A Choice

From now on, let no one make troubles for me;

for I bear the marks of Jesus on my body.i

    The second reading of this, the fourteenth Sunday in Ordinary time, St Paul offers an interesting start to this reflection upon the readings and a very good start for considering what the Lord may be asking.  Saint Paul is a not normally where I would begin my own reflection upon readings, but what Saint Paul does is define what can be a Christian.  This weekend shares with me and you vocations.  So let us reflect upon these readings and what possibly could be our application of them in our lives.

     Saint Paul tells us that it does not matter if one is circumcised or uncircumcised.  What this does is tell us that it does not matter is one is Jewish or not when it comes to following Jesus.  Jesus is the only one worth for our lives according to Saint Paul.  His death and resurrection are the principle sources of our eternal salvation.  What I find interesting is that Saint Paul offers “peace and mercy to all who follow this rule and to the Israel of God.”  The word Israel is Hebrew for the chosen of God, or saved by God.  Saint Paul is inviting me and you to become a new creation in Jesus and be saved by the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ.  

     The first reading is from the book of the Prophet, Isaiah.  Isaiah speaks of a Jerusalem which overflows with abundance.  Jerusalem is our image of what heaven is to be.  Isaiah uses the imagery of a child and its mother.  This is very fitting for our own understanding of heaven and the nature of our relationship with God.  What we find is our confirmation that God is Father to us all.  Using this imagery of the child should help us to appreciate what it is about heaven that is worth our faith in Jesus.       When we were children, our needs were met and we found love from our parents.  Heaven is the perfect place where are needs are perfectly met and we find perfect love from God the Father.  And this leads us to our Gospel passage.  

     Jesus is telling the disciples, and us, what our lives are to be like.  We are to be sent out into the world.  The Lord calls upon each of us to preach the Gospel by our lives.  The Lord tells us that in many places we will not be welcome with our message of salvation and holiness.  He tells us that we will be like lambs among wolves.  But, it would be more tolerable for Sodom on that day for the ones who are not welcoming to the message of the Gospel.  We can hope that the Lord is kind and merciful to those who ignore him, but we hear many times in the Gospel how the pain of the not following the Lord is the lake of fire and here, the Lord the says the same thing for Sodom was destroyed by fire from the heavens.  Jesus tells his disciples, and he tells us, that we should not “rejoice because the spirits are subject to [us], but rejoice because [our] names are written in heaven”.  

     The scriptures for today invite us to accept the call of holiness.  We are given images of what our consequences for the result of our two choices.  Let us hope, and pray that in the course of our Christian journey, we make the right choice.  And that we find our names written in heaven.

You Never Stop Loving Us

May God give to you of the dew of the heavens

And of the fertility of the earth abundance of grain and wine. -Genesis 27:28

     The most difficult for me to do is to discern the will of God for my life.  I know rationally that he desires my obedience and has set before me Sacred Scripture and the teachings of Holy Mother Church to guide me in my life.  The Church gives me things to help me in the present moment on how to live virtuously and to come to have a great understanding of who Jesus is.  

     What the Scriptures and teachings cannot do is form my friendship and relationship with Christ for me.  A relationship with Christ is intimate and personal.  By definition, the relationship with Christ is a two way interaction.  Scripture can bring one half of the equation.  The relationship must come from an inward desire of the soul with the help of the Holy Spirit.  Prayer is the communication of the heart, the instant communication with God.  With this relationship, today’s scriptures for the Mass offer some great insight into our own relationship.

     The first reading is from the book of Genesis where Isaac is seeking to bestow upon his firstborn son his blessing.  His firstborn, Esau, is sent to hunt for game and while he is away, his mother disguises Jacob so that he can receive the blessing instead.  The deception demonstrated in this reading is a great lesson to me and to us all about how we are to go about our relationship with Christ (or rather how we are not to go about this relationship).  Holiness in our lives, sustained and renewed by our relationship with Christ, demands that we live virtuously.  There is a sincere lack of virtue in the actions of Rebekah and the complicit behavior of Jacob.  

     The Church gives us an opportunity in this story to remember that we have sacramental grace to help us know that we are redeemed.  The sacrament of Confession allows me and you to experience forgiveness of the Lord and redemption to rejoin the communion of the Church.  By the grace of God, confessing my sins to the priest and to the Church helps me to try to feel the weight of the sin which Jesus took to the cross for my salvation.  While this causes me to stir a little and feel guilt, I say this prayer as my Act of Contrition:

     Father, I have sinned against heaven and earth and am no longer worthy to be called your son; may God have mercy on me, a sinner.  

