Video Transcript

Edmund Mitchell: Hi everyone, and welcome back to The Real and True Podcast. I’m one of your co-hosts, Edmund Mitchell.

Emily Mentock: And I’m your other co-host, Emily Mentock.

Edmund Mitchell: And on the Real + True Podcast, we’re exploring the mission of Real + True, but also unlocking the Catechism for the modern world. And today, we are continuing to talk about the fourth pillar on prayer. 

And today in particular, we’re talking about the part of the Our Father or the Lord’s Prayer where we say “Hallowed be thy name.” So Emily, we’ve covered a few things so far, but this one in particular is a little interesting because it’s something that we don’t take enough time to think about is this part of the Our Father. I’ll admit that working on the scripts on this, I was thinking, “Man, I just don’t think about these four words that much.”

Emily Mentock: No, you’re so right. It’s true. That’s the beauty of diving into this part of the Catechism, and the gift that the Catechism has to offer us is that it takes something that maybe we do without much thought and gives us such richness behind it that can then add to the meaning and depth of our prayer. 

And I’m really excited to be talking about this topic. We have talked in the past—when we were going through the 10 Commandments—about reverence for God’s name in light of the second Commandment about not taking the Lord’s name in vain. And there’s an aspect of this that has to do with reverence for God’s name. But what I found so fascinating for us to talk more about in this podcast is then what does that look like in our lives for actually “hallowing” God’s name in our world today?

Edmund Mitchell: Yeah. And it’s interesting. Right before this, we said a prayer. We prayed the sign of the cross “In the name of the Father, and Son, and the Holy Spirit.” And we also ended it with “We pray this in your name.” And it’s something that I was thinking about how there’s so many things that Jesus could have taught us in the Lord’s Prayer, but He opens it with “Our Father, who art in Heaven. Hallowed be your name.” He could have said “Glorious are you” or “Wonderful, all-powerful are you.” But He really draws to mind the importance that we even know His name and that’s important for us, and that we kind of bear His name.

And I was thinking too about how there are names that carry weight in that way. For me, Michael Jordan—growing up—was this huge name that meant so much. It wasn’t just a person, it was an idea of striving and excellence and being a champion. Do you have any other names like that? Like throughout your life you’re like, “Oh man, this name is not just a person. Man, it’s this huge idea; it represents something for me?”

Emily Mentock: Yeah. In our world and in our language and the way we communicate as human beings, names carry that. If I’d for example told you, “Oh, I have this amazing friend; she is like Mother Teresa.” The name and who Mother Teresa is, communicate that. Or if I jokingly called you, “Okay, JPII,” it would communicate something about how you’re being because I’m applying that name to you. There’s many other secular examples as well, even negative ones. Calling someone a Karen or something like that.

Edmund Mitchell: Yeah. Or Benedict Arnold. Like “He’s a real Benedict Arnold.”

Emily Mentock: Yes, exactly. You’re right. That names carry weight, and Jesus understood that it probably was something similar in His time. And it has to do with the name of the person; the words, but also has to do with what’s happening in real life. And that’s what I really wanted to talk more about today. When we’re hallowing God’s name—well, we actually, we don’t hallow God’s name. We’re not the ones who bless it. That was such an important point in the Catechism that we discussed in the Explanation video. But, how does God’s name become hallowed does have a lot to do with us.

Edmund Mitchell: Yeah. It’s been really cool reflecting on these paragraphs because it really made me realize when I pray this in the Our Father, I’m not just praying it as just a, “Hey, we all know this. God’s name is holy.” It really is inviting me or challenging me to something deeper; challenging me to actually mean it. And you had pointed out that for you, paragraph 2814 was really impactful. Maybe you want to break that down a little bit.

Emily Mentock: Yeah, I’ll read it. So it says Catechism paragraph 2814: “The sanctification of his name among the nations depends inseparably on our life and our prayer.” Okay. This is mind-blowing.

