The Catechism in a Year (with Fr. Mike Schmitz) - Day 360: Hallowing God’s Name (2025)

Episode Date: December 26, 2025

What does it mean to hallow God’s name? We are not the source or cause of God’s holiness. As the Catechism says, we hallow God’s name so it may be glorified, loved, and known. Jesus instructs us in the Our Father to petition and desire that we be drawn into God’s plan of loving kindness. In time, God’s name is hallowed in how we live and how we pray. Today’s readings are Catechism paragraphs 2807-2815. This episode has been found to be in conformity with the Catechism by the Institute on the Catechism, under the Subcommittee on the Catechism, USCCB. For the complete reading plan, visit ascensionpress.com/ciy Please note: The Catechism of the Catholic Church contains adult themes that may not be suitable for children - parental discretion is advised.

Hi, my name's Father Mike Schmitz, and you're listening to the Catechism in a Year podcast, where we encounter God's plan of sheer goodness for us, revealed in scripture, and passed down through the tradition of the Catholic faith. The Catechism in a year is brought to you by ascension. In 365 days, we'll read through the Catechism of the Catholic Church discovering our identity in God's family as we journey together toward our heavenly home. This is day 360, all the way around. We're reading paragraphs 2807 to 2815. As always, I'm using the Ascension edition of the Catechism, which includes the foundations of faith approach, but you can follow along with any recent version of the Catechism of the Catholic Church.

You can also download your own catechism in your reading plan for those last six days by visiting ascensionpress.com slash CIY, although there is some satisfaction in checking off the days, I have to admit. You also can click follow or subscribing your podcast app for daily updates, daily notifications. I know, guys, here we have day 360 all the way around the world. Amazing, right, 360 degrees circle. We come full circle, almost. after this day, five more days, but you get it. You guys, thank you. Thank you so much. If you've been, if you're here, it's because you've been listening. And maybe you just jumped in.

Maybe this is your first day, in which case, hey, welcome. And that's weird. But I thank you for all of you have supported the production of this podcast, your prayers, your present play, your financial gifts. We couldn't do this without you. It is essential. As we said, so many times, this podcast is free, but it's not made for free. And so grateful for those of you who are like, hey, I got value out of this and I want to, you know, share the love a little bit. So thank you so much. Speaking of sharing the love, here's a segue. Today, we're talking about the first petition in the Lord's Prayer, the first petition in the Our Father, which is hallowed be thy name. And so let's highlight this. The first question people always ask when it comes to, what does it

mean to hallow God's name? Are we saying, well, here's, I'll let the catechism speak for itself. Paragraph 2807 says this. The term to hallow is to be understood here, not primarily in its causative sense, only God hallows, only God makes holy, but above all, in an evaluative sense, to recognize as holy, to treat in a holy way. So every time you've been praying, the Lord's prayer and prayed, Father, hallowed be thy name. You're not making it holy by saying, hallow be your name, hallow be thy name, right? It's not a causative sense, but in an evaluative sense to recognize as holy. God, may your name be glorified. May your name be known. May your name be loved, right may you be loved and that's that's hopefully hopefully even on that and if you didn't know that

well then it only took 360 days of reading the catacism catacism to get there so here we are we're also going to talk we're going to continue to talk about what's the depth to which the holiness of god can be hallowed right the holiness of god can be known and loved and revered and yeah just talk about the holiness and sanctification of god's name among the nations and how paragraph 2814 will highlight this, the sanctification of his name among the nations depends inseparably on our life and on our prayer. And so, we'll get there. Right now, though, let's say a prayer. In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, amen. Father in heaven, we praise you and glorify you. We actually do. We ask, we pray that your name is hallowed, that your name is known. Your name is revered and loved

above all other names. First of all, Lord God, we ask that we, that we revere your name, that we glorify your name by our words and our actions, how we live, how we treat each other, how we pray. May we love your name. Lord God, above every other name. Let us love your name, above every other name. Let it be the sweetest name to our ears and the name that is a soothing balm to our hearts. Lord God, your name heals. Howl it be your name. Your name revives. Lord God, howl it be your name. Your name gives life. God, hallowed be your name. Your name reconciles. God, hallowed be your name.

Your name saves us from everlasting death and brings us to you. Lord, hallowed be your name. We make this prayer. In the mighty name of Jesus Christ, our Lord. Amen. In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit.