     I prefer this as my act of contrition because I feel a sort of kinship with the prodigal son.  I feel as though Jesus is speaking directly to me because in that my sinfulness is the result of my direct choices.  But then I hear these words: 

     God, the Father of mercies, through the death and resurrection of His Son has reconciled the world to Himself and has sent the Holy Spirit among us for the forgiveness of sins.  Through the ministry of the Church may God grant you pardon and peace and I absolve you of your sins + in the name of the Father, Son and Holy Spirit.

     This brings us to the Gospel because Jesus is asked directly about the practice of fasting.  Fasting is one of the treasures of the Church for the penitent and contrite of heart.  Our Lord is asked why don’t his disciples fast and the Pharisees and the followers of John fast.  The Lord responds with three images of renewal without directly addressing the lack of fasting.  The bridegroom image calls to mind a wedding.  The patching of a old, torn cloak is the second image of renewal.  The third is the image of the wineskins.  New wine for new wineskins because putting new wine into wineskins risks the wine because the skins can burst.  

     Jesus is the bridegroom.  We cannot mourn his saving act while he was with the disciples.  Fasting is a great spiritual practice, but foregoing food is not in itself enough to satisfy the Lord for our failures.  Jesus is priming the disciples for the truth that salvation is by the grace of God alone and not by our works.  This leads to the old cloak.  We only have our lives and through our daily journey, we can become worn through the trials and struggles of life.  Confession and spiritual exercises, which do not justify us alone, but rather heal our souls and bring us back to how Jesus wants us to be.  And finally, the wineskins make sense.  We are made new by the sacraments and that grace is poured into our lives to help us to combat the temptations and sin we will encounter.  

     Our hearts are made for this grace.  God’s love is poured into our lives and we are meant to overflow with this love and give this love to the world.  If we forget and miss the mark, we run the risk of becoming old wineskins.  That is, stretched and torn and degraded.  But Jesus does not leave nor does his grace.  He never stops loving us and when we remember this and call to mind our transgressions, you and I are called back into his love.  Confession will make you and I new.  It can build and renew our friendship and relationship with Jesus.  And that is what Jesus wants most desperately from us.  He wants to be our friend.

Life and Love

Go and learn the meaning of the words,

I desire mercy, not sacrifice.

     The readings for today call to mind images of life and death, mercy and thanks, and under these images, the Lord presents a subdued tone of justice.  In the first readings, the writer of the book of Genesis recounts the story of the death of Sarah, Abraham’s wife.  

      Abraham, a man of righteousness, fulfills the funeral obligations and has his wife buried in the land.  Not being content with just mourning this period of death, he sets his sights on new life for his son, Isaac.  Abraham calls his most loyal servant and has him swear an oath.  There is some contention among Jewish scholars over the details of this oath, but it is remains a gravely solemn oath.  He tells the servant “put your hand under my thigh”.  The midrash rabbah teaching says this is a literal translation because the king would always has his on the top of his thighs and servants would literally be below them.  However, the Jewish milah teaching delivers an interpretation that is very serious and very uncomfortable today.  The teaching says that an oath in Jewish antiquity is sworn over a sacred object.  Given that God’s covenant with Abraham regarded the terms of his descendants and circumcision, his “male-ness” would be considered a sacred object.  Regardless of the tradition of faith or interpretation, the oath is serious and Abraham sends his servant to get a wife for his son.  If she cannot follow through when the servant finds her, then he would be released from the oath.  We still see that Abraham, certainly suffering through his loss, still looks to bring new life for his family and his son.  The scripture closes with the statement that Isaac did find solace with Rebekah, the woman found by his father’s servant.  

      The response for today is hymn of thanks for the goodness of God.  The Catholic Church always teaches that it is right to give God praise.  From our waking breath to our last conscious thought before we retire at night, we should give praise to God.  All our hope is in God, the light of the world.  The psalm speaks very briefly of our inheritance.  Our inheritance is eternal life with Jesus.  As God is love, so our eternal life is with love.  

