What's in a Name?
by Pat Gohn in Faith on Thursday, May 06, 2010 6:00 AM
What does the name of your beloved mean to you? Or the name of your child? Your best friend? The name of a dear Mama or Papa?
It means everything, doesn’t it? These are the names that mean the most to us. For the name of the one you love rings and resonates with deep significance.
To learn a person’s name is the first step toward loving them.
Throughout the early history of the Old Testament, God slowly and deliberately revealed himself to his people. Like a prolonged courtship, there was a slow getting-to-know-you period between God and the people he chose to be his own.The Bible attests to how God inserts himself into human history in his supernatural encounters with the patriarchs, Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. Indeed, the twelve tribes of Israel that came after them were unique among other peoples for they were monotheistic. They knew there was One God.
Then, one eventful day, in front of a blazing “burning” bush, Moses was about to become a deeper friend of God (See Ex 3: 6-15). For as he stood in the presence of the One True God, veiled in the mysterious bush-inferno, God did something He never did before. He revealed his name.
And so, the God who is beyond time and space, the One who is faithful and compassionate, gracious and merciful, and the One who remembers all his promises, speaks to Moses. God promises to release his people from slavery. He wills to do it, and guarantees it with his almighty power. Then He sends Moses to be the instrument for this divine plan. Finally, God seals the deal by announcing his name.
Moses said to God, “If I come to the people of Israel and say to them, ‘The God of your fathers has sent me to you’, and they ask me, ‘What is his name?’ what shall I say to them?” God said to Moses, “I AM WHO I AM.” And he said, “Say this to the people of Israel, ‘I AM has sent me to you’. . . this is my name for ever, and thus I am to be remembered throughout all generations.” (Ex. 3: 13-15.)
Commenting on that scripture, the Catechism of the Catholic Church, in CCC 206 and 207 states:
This divine name is mysterious just as God is mystery. It is at once a name revealed and something like the refusal of a name, and hence it better expresses God as what he is - infinitely above everything that we can understand or say: he is the “hidden God”, his name is ineffable, and he is the God who makes himself close to men ...
By revealing his name God … reveals his faithfulness which is … everlasting ... [His] name …“I AM”… reveals himself as the God who is always there, present to his people in order to save them.
God is both indescribable, while at the same time, describing himself as being very present to his people through his unfailing and unconditional love. The God who is beyond all our imaginings comes near and reveals himself.
His name is at once, unlimited and full of the Truth: God is “He Who IS.”
CCC 213 elaborates:
The Church’s Tradition, understood the divine name in this sense: God is the fullness of Being and of every perfection, without origin and without end. All creatures receive all that they are and have from him; but he alone is his very being, and he is of himself everything that he is.
I’m not sure Moses could take it all in as he stood by the burning bush … but he most certainly was forever changed by the encounter, knowing he met the One from whom all life flowed.
From that moment on, God’s name was not longer a secret, and God continued to revealed more of himself until the world finally met the human face of God in Jesus Christ.
Recall how Jesus said, “I have come in my Father’s name… (Jn 5:43, cf. Jn 10:25).”
CCC 211:
Jesus reveals that he himself bears the divine name: “When you have lifted up the Son of man, then you will realize that “I AM” [Jn 8:28].”
In Jesus, the Living God, “I AM”, is Truth and Love personified. And in Jesus, the world is given another name for God that is equal in power, might, and majesty.
Within the name of God, we find all divinity, all mystery, all life, all holiness, all faithfulness, all truth, all love, all perfection, and all being. God is never less than … all.
When we pray the Creed, “I believe in God,” we are not praying to an abstraction, but to one from Whom all our life and love flows. One whose name ought be cherished, honored, and adored, as our closest kin.
Want to read more?
Try CCC 209:
Out of respect for the holiness of God, the people of Israel do not pronounce his name. In the reading of Sacred Scripture, the revealed name (YHWH) is replaced by the divine title “LORD” (in Hebrew Adonai, in Greek Kyrios). It is under this title that the divinity of Jesus will be acclaimed: “Jesus is LORD.”
—Pat Gohn is a wife & mother celebrating 27 years of Catholic family life. Her Catholic writing, podcasting, and ministry life are found at PatGohn.com.
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