Edmund Mitchell: Yeah.

Emily Mentock: Sorry for showing so much enthusiasm for this little line, but how much do we think about that the sanctification of God’s name in our world depends on our life and our prayer? So when we ask God; when we pray in the Our Father to “hallow His name,” we’re asking Him to hallow it through us. This is what the Catechism is saying; that God’s name is made holy in our world through what we do with his name in our world.

Edmund Mitchell: Yeah. It’s cool; that kind of double meaning. It’s such an interesting dynamic where yes, God’s name is always holy; no matter what we do in a sense, but we can make His name holy. I love that you said, “in our world or in our worlds or in our neighborhood through our life and prayer.” And so it’s interesting that the Catechism says it depends on our life and prayer. But not in the sense that it’s not already holy, it’s just that His sanctification among the nations depends on our life and prayer. 

I think of saints who were sent to faraway lands to represent Christ to other people. And so God’s name being made holy there really depended on their lives and their prayer being holy and reflecting that. And I think that’s something that—especially in a post-Christian world—where your religious affiliation, it’s just a thing. It’s just such a common thing that we might not think twice about representing God and Christianity in our daily lives.

Emily Mentock: Yes. I think that is such an important point for the world that we live in today, because as the world became more developed and there’s better communication—we’ve talked about this before—but there’s endless sources of content and inspiration for trying to be a “good person” or trying “make the world a better place.” 

I don’t want to say that people haven’t been doing that for all of time as well, but I’m just speaking to my experience of the world that I’ve been placed in; that people are always living for something. Or nothing, but they’re pursuing something good.

Edmund Mitchell: Yeah.

Emily Mentock: But I think it is so essential—and the Catechism makes it so clear for us here—that if we are living for God and we want to bring about the salvation of the world, and we want to make the world a better place, or live our life according to how God has called us to live, or draw people to the Gospel, we can’t just do that without saying for whom we are doing it. We cannot sanctify the world without saying God’s name or telling people why we live and act the way we do..

Edmund Mitchell: Yeah. If you were raised Catholic, you’ve said all the time; you started prayers or started Mass “In the name of the Father, Son and Holy Spirit.” And so that might be something that sounds very familiar and common, but it has this deep meaning: that we do things in the name of Jesus. So I think that’s really powerful. 

What comes to mind is a passage in Scripture where the disciples come to Jesus and they say, “Hey, there are these guys out there that don’t know us or you, but they’re casting out demons in your name.” And Jesus literally says “They can’t do good works unless it’s in my name.” And He doesn’t say to go tell them to stop. He’s like, “No. If they’re doing it in my name, they’re doing good works in my name, they’re hallowing my name; they’re keeping my name holy and doing good works on my behalf, then I’m not going to stop them.” 

And I think that’s a huge responsibility too. I remember we were talking about this importance of doing acts of service and doing evangelization not just in a way that feels like, “Oh, this is just a really nice pay-it-forward habit to do,” but that the name of Jesus is at least brought up. And don’t you feel like that could probably be taken too far? Every time you do something nice for someone, you’re like, “Hey, by the way. Jesus”

Emily Mentock: “It’s because of God.”

Edmund Mitchell: “It’s because of Jesus.”

Emily Mentock: Yeah. No, that’s so true. Because also I think the other part of the prayer of “Hallowed be thy name;” that it be hallowed in us is “Well, God, since I am a Christian; since people know that I have my faith; since I do use your name when I pray and in my life, help me actually live in a way worthy of that name.” 

Like, “Help me hallow your name through my actions and in my life; help bring about that holiness.” But I think when we talk about evangelization, it’s to help people know and love God, not help people to better themselves and the world.

Edmund Mitchell: Yeah.

Emily Mentock: Who are we pointing toward?