     The Gospel today is the loving Jesus.  And I have noted in the past few blog entries I have written, it is also the audacious Jesus.  Jesus sees Matthew and calls to him.  And Matthew responds and comes.  This story in scripture is speaks to us today about our vocations to both holiness and service.  Jesus not only calls Matthew to follow him, but he calls me and you to follow him as well.  The day was full of work for the Lord  and after he called Matthew, he went home to eat.  But he did not go home alone, eating with him were his disciples and tax collectors and sinners.  The pharisees do like this, which is interesting because for them to say this to his disciples indicate they were in the house too.  They may not have been eating for the custom was to remain clean by avoiding these people.  The Gospel writer tells us why this takes place.  It is because Jesus is the good physician and the physician seeks out the ones who are will.  And he did not come to call the righteous, but he came to call sinners.  And when we read this story again, we see that at the table, Jesus has a place for sinners.  And for me, and you, this is our place at the Lord’s table.  

     This story relates the sympathetic Jesus who calls to the ones who are outcast by sin, shame or other systematic rejection.  And so it remains for us.  In our rejection of the world, our lives of faith make us outcasts in the secular world.  We find our place at table with Jesus.  The great call of Jesus to us is mercy.  Within this great call to be the followers of Jesus is our act of mercy.  Being obedient to the Lord is not a sacrifice, although the world would make us think that giving up worldly treasures is a fool’s errand.  But the truth remains that the Lord bestows amazing graces and showers the faithful with his love and mercy.  And though we ought to reject the worldly treasures, when the Lord blesses us with his kindness, we can reconcile worldly sacrifice with divine mercy.  For the God of life and love seeks not see us suffer but to live and live well.  And this life is not just the temporal life, but the eternal life in love.

The Cross Before Me... The World Behind...

Not to us, O Lord, not to us

but to your name give glory

because of your kindness, because of your truth. - Psalm 115:1

     Today, in the United States of America, the citizens will celebrate Independence Day.  A day marked by a singular, communicative action of the people 237 years ago.  The symbolism of that action from the people to seek freedom to live their lives resonates through to this day.  The faithful Catholic must continue to pray in thanksgiving for the ability and freedom to pray.  But when considering this day, this day where most Americans joyfully celebrate freedom, and rightfully so, but the readings ask us to consider sacrifice and praise for the sake of God.  

     The first reading is often used as a prefigurement of the sacrifice Jesus makes for us.  Abraham, who was to be the father of nations because of his faithfulness, is called by God to take his only beloved son and sacrifice him to Lord.  Abraham obediently follows the command of the Lord.  The scriptures tell us that Abraham had taken three days to get to the place where the sacrifice was to take place.  The three days must have been the most difficult days of Abraham’s life.  But Abraham built the altar and faithfully prepared it.  As it was to offer his praise and sacrifice, a most deeply offered sacrifice, his hand was stayed and his son spared.  

      We remember that he struggled earlier in his life when he was childless.  We also remember how the Lord promised him to count the stars, if he could, for that was how numerous his descendants would be.  The interesting note is that if we are to understand this particular story about the descendants of Abraham, and the story presented to us today, we must remember the depth of the faith of Abraham.  God called upon him to count the stars in the middle of the day.  We know from sight that in the middle of the day, there is only one star and I believe Abraham was well aware of this.  Also, we know from faith that when the light of the sun is hidden by the earth, we know from sight that in the night the stars are innumerable.  Abraham teaches us, inspires us to lead lives of holiness.  

      Our response this day is from the 115th Psalm.  I particularly enjoy this psalm because it inspired a song which is near to my heart.  The song is called “Not To Us.”  The first few words are:  “The cross before me the world behind, no turning back, raise the banner high.  It’s not for me, it’s all for you.”  This psalm is essential to the readings today.  Holy Mother Church, in her wisdom, uses this psalm especially today.  The Church is under extreme persecution.  Our faith is that God will be our help and our shield against those who belittle us for our belief.  Our hope is in the Lord when we are confronted by the world which tries to force us to accept idols of silver and gold.  Our Love is Jesus Christ, with whom we must make it our duty and our salvation to enhance our friendship with him and to lead others into this friendship.  Our relationship and friendship with Jesus will make it very easy to give glory to his name and not ours.  