Amen. It is day 360. We're reading paragraphs 2807 to 2815. Hallowed be thy name. The term to hallow is to be understood here not primarily in its causative sense. Only God hallows makes holy, but above all, in an evaluative sense, to recognize as holy, to treat in a holy way. And so in adoration, this invocation is sometimes understood as praise and Thanksgiving, but this petition is here taught to us by Jesus as an optative, a petition,

a desire, and an expectation in which God and man are involved. Beginning with this first petition to our Father, we are immersed in the innermost mystery of his Godhead and the drama of the salvation of our humanity. Asking the Father, that his name be made holy, draws us into his plan of loving kindness for the fullness of time, according to his purpose for which he set forth in Christ that we might be holy and blameless before him in love. In the decisive moments of his economy, God reveals his name, but he does so by accomplishing his work. This work then is realized for us and in us, only if his name is hallowed by us and in us. 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 of the glory of God. 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. In the promise to Abraham and the oath that accompanied it, God commits himself but without disclosing his name. He begins to reveal it to Moses and makes it known clearly before the eyes of the whole people when he saves them from the Egyptians. He has triumphed gloriously. From the covenant of Sinai onwards, this people is his own, and it is to be a holy or consecrated, the same word is used for both in Hebrew, nation. Because the name of God dwells in it. In spite of the

holy law that again and again their holy God gives them, you shall be holy for I the Lord your God am holy, and although the Lord shows patience for the sake of his name, the people turn away from the holy one of Israel and profane his name among the nations. For this reason, the just ones of the old covenant, the poor survivors return from exile, and the prophets burned with passion for the name. Finally, in Jesus, the name of the Holy God is revealed and given to us, in the flesh as Savior, revealed by what he is, by his word, and by his sacrifice. This is the heart of his priestly prayer, Holy Father, for their sake I consecrate myself, that they also may be consecrated in truth. Because he sanctifies his own name,

Jesus reveals to us the name of the Father. At the end of Christ's Passover, the Father gives him the name that is above all names. Jesus Christ is Lord to the glory of God the Father. In the waters of baptism, we have been washed, sanctified, justified in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and in the spirit of our God. Our Father calls us to holiness in the whole of our life, and since He is the source of our life in Christ Jesus, who became for us wisdom from God and sanctification, both His glory and our life depend on the hallowing of His name in us and by us. the urgency of our first petition. St. Cyprian wrote, By whom is God hallowed, since he is the one who hallows? But since he said,

You shall be holy to me, for I the Lord am holy, we seek and ask that we who are sanctified in baptism may persevere in what we have begun to be. And we ask this daily, for we need sanctification daily, so that we who fail daily may cleanse away our sins by being sanctified continually. We pray that this sanctification may remain in us. The sanctification of his name among the nations depends inseparably on our life and our prayer. St. Peter Chrysologus wrote, We ask God to hallow his name, which by its own holiness saves and makes holy all creation. It is this name that gives salvation to a lost world.

But we ask that this name of God should be hallowed in us through our actions. For God's name is blessed when we live well, but is blasphemed when we live wickedly. as the apostle says the name of God is blasphemed among the Gentiles because of you. We ask then that just as the name of God is holy, so we may obtain His holiness in our souls. Tertullian further wrote, When we say hallowed be thy name, we ask that it should be hallowed in us who are in him, but also in others whom God's grace still awaits, that we may obey the precepts that obliges us to pray for everyone, even our enemies.

That is why we do not say expressly, hallowed be thy name in us, for we ask that it be so in all men. This petition embodies all the others. Like the six petitions that follow, it is fulfilled by the prayer of Christ. Prayer to our Father is our prayer if it is prayed in the name of Jesus. In his priestly prayer, Jesus asks, Holy Father, protect in your name those whom you have given me. Right, there we have it, paragraph 2807 to 2815.

first petition. I'll use the same word. Beautiful. It's beautiful. Okay, we already said this when it came to the very first thing that people think, we're making God's name holy. Nope. What we are doing is we're evaluating. We're recognizing God as holy. We're treating it in a holy way. And it's just incredible that it says in the middle of this paragraph. It says, this petition is here taught to us by Jesus as an optative. It's a petition, a desire, and an expectation in which God and man are involved. We're immersed in this prayer. We're immersed. We're immersed. We're in the innermost mystery of his godhead in the drama of salvation of our humanity. So asking the father that his name be made holy draws us into his plan of loving kindness for the

