At the Name of Jesus every knee shall bow, of those that are in heaven, on earth and under the earth: and let every tongue confess that the Lord Jesus is in the glory of the Father.

Beloved In Christ: these words taken from Paul’s letter to the Philippians comprise the In-troit for today’s Mass: they introduce the power underlying the feast we celebrate today. Closely aligned to the Mystery of the Circumcision and therefore its liturgical celebration on the Octave Day of Christmas, today’s veneration is a contin-uation of Holy Church’s celebration of the Incar-nation, the foundation of the world’s salvation. The power of Jesus’ name is extolled in to-day’s Epistle reading: having healed a man crip-pled from birth by invoking the name of Jesus, Peter and John had been arrested, imprisoned and brought before the ecclesiastical courts. There, without hesitation, they confessed that the man’s miraculous healing – and subsequent faith of the people – derived from their invoca-tion of the name of the very person that court had conspired to murder: JESUS. They contin-ued by saying that the force of this name was the power of the one true God that that same court had rejected by crucifying His Christ, Who is now risen from the dead and through which, alone, salvation can come.

At the Lord’s circumcision He had been giv-en the name Jesus which means Savior; this had been revealed to Our Lady at the Annunci-ation and later to Joseph in a dream. Today’s Gospel reading recalls these divine interventions which had thus foretold the mission of Jesus as Savior of the world.

Devotion to the Holy name is of fairly recent origin, in large measure fostered by the great Franciscan saints, John of Capistrano and Ber-nadine of Siena, the latter holding up for vener-ation an emblem of the Holy Name of Jesus, similar to what appears on today’s proper sheet. The letters in this symbol, IHS, stand for In Hoc Signo, Latin for “In this Sign you shall conquer” and thus be saved. According to ancient Christ-ian legend these were the words which appeared in the heavens under a radiant cross to the Em-peror Constantine before the Battle of Milvian Bridge. That decisive victory was the immediate cause for the legalization of Christianity in AD 312, and the subsequent peaceful conquest of ancient Rome for the Catholic religion. Indeed, here, in the Passion of Christ, which is the crowning sacrifice by which He manifests His saving mission, is to be found the power of the name of Jesus, for its means what He is: Savior of the world. Beloved, as we continue meditating on the Mystery of God’s birth among us, let us con-sider with true humility of heart the power of the Lord’s most holy Name. Let us not only adore Jesus and submit our hearts to Him, but resolve to always honor Him by pronouncing His holy name with true reverence. Let us re-cognize in it that power, which in the words of St. John Chrysostom, “makes both Martyrs and confessors; hold fast to it as to a great gift, that we may live in glory, and be pleasing to God, held worthy of the good things that are promised to those who love Him in grace and generosity of heart.”

In this way we may come not only to exper-ience the power of this name, but the arrive at that eternal happiness our Savior was born unto us to deliver, He to Whom be honor and glory, now and unto the ages of ages.