name of Jesus from now on. Let us spread the venerable practice, that is still in fact mandatory, to bow at every mention of the Name of Jesus in the Mass, and stop any form of profane and inappropriate use of His Name from now on in all occasions. May the Lord Jesus Christ, by the power of His Holy Name, guide us to the love of God, our heavenly Father. Amen.

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Friday, 3 January 2020 : Weekday of Christmas Time, Memorial of the Most Holy Name of Jesus (Gospel Reading)

Liturgical Colour : White

John 1 : 29-34

At that time, the next day John saw Jesus coming towards him, and said, “There is the Lamb of God, Who takes away the sin of the world! It is He of Whom I said : A Man comes after me, Who is already ahead of me, for He was before me. I myself did not know Him, but I came baptising to prepare for Him, so that He might be revealed in Israel.”

And John also gave this testimony, “I saw the Spirit coming down on Him like a dove from heaven, and resting on Him. I myself did not know Him, but God, Who sent me to baptise, told me, “You will see the Spirit coming down, and resting, on the One Who baptises with the Holy Spirit.’ Yes, I have seen! And I declare that this is the Chosen One of God!”

Alternative reading (Mass of the Most Holy Name of Jesus)

Luke 2 : 21-24

On the eighth day, the circumcision of the Baby had to be performed; He was named Jesus, the Name the Angel had given Him before He was conceived. When the day came for the purification according to the Law of Moses, they brought the Baby up to Jerusalem, to present Him to the Lord, as it is written in the Law of the Lord : Every firstborn male shall be consecrated to God.

And they offered a sacrifice, as ordered in the Law of the Lord : a pair of turtledoves or two young pigeons.