Edmund Mitchell: Yeah. I heard someone say once—in light of maybe homilies, but also just preaching or teaching in general—that if you’re trying to preach the Gospel, but if you took the text of maybe your talk or maybe a homily, and it could have very well have just been given at a Tony Robbins or an Oprah conference or something, maybe we’re not really doing evangelization.

Emily Mentock: Yes.

Edmund Mitchell: And there’s this quote here from Evangelii Nuntiandi that we brought up. Do you want to maybe read this?

Emily Mentock: Sure. I’ll read it. Edmund found the quote, I’m just going to read it.

Edmund Mitchell: Okay. I was trying to give you all the credit.

Emily Mentock: I said this thought almost originally, but Edmund did go and make sure we had some magisterial teaching to back it up.

Edmund Mitchell: Well, that’s what’s cool is you said this thought without even thinking of the Church document, you’re just like, “This is a real thing.”

Emily Mentock: “This is what I think.” And then Edmund was like, “Let’s make sure we quote that.” So Evangelii Nuntinadi paragraph 22 says, “There is no true evangelization if the name, the teaching, the life, the promises, the kingdom and the mystery of Jesus of Nazareth, the Son of God are not proclaimed.” And that is just so important. 

When we’re praying, when we’re working, when we’re evangelizing, when we’re catechizing, we have to say in whose name we are doing that so that God’s name can be hallowed by the nation through the world as the Catechism explains. And I just love that because you’re right; we need to remind ourselves that in the content we’re sharing, we should be living like Christ. We can’t depend on doing something in the name of Jesus to be compelling to those who don’t know Him. 

But we also can’t do things for Jesus to bring about the salvation of the world without saying, “Then it’s God who is saving the world.”

Edmund Mitchell: I remember when my kids were really, really young—I don’t know how well I’ve done this—but I remember setting this kind of challenge for myself that “Man, I want when my kids to get older, to not say so much ‘Oh, Dad used to always say,’ but to say ‘Dad used to always say “Jesus says.’” And I really wanted to set that up as a practical thing for me. 

So maybe we could start talking about these practicals; how do we help people we’re catechizing or evangelizing really get this concept that prayer to our Father is our prayer, if it is prayed in the name of Jesus, that His name being holy depends on our life and our prayer— not just our prayer—but the way we live our lives? 

Maybe we could start talking about how to make that practical for people who are in positions—either parents, catechists, informal catechists, evangelists. Where should we start? We have a few different ideas here.

Emily Mentock: We have a few ideas. This is even maybe another one that’s fresh on my mind. Not necessarily directly from the show notes, but one that’s coming to my mind is—and we talked about this a little bit when we talked about “Our Father”—but how comfortable are you using the names of God? How comfortable are you saying in your everyday life, “God is my Father.” Or saying “Lord,” or saying “Jesus,” or saying to the Holy Spirit, “Holy Spirit, come into this moment.”

 How comfortable—but especially in Jesus and God; addressing God as Father—how comfortable are you using the names that God has revealed to us?

Edmund Mitchell: Yeah.

Emily Mentock: And making sure that that is part of your language. I think I shared before, I so admired how friends of mine would talk about and to Jesus like a personal friend.

And so I made it an intentional practice of mine to try and be better at that; to say “Jesus” in my life. And it’s noticeable. I was just reconnecting with a friend recently who I hadn’t seen in a long time; sharing about some of my conversion story. And they noticed in my story how I talked about Jesus and not just God in general, which is maybe even something I wouldn’t have done when it first happened 10 years ago. 

So maybe do a bit of an audit of how you use—whether it’s in your own prayer just in your mind, or especially out loud to others—how you use the names of God.

Edmund Mitchell: I agree a hundred percent. And it’s something I’ve noticed in ministry with volunteers or even people you’re catechizing. It’s so true that people sometimes—not always, but sometimes—gravitate towards certain names of God because that’s where they’re comfortable. And it reminds me of some people talk about eye contact being too intimate; prolonged eye contact can sometimes be too intimate. Or if you’re uncomfortable around someone, you might avoid eye contact because it feels maybe a little too intimate. 