     This leads us to the Gospel message today.  I have written before about how the Lord has some great panache, he has admirable style.  This passage is a continuation of the story from the Gospel according to Saint Matthew which has been given given to us this week to remind us of the call of the Lord in our lives.  Jesus had made his trip across the Sea of Galilee, calmed the storm, and reached the shore.  The people brought him a paralyzed man.  Jesus says to the man:  “Courage, child, your sins are forgiven.”  This is a great faux pas for first century Jews, but with the Lord, all things are possible.  Some outright call him a blasphemer.  His response is simple but so full of meaning:  “Which is easier, to say ‘Your sins are forgiven,’ or to say, ‘Rise and walk’?”  Then he says to the man, to rise and go home.  And he does.  The Lord’s miracle speaks to the very heart of the people and it speaks to us today.

     Sacrifice and praise.  The Lord asks of us sacrifice and praise.  In today's society, we find that sacrifice may come in the way of material possessions or our time.  We sacrifice in order to call to mind the cross of the Lord.  Abraham reveals to us, the great sacrifice of God by allowing his son to die for our salvation.  This is where we must originate our praise.  Thank you God for saving me.  Thank you God for saving us.  

    The Lord calls us to remember that we forgiven and free.  He shows his love and mercy by his works then and how he works through the hearts of people today who are open to the love of Jesus.  The love of God calls upon us to recognize the inherent dignity within each person we meet and many others who may forget their own dignity and the dignity of others.  These need our prayers.  We pray for the Church and for the people in our lives this day.  We pray for freedom.  We pray for the courage to be imitators of Christ, to be audacious in our witness to the Gospel of the Lord.  Most of all, we pray in Thanksgiving for the grace of God, only by which we are saved.  Not to us, O Lord, not to us, but to your name give glory...

Trust, Courage and Faith

“Put your finger here and see my hands,

and bring your hand and put it into my side,

and do not be unbelieving, but believe.”- John 20:27

     Today, I would like to deviate from my usual form of blogging about the Mass readings of the day.  When considering what to write, I tend to reflect upon all of the readings and their context.  When I do write, I note what I would say if I were giving a homily.  Sometimes, it almost seems arrogant to me because I am not an ordained priest, but then I remember my baptism.  I remember that I am called to witness to Christ and reject Satan.  I remember that I already priest, prophet and king by virtue of my baptism.  And today, I want to reflect upon Saint Thomas.  

     There are certainly more scholarly works which can be referenced.  Theologians and historians and priests who know far more about the Saints than I will ever know about anything could give a much better opinion and reflection for the people.  But I am finding myself considering that I am just like Thomas and that our Lord is speaking directly to me.  

     The Gospel readings over the past couple of days speak to trust, courage and faith.  These things tend to be the most difficult for me to maintain in my everyday life.  I keep a spreadsheet to help me budget my finances so that I don’t default on my obligations and still maintain enough to ensure that I can continue my standard of living.  My standard of living is not entirely in tune with the challenge the Lord set before me of imitation of him.  The Lord asks us to be courageous in our witness to his life and love.  How many times a day I realize I miss out on the opportunities he has given me to open my heart and mind and preach his Gospel with my life are innumerable.  I sometimes justify my ignorance of this command by thinking that wearing a cross or crucifix is enough.  And, finally, like Thomas, I waver in my faith.  I get caught believing and placing my trust in the things I can see, feel, taste or hear.  The Mass is ordinarily what brings my life back into focus.  

     Being faithful and believing in what Jesus tells me requires that I seek him out in my everyday life.  Whether it be at work, home or in the Church, the Holy Spirit waits patiently to bring me back into line with what I profess to believe every Sunday.  So when I read about Thomas who said he could not believe unless he placed his hands within the wounds of the Lord, he could not believe, I feel like I need to do the same.  But the Lord calls upon me to place my hands upon my own wounds and know that He is sharing in my suffering.  Saint Peter tells me to cast my worries upon him because he cares for me (1 Peter 5:7).  I cannot cast my fears, doubts, anxieties or anything else until I take them into my hands, both literally and figuratively.  The action of lifting them up to the Lord is the first step to liberation.  Embracing the suffering I have becomes much easier when the suffering is cast off.  Sin and shame will follow once these weighty things are taken away.  And then I can cry, “my Lord and my God!”

     I can be like Thomas.  I have doubts.  But hope and faith in Lord bring me back.  And strengthened by his sacramental love for me, I renew my love for the Lord and live as he intends for me to live.

