By Br. Michael James Rivera, OP
“After eight days had passed, it was time to circumcise the child; and he was called Jesus, the name given by the angel before he was conceived in the womb.” --Luke 2:21
Earlier this month our province celebrated its titular feast, that of the Most Holy Name of Jesus. Since the universal church observes this day as an optional memorial on January 3, many of the student brothers (who are typically visiting their families for the Christmas break) have never celebrated this day with a Dominican community. This year, however, I had the honor of observing the feast with our community in Salt Lake City. After Mass, while meditating on the Gospel and Fr. Carl’s homily, I was briefly caught up in a memory.
As a child in CCD, I remember being taught to bow my head at the mention of the name of Jesus, the Blessed Virgin Mary, or any of my patron saints. Like memorizing the “Our Father” or the “Hail Mary” or the proper parts of the Mass, this was just another part of our weekly routine. Nowadays it seems as if this practice is no longer the norm. It’s rare to see people bow during the profession of the Nicene Creed at the words “and by the Holy Spirit was incarnate of the Virgin Mary and became man,” yet alone incline their heads at the mention of the name of Jesus. In the last few weeks I’ve begun to reflect on why this might be, and my answer is William Shakespeare.
In that oh-so-famous balcony scene, we hear the following words on the lips of young Juliet as she pines for her beloved Romeo:
'Tis
but thy name that is my enemy; / Thou art thyself, though not a Montague. / What's
Montague? it is nor hand, nor foot, / Nor arm, nor face, nor any other part / Belonging
to a man. O, be some other name!
What's
in a name? that which we call a rose / By any other name would smell as sweet;
/ So Romeo would, were he not Romeo call'd, / Retain that dear perfection which
he owes / Without that title. Romeo, doff thy name, / And for that name which
is no part of thee / Take all myself.
Juliet would lead us to believe that words, especially names, aren’t important. Romeo would still be who he is, even if he were not called Romeo, and a rose would still smell as sweet, even if it was called something else. It’s rather interesting that Shakespeare, who is considered one of the greatest playwrights and a master of words, would have one of his characters say such a thing. Thus some scholars have suggested that the words are meant to be dismissed as the overly-dramatic prose of a teenager in love. Still, I cannot but help to find some truth in Juliet’s logic. A person’s name is not the very core of who they are; it does not reveal everything about them.
On the other hand, it is how we as human beings describe the whole of a person in all the ways in which we know them. And so it is with the name of Jesus. When we call upon the name of Jesus, we bring to mind, with one word, all that we understand Jesus to be; everything we have learned about him throughout the years, and every experience and encounter of his presence in our lives. With that in mind, I now realize why I was taught to bow my head in prayer at the name of Jesus, and why our province honors this name every time we preach and fulfill our mission to the world.