And I’ve noticed that sometimes—not always—but sometimes people at earlier stages of a relationship with God—where it’s maybe not as personal—are much more comfortable saying “God” and speaking about God, like you said, as this impersonal force; this kind of idea and concept. But when you’re asking them to maybe pray with the name of the Father or pray “Father;” praying that specifically; praying to Jesus or praying to the Holy Spirit sometimes we kind of struggle with that.

And that would be something to help people—not to force them to do it—but just to say, “Hey, is this something you could spend some time doing a little more this week?” And just ask yourself “Why is it that praying those things maybe is a little harder?” 

And I think even as catechists—like to your point—we should be taking note of how often we are using those different names and speaking of those names as if they’re familiar to us. Because they should be in our personal prayer. That can be really, really helpful, especially unpacking with someone going from, “God, I love you” to “Jesus, I want to have a personal relationship with you.”

Emily Mentock: Yes. And like we talked about in previous units about respect for God’s name and exploring just the concept of names in general. And it’s relevant again here. Names carry meaning. They carry weight. That’s how our world works; it’s how we relate to people. And so it does make a difference to say the name. 

And then the flip side of it—like we were saying—is if you’re going to use God’s name—and I think this is a big part of the prayer of the Our Father—is asking that God’s name be hallowed through us. Saying it out loud is one piece of it, but how then we act with reverence toward that name; how we’re using it, and the actions that follow also reflect how we’re hallowing God’s name in our lives.

Edmund Mitchell: Yeah. Some other touch points that can be helpful for people is just the practice of adopting baptismal and Confirmation names. I know in some cultures the baptismal names are maybe more prevalent still. But definitely Confirmation names is something where we take the name of a saint. And it’s a custom that we might not think twice about, but that’s an opportunity to talk about “Why is it that we take Confirmation names?”

Well, it’s because these saints hallowed God’s name with their lives. And so we now give some respect and pride and place to their names because of the way their lives honored God’s name. There was one catechist—man, I can’t remember if this was my professor or someone else—who said that they would look at the list of their students, maybe in OCIA or in some ministry context.

But before the first day of class, they would look through the names and figure out what a patron saint could be. So either from their first name, their last name, or they would just ask them at some point for their saint name, and try to use those saints as examples to kind of connect. Like “Oh, we have a Teresa in our class. Maybe we don’t have a Francis, but we have a John.” And trying to bring to mind the fact that their names have these connections to holy men and women that lived lives, and their life and their prayer honored God’s name.

Emily Mentock: Right. Exactly. The story behind the name. Though it is just a custom because—I don’t remember if we did a podcast for Confirmation or not–but I did not choose a saint’s name for mine.

Edmund Mitchell: Yeah. Not everyone does it.

Emily Mentock: You still have those people that you can turn to. Or “Why do we have a feast day that is ‘Blessed be the name of Mary?’”Because names matter.

Edmund Mitchell: Yeah.

Emily Mentock: The name Mary matters to us. That’s why even in our world maybe the understanding of the names has been lost in our secularized society. I’m just thinking of “Why is San Antonio called St. Anthony?” There’s a whole place named for that. I live right now in St. Joseph County with a St. Joseph River, and there’s many St. Joseph parishes. The name of this place reflects the devotion of the people to those saints. Then the saints are reflecting; doing things in the name of God. 

So we’ve maybe lost that a little bit. But a fun challenge could be—especially for catechists is “Where—in the place where you live or teach—are there holy names around that then you can use your teaching opportunity to remind people of the meaning behind some of those names?”

Edmund Mitchell: Yeah. I’m remembering the Connection video for this, but also just the impact it can have to remind people that in the early Church to be associated with Jesus’ name had huge consequences. The name “Jesus” carried—in some ways—larger consequences and larger—I don’t know; it just had more cultural kind of charge to it—the name of Jesus Christ. 