fullness of time, which is incredible. And just remember, when we read the Bible, if you haven't done that yet, I encourage you, maybe in five days you'll start that. But I encourage you, if you haven't read the Bible, we have this slow revelation of God's name. That's what paragraph 2808 says it says in the decisive moments of his economy right is that economy of salvation the story of salvation the way god worked it out in that those decisive moments god reveals his name but he does so by accomplishing his work and this is this remarkable thing god's name and his work are so inextricably connected to each other goes on to say this work then is realized for us and in us only if his name is hallowed by us and in us and so we have this in the paragraph

that follow how we talked about this so many times right how god is known through his creation that all creation cries out the glory of god paragraph 2810 reminds us that when god started this to walk with abraham brought him into covenant and to moses and in all these things god is really solely revealing more deeply his name and he does this again through his works it's incredible And then you have the prophets and the people who are exiled in paragraph 211 who longed. They had a passion for the name of God and for the work of God, right? A passion for the name of God and for God to act in this world. And that's so amazing.

Remember we talked about how the name of Jesus is unique because the name of Jesus is also his presence. We utter the name of Jesus. He is present. And his presence is his power. So here's the name of God. And when we reflect on the name of God, we know the name of God because of what he's done. Incredible. In paragraph 2812 highlights the whole, kind of puts a ribbon on the whole thing, where paragraph 2812 says, finally, in Jesus, the name of the holy God is revealed and given to us

in the flesh as Savior, revealed by what he is, by his word and by his sacrifice. Remember this whole connection, they're making the point of saying that God's name and his actions, right? God's name and his works are inextricably connected. And so the Holy Name of God in Jesus, is fully revealed and fully given to us in the flesh as Savior, revealed by what he is, by his word, and by his sacrifice, by what he said and by what he did. And that's why, as Christians, that's what we are meant to do. We're meant to reveal the name of Jesus,

reveal the name of God, the name above every other name, by what we say, by what we do. Which is a high call, right? Obviously, it is a lot to ask and a lot to shoot for. But you're made for that. made for more. Yeah, to realize this, the God reveals himself in his words and his works, and we're made to reveal him through our words and through our works. And yet, obviously, we fail. That's why I love this quote from St. Cyprian. It's the second little paragraph of paragraph 2813.

It says, we ask that God's name is holy. We ask for this daily, for we need sanctification daily, so that we who fail daily may cleanse away our sins by being sanctified continually. we pray that this sanctification may remain in us again god has revealed himself through his words and through his works we're meant to reveal him through our words and works and yet man we just crash and burn more often than not right so here's cyprian who says okay we ask for this daily why because we need sanctification daily we ask for mercy daily why because i sin daily so that we who fail daily may cleanse away our sins by being sanctified continually we pray that this sanctification may remain in us amazing incredible

And all depends. It depends. God's name is either known or not known. I don't know if you caught this last part. It's the last thing we'll say. God's name is either known or not known depending on how we live and depending on how we pray. Here's the reality of it is this, is Jesus' name is known or not known depending on how you live and depending on how you pray and how I live and how I pray. That's a tall order. And yet, let's go all the way back to St. Peter Chrysologus. He says, it is this name that gives salvation to a lost world. That's true. It's this name, the name of God, to give salvation to a lost world. But we ask that this name of God should be hallowed in us through our actions. For God's name is blessed when we live well, but it's blasphemed

when we live wickedly. God's name is blessed when we live well, but is blasphemed when we live well, but is blasphemed when we live wickedly. And so we ask then that just as the name of God is holy, so we may obtain His holiness in our souls. So we just pray. We pray always, always, always. That God's name is known. That God's name is loved and glorified, hallowed. But it's only going to be hallowed if we live well and pray well. Of course, we're broken. Of course, I mean, we know this, right? is the newsflash. We're broken. Okay, gotcha. I've glad you said that on day 360. I would have missed it. We're broken and yet we're loved. Broken and blessed. We've wandered away and yet we're wanted. We are lost and yet we're loved. We struggle and yet he strives after us. And so this day, I just say, if you've fallen, let yourself be caught.

If you've wandered away, let the divine hunter hunt you down. If you strayed away from the rest of the flock, let the good shepherd seek after you and find you. I know I need to let him find me. I know I need to let him rescue me one more time, many, many, many, many more times. That's why we need to pray for each other. We're coming to the end of our year together. We're coming to our end of 365 days together. And so we need, you know, the next step, what step are you going to take in six days?

We have five more days after this day. What step are you going to take in that sixth day to continue to walk in the Lord? What am I going to do? How am I going to let the Lord continually hunt me down and bring me home? I want God's name to be known by how I live and by how I pray. And I want that to be the case for you. Because of that, I am praying for you. please pray for me my name is father mike i cannot wait to see you tomorrow god bless