The Catholic bulletin. [volume] (St. Paul, Minn.) 1911-1995, 1914-05-09
TUE CHILDREN'S @ U
HALLoWED BE THY A

HALLoWED BE THY NAME.
My dear young friends, writes "Un-
Gle Fred" in the Christian Family,
being a priest, I often read the Scrip
lures, the New and also the Old Tesla
ment, and there in the second book of
Moses, called Exodus, chapter 20, I
find this: Thou shalt not take the
name of the Lord, Thy God in vain,
for the Lord will not hold him guilt
less that shall take the name of the
Lord his God in vain" This is the
plies, that we must avoid the vain,
i. e., the unnecessary use of the name
of God or Jesus or any other holy
name and also that we must honor
His name by p~ronouncing it rever-
emily, by clarifying Him in every way
possible. The first three of the ten
commandments refer in a particular
manner to the honor which we owe
God. The Jews of old revered the
name Of God so much, that they
would never pronounce it; but when
ever the word occurred they substi-
tuted another.
1t is a familiar spectacle for all of
you on Sunday morning: You see
people coming from all directions, in
festive garments, and, let us assume,
with festive hearts and festive faces
to church. Why is it that all good
Christians flock to the temple of God
on Sundays? For the same reason
that our Lord when He was only a
boy of twelve years, went to Jeru-
salem and stayed in the temple after
His parents had left. He had to be
about His Fathers business" as He
told His mother. We, too, want to
be about our Fathers business. We
too go to the temple, the house of
God, the church, to pay homage, to
the hidden God of the tabernacle, to
sing His praise, to hear His word
preached to us, to receive Him and
commune with Him in devout prayers.
We pronounce His holy name, we for
tify our souls, by the thought Of Him
and the eternal truths He came down
into this world to proclaim, we come
to pray: Hallowed be Thy name.
But not only on Sundays must we
hallow and honor Gods holy name,
no, every day of our lives. And yet
how many people are there, young
people too, who have acquired the
habit of using Gods name in vain, of
swearing, and cursing. With one
breath they say the Our Father and
pray that Gods name be hallowed
and with the next breath they con-
tradict their prayer, they abuse this
very name. There are boys that
think it manly to swear and curse in
the most horrid manner, that pro-
nounce the name of Jesus Christ ev-
cry time they get excited or enraged;
there are even girls and women, that
rival boys and men in their vulgar
and offensive way of talking. Thou
sands of Catholic men and boys have
banded together in the Holy Name
Societies to check the wave of vile
and filthy and blasphemous speaking,
but the evil continues and even seems
to be on the increase. And God, the
Allholy, bears it all. He dwells inn
mutable in the mansion of His eter-
nifty, but every curse, every blasphe-
my, from the beginning of the world
is recorded in the books of the Judge.
He can abide His time. At the mo-
ment when it pleases His divine maj.
esty, He will send His messenger,
Death, to put an end to the life of
those that deiled and abused their
tongues, to cut them off like a reaper,
who with his scythe mows down the
flowers and grasses of the meadow
And then He has all the long years
of eternity to punish those that did
not honor His holy name, but dis
honored and abused it. For the Lord
will not hold him guiltless who takes
His name in vain. He will punish
those that swore lightly or falsely
Perjury is an awful sin, which God
often Furnishes by a sudden death.
Hallowed be Thy name. Let that
prayer often be on your lips and con
stantly in your hearts. Every good
child is hurt and grieved when his
fathers honor is attacked, his name
b~esmirched, and rises to defend it.
God is our Father from eternity to
eternity and If we wish to be His
faithful children, we must pray and
work for His glory and honor. We
may speak of God to those who know
Him not, we may help to beautify
the house Of God and increase the
solemnity and pomp Of His worship,
we must study His divine goodness
and power revealed in nature, in the
ruling of the world, in the souls of
men.
We must pray that the number of
good priests may be increased in our
land, because there are thousands
that do not know the sweet message
Of the holy name, that missionaries
be sent to all the vast regions where
~heathenism is still rampant with all
its horrors of physical and moral deg
radiation. We should check and adj
monish those with whom we come in
contact and who may be given to the
foul habit of using Gods and Christ's
holy name in vain and do all In our
nowor tn nrom0te the honor and