First of all, because Christ the Messiah would’ve been a direct kind of rebellion against the Emperor who is seen as this anointed king. But also just the context of people who were familiar with the story and the people that followed Jesus. And in time periods in the Church—and still in some places today maybe—there’s this consequence of severe punishment and or death if you associated with the name of Jesus. If you took on the name “Christian,” that could have severe consequences. 

And people still wore that representation of Christ with faithfulness and honor and courage. And again, it took me a while—until I got older—to really appreciate the fact that I take for granted my freedom and ability to do that; I take for granted the seriousness of representing God’s name and being part of His family; under the banner of His name.

Emily Mentock: Yes. The way we speak and act in the name of God has huge implications. Even if maybe for some of us—probably for the audience listening to this podcast—the consequences of that are less severe. But there are places in the world today where that’s still true. And we should not take it for granted at all; being able to speak the name of Jesus mostly freely in the culture today. 

So there’s one thing I really want to get to. This is a very special story that you’ve shared with us. It’s special because in the earliest days of dreaming up this project—this was actually a story that we talked about as an idea for what a Proclamation video could be—or just to understand how to preach the Gospel in a way where we’re preparing people before they hear what the Catechism actually says. But we haven’t actually used it before, and it is relevant to the conversation that we’re having. So I would love for you to share the story of Ildefonso from Radiolab.

Edmund Mitchell: Yeah. It’s one of my favorite episodes. I’ve had people over the years text me and say, “What was that? Where do I find this episode?” So if you search for “Radiolab Ildefonso” I think is the episode—or maybe it’s called “Words.” But it’s a story from a book of the author would teach deaf individuals; she would teach sign language. And in this one class it was older people. So men and women in their twenties or thirties are learning sign language. 

And so she had one particularly difficult student because all of the normal ways of teaching sign language weren’t working with this person. And she could figure out that he was intelligent; he was smart but he couldn’t get the concept where she would sign. She would do the sign for “table” and then point to the table.

And he would only ever repeat stuff. He didn’t understand what it was she was doing. And then there was one moment where she just had this kind of stroke of brilliance to try acting out what she was looking for. And so she sat on one side of the table and signed “cat,” and then pointed to the picture of the cat, and then sat in the other chair where her student would’ve sat as he’s watching. And then pretended to “Oh, this is a cat” and would make these expressions. And “Oh, the cat.”

And this amazing part in the episode where she’s describing her experience of this man; this grown man that had lived 20 some odd years of his life, suddenly his eyes get really wide and it snaps and clicks for him that everything has a name.

And he had lived his entire life thinking that people were making movements with their mouth and movements with their hands, but not understanding how they were communicating. He didn’t have a concept of the idea of words. He would see things written down and not really understand what was going on. I should have mentioned at the beginning, he couldn’t read either. He was illiterate, so words on pages didn’t really make sense to him. He had just lived his whole life as a poor tradesperson I think; just not really understanding communication. 

And so understanding the concept of words and that everything has a name, it suddenly clicked for him. And he starts rushing around pointing at things; he points at the table and she signs “table,” he points at the chair, he signs “chair,” and he’s just trying to fill in all of these different things.

And then suddenly, he collapses on the floor and just starts crying because this was such a huge shift for him. What isn’t mentioned in the podcast—but I was left wondering—was, “Man, if I was him, I would be wondering ‘What’s the sign for my name?’” And she said that throughout the rest of the couple weeks that they were together, he would come in with this list and just start adding to this list names of objects and things and people, and guarded it as this sacred list that he had. 

And man, I get goosebumps anytime I think about it because it’s not often that we experience the sacredness or this otherworldness of things that sometimes we take for granted. And something like the name we give an object. In the podcast they talk about “What happens when suddenly you realize that this concept or this idea has a name. What happens to your world—and the way you view the world—when suddenly something has a word or a name that you can call it; what happens to your relationship with that thing or person?”

