I find it deeply upsetting and I ask folk if they would say ‘Janeymac’ instead. Oftentimes they are not aware they are being blasphemous. If you love Jesus don’t do it - if you don’t love Jesus don’t do it.
Yesterday, I got told a beautiful story from our childhood, shedding light on my journey. Fifty years ago, my sister Chris and her friend Rita were tending sheep with our Dad. Every time a sheep would break loose, Rita in a state of panic would call out ‘Jesus’, obviously normal practice in her home. After a while our Dad sighed gently: ‘Please do not call the Holy Name in vain’.
My sister Chris remembers the moment like it was yesterday. Nothing has changed, fifty years ago and today, most Holy Name of Jesus sacrosanct. Transcendent immutable truth.
I am following in my dear Dad’s footsteps, another similarity, another confirmation. As I stumble along my road of life. falling and rising, shafts of light illuminates the way ahead when I least expect them. For a time, at least, I find my bearings, I know I am on the right road.
‘Let us always whisper His Name of Love as the antidote to all the discord that surrounds us. The harmony of Heaven begins, while silent from the world, we again and again repeat it - JESUS, JESUS, JESUS, JESUS, JESUS’.
‘Moreover, be mindful of the Name of Jesus. I have told you how you should reverence this Name when you hear it spoken, the devotion springing always from your heart. And if you should fall on your knees when you hear this Name, you kneel to God, the Son of God’. (St. Bernardine of Siena)
‘To holy people, the very Name of Jesus is a Name to feed upon, a Name to transport. His Name can raise the dead and transfigure and beautify the living’. (St. John Henry Newman)
‘God only gave us Ten Commandments and one of the ten has for its sole object the reverence due to His Name. Yet, is there anything nowadays that is treated with less respect than the Sacred Name?.’ (Cure D’Ars)
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