This Great Kindness

“You have already thought enough of your servant
to do me the great kindness of intervening to save my life.”-Genesis 19:19

Experience with life, mostly through the military, has led me to believe that fear is inescapable by all people.  Often times, I find myself experiencing panic and fear relatively often.  What triggers this response for me personally is being startled unexpectedly, thunder and lightning, other drivers, and so on.  I should be comforted by our saints in scripture who shared in this emotional response.  But that is not what Jesus wants for us. 

            The first reading for today is the flight of Lot and his family.  Our reflection centers not on the stories or the miracles they contain, even though they are important, but on the action of God.  Lot explicitly tells God, and us, that God has done enough by intervening to save his life and the lives of his family.  I must confess that this singular verse has always been overlooked by me up until now.  This verse is very important because it expresses the truth of the Paschal mystery in my life and yours. 

            The verse from Genesis 19:19 is full of things to reflect upon.  The first I would like to consider is the divine revelation that God thinks of us.  I once heard that we receive divine revelation because God thinks of us.  This is the essential truth of the immanent and intimate God that we have come to know through the teaching of the Church. 

This dogmatic truth about God is clearly revealed in Sacred Scripture from the very beginning.  However, I consider it to be through my own selfishness that this truth becomes obscured by sin, which I think is relevant to all of us in our Christian journey.  And this is true of sin:  Sin has an etymological meaning which has been defined as ‘missing the mark.’  As we miss the mark in our lives, we become turned away from God and begin an inward movement which is also away from God.  I know in my own life when I become turned away from God and become self-oriented, I find that I can make it easy to justify sinful behaviors.  It is only through the grace of God, that I can receive the slap on the face, a splash of water, and find myself.  Then through the guidance of the Holy Spirit, I can be open to repentance and seek confession. 

This particular scripture is interesting in how is opens the understanding of the saving action of Christ on the cross.  But first, let’s reflect on Lot’s statement and how it helps make sense of Jesus and the disciples in the boat.  Lot’s statement is a bold statement because it occurs as he is negotiating with the angels of the Lord.  He has already found favor with the Lord, and the Lord has the angels instruct Lot to flee Sodom and Gomorrah.  What Lot is ensuring is that he and his family are not killed when they flee.  The angels promise Lot that if they can get to the town safely, then they shall be saved, so long as they don’t look back.  As the story goes, Lot and his family flee, but his wife turns back and is turned into a pillar of salt while the rest of the family is saved. 

The scriptures reveal that, first and foremost, Lot recognizes that the Lord has saved his life.  The passage also reveals that Lot also fears for his life but continues to place his trust and faith in the Lord.  These two themes help us to understand the brief Gospel passage today from the Gospel of Matthew. 

The context for the Gospel reading is that Jesus has performed miracles throughout Capernaum.  The crowd that is following him has grown to a considerable size when he reaches the Sea of Galilee.  He sees the crowd and directs them “to cross to the other side” (Mt 8:18).  Jesus and his disciples hop into the boat and set sail to meet them.  The Sea of Galilee is not a pond or a small lake.  The trip to the other side takes some time to sail across.  Jesus takes a nap.  This very act of falling asleep, and remaining asleep in a storm that is flooding the boat, reveals to us the humanity of Christ.  He slept and apparently was not quite a soft sleeper.  The disciples become afraid.  I know from my personal experiences that I would be as well.  In their panic and fear, they wake up Jesus.  Jesus replies to their cries for help with “Why are you terrified?”  I think we can understand why they were.  He then chastises them, “O you of little faith”, a phrase oft quoted.  Reflecting on the understanding of Christ’s words teach us that we should not be afraid. 

Jesus had some real panache.  When he teaches, he makes a real statement because he catches the attention of the disciples by bringing to their attention that they have demonstrated little faith.  He then rebuked the storm and then it became calm.  The disciples are amazed and they continue on with the trip.  He continues to perform miracles. 

Christ calls us to have faith and courage.  We hear this call to not be afraid.  The Gospel speaks to the disciples and it speaks to us.  We need to know that God has saved us and continues to call us to deepen our faith in him.  Our faith is not one based in terror but is over abundant with love.  So when we encounter struggles, we should not be afraid nor should we be of little faith but find Jesus in the midst of our struggles.  Above all, remember that Jesus has “already thought enough of [his] servant to do me [and all of us] the great kindness of intervening to save my life.” 