And it’s a really beautiful example—I think—of helping people tap into a little bit the sacredness of the spiritual dimension. We have this spiritual dimension that we don’t always perceive or notice; this mystery. And there’s a paragraph 2809 it says, “The holiness of God is the inaccessible center of his eternal mystery. What is revealed of it in creation and history, Scripture calls “glory,” the radiance of his majesty. In making man in his image and likeness, God “crowned him with glory and honor,” but by sinning, man fell short.”

Anyways, it goes on—Oh, sorry. This part here; the last sentence—”From that time on, God was to manifest his holiness by revealing and giving his name, in order to restore man to the image of his Creator.”

And so I think this idea of helping people understand that God is a mystery—not like a puzzle to solve—but he’s a mystery in whatever it is that we tap into— in the story of Ildefonso or when we have a deep spiritual encounter with God—it’s this unending depth of mystery and meaning and love and truth.

And I think that if we can help people encounter that a little bit by reflecting on God’s name and the fact that He even gives us His name, it would be time well spent in catechesis and evangelization

Emily Mentock: Absolutely. I think what I love about the story is that it really helps us understand what it meant for God to reveal His name to us. The guy struggled; there was chaos. He didn’t understand; he couldn’t communicate; he couldn’t grow an understanding without the name applied or the idea of names applied. 

And that’s what our world is without the name of God. How would we know what is truly from God? How would we experience the richness and the gift of passing things on from one person to the next; from one generation to the next, if we couldn’t identify it with the name of Jesus; with the name of God; with understanding “What comes from our Father?” 

And so it would feel like chaos to us. It would feel like we don’t have something to grasp onto.

And to the point of the quote, the actual holiness of God is an eternal mystery. Having the name revealed to us doesn’t solve the mystery. The same way if you say “table,” we both think of “table.” It doesn’t encapsulate all that tables are.

Edmund Mitchell: Yeah.

Emily Mentock: We just get the idea of a table. But it helps us connect with what a table is. It helps us communicate with each other. It helps us teach the next person. And for God’s name—the name above all names—it’s the most true. That we are able to maintain a relationship with God, have a relationship with God; communicate to others our relationship with God, by His name. 

And so I think that’s so important for people to understand in all that we’re teaching and all that we’re catechizing to always connect that to God’s name.

Edmund Mitchell: Yeah. One last thing it reminds me of is St. Paul going to Athens and he sees different statues of different gods and their names, but then there’s a statue of the unnamed God. Do you remember this?

Emily Mentock: Yeah, I read this.

Edmund Mitchell: It’s kind of interesting. And so then he goes to this statue and then calls people around and says, “Hey, this unnamed God? I know His name. This unnamed God is bigger than all the other gods you think exists. This is the actual God. And I want to tell you His name and that He actually revealed His name to us. This is a real thing. It’s not a myth; it’s not one of many gods. It is the God. And He actually has revealed His name, and I’m ready to tell you it. So we could put it on this plaque here, and you can actually have a relationship with a God who’s revealed His name.” 

And it’s such a cool, cool story that highlights a lot of what we’ve been talking about.

Emily Mentock: Yes. Name above all names. That’s what I’m going to keep praying with today. Well, thank you so much Edmund, for this conversation. As always, I have learned so much from you.

Edmund Mitchell: Me too.

Emily Mentock: And I hope that those who are listening feel the same. If you have any additional questions, feel free to drop them in the comments or send us an email. But thank you for spending time with us today on this podcast where we seek to unlock the beauty and truth of the Catechism and help people around the world encounter its pulsating heart: Jesus Christ. 

We think that the Catechism is the faithful echo of a God who desires to reveal Himself to us, including through His name. And you can find more content that is part of this mission and the work that we do at realtrue.org. And find more episodes like this podcast on Spotify, Apple Music; anywhere that you get your podcast. Thank you so much! Have a great day.