Tolerance For Tolerance's Sake

The US Supreme Court declared the unconstitutionality of Section 3 of the Defense of Marriage Act.  The potential effect this has for the American people has been speculated about from both sides of the political spectrum.  What actually happened was that the Supreme Court ruled that it was unconstitutional to define marriage in the United States Code.  What did not happen was the legalization of gay marriage at the federal level.  Gay marriage remains a states’ rights issue.  The Court also ruled that homosexuality is no longer an acceptable reason to deny couples benefits traditionally reserved for married couples. 

As an institution, the establishment of marriage, as it exists, in the United States draws its roots from the Judeo-Christian tradition.  According to the Church’s tradition, marriage is a sacrament.  Marriage is a visible sign of the grace of God made present in the bond between a man and woman who pledge lifelong fidelity to each other.  Marriage exists uniquely, within the Christian Church, because the priest does not perform the sacrament but, rather, the spouses marry each other in the presence of the Church.  The Church holds that marriage is created by God.  This notion is dogmatic to Christianity from the inception of the Church. 

The Church is completely intolerant to being legislatively forced to accept what it views as a completely heretical idea of what marriage is.  Tolerance has a few definitions:  1) capacity to endure pain or hardship; 2) a sympathy or indulgence for beliefs or practices differing or conflicting with one’s own; 3) the allowable deviation from a standard.  The definition of tolerance is included so that we clearly define the terms used.  The Church is claiming the right to retain its definition of marriage.  This is essential because the Church is not, and never will, actively seeking to impugn or degrade the dignity of people who ascribe to themselves a same-sex attraction.  The Church explicitly in its teaching seeks to protect the dignity of people with same-sex tendencies. 

In defending separation of Church and state, it is unjust for the state to define for the Church what marriage is, especially when the Church’s established notion of marriage existed long before the United States.  In keeping with historical tradition outside of the most recent revisionist movement of life and culture, which I should argue either began with Roe v. Wade or the free love movement of the 1960s.  However, this is not a purely academic piece seeking a grade for its philosophical merits.  I’m not entirely convinced my posts are even read.  Just thoughts put out “there”.  The revisionist perception of marriage fits with deliberate, anti-Christian motives.  Christianity has long held that marriage is the bond of one man and one woman in lifelong commitment for the sake of children.  Thus Christianity does not have divorce.  However, revisionists wish to define marriage as a bond between two people distinguished by its intensity.  There is little regard for the idea of a lifelong commitment or children. 

The current state of religious freedom in the United States is itself under grave attack.  Lawsuit after lawsuit, and settlements from these, demonstrate that there is a misconception about the First Amendment.  Some judiciary rulings seemingly have changed the interpretation of the First Amendment from the freedom of religion to the freedom from religion.  One of the most provocative organizations is the Freedom From Religion foundation.  Their claim is to fight to maintain separation of Church and state.  Their fight from a philosophical standpoint is acceptable and often noble because the separation of Church and state prevents abuses from either side in government.  However, the FFRf has made this battle a unilateral engagement with the Church in the name of tolerance and protecting atheist students.  The result of the relentless lawsuits is an idea that some believe it is illegal for anybody to demonstrate and kind of Christian-like behavior or practice in the public sector thereby redefining what the First Amendment protections should be vis-à-vis religion.  Some organizations and governments will go so far as to change policy just to avoid defending constitutional rights from this organization.  This misuse of pecuniary superiority is tantamount to financial extortion.  They essentially say:  You don’t have the funds to battle us in court, so save yourself money and do what we want…  

Returning to our definition of tolerance, we should be tolerant of others to a certain degree.  Our tolerance is no longer acceptable at the point where we have to compromise supposedly constitutionally protected freedoms.  The Christian should not have to hide faith out of fear of lawsuits.  What I find most difficult is how can non-believers be so offended at the mention of the name of Jesus Christ.  If a person doesn’t believe, then why is the name of Jesus so offensive to some?  Why is some partial nudity and vulgar speech acceptable on some network TV shows, but the name of Jesus Christ sparks virulent opposition?  Why does it matter so much?  The name of Jesus is the name of Jesus.  We call him Lord and Savior.  He is almighty God and I will defend my right to believe so.  Unlike other “rights” so fought for, this is one is clear.