May God bless you abundantly this New Year. Amen?! Oh, you do want God’s abundant blessings… what kind of blessings are you asking for? The blessing of good health, good relationships, good economic stability, the blessing of peace as we enter into a new administration… all of the above…?

I want all of the above. What do we have to do if we want God to bless us? Do we merely ask for it? Do I simply gesture the cross with my hand to impart god’s blessing through my priestly ordained power? Luckly, we don’t have to guess… the Church gives us the not so secret secret to receiving God’s blessing in the first reading, which we read every January 1^st on the solemnity of Mary Mother of God.

 In case you missed it, here it is again:  The Lord bless you and keep you. The Lord let his face shine upon you and be gracious to you. The Lord look upon you kindly and give you peace. So should they invoke my name upon the Israelites and I shall bless them. So, there you have it, if you want to be blessed by God this new year, all you have to do is invoke his name. Ok, now, what does that mean?

         Remember that in the bible, a name is a lot more significant than it is in our modern culture. It not only identified a person, but it signified their purpose, their God-given mission, which is why people often received a name change like Abraham which means “father of many” and Peter which means “rock”. So, when God gave his name, it was also very significant. Appearing to Moses in the burning bush God says I am who I am, in Hebrew YAHWEY, a name derived from the verb “to be” which means “God the source of all life” or “I am existence itself.”

         When God chose the people of Israel, he also gave them a mission which is stated in Deuteronomy 28: The Lord will infer his blessing upon you if you keep the commandments of the Lord your God and walk in his ways. He will establish you as a people sacred to himself as he swore to you so that when all the nations of the world see you bearing the name of the Lord, they will stand in awe of you. God’s name was so powerful and important, he wanted to share it with his people so they could also benefit from the power of God’s name. In fact, it was so important that a commandment was formed to protect the name of God: commandment #2: Thou shall not take the name of the Lord thy God in vain. What does it mean to take the Lord’s name in vain?

It means to live with integrity. If you say you believe in God, Yahweh, then don’t just call yourself a believer, you actually have to act like it because you have taken upon yourself the name of the Lord. The way we break that commandment today is not by simply saying “oh my God,” we break that commandment when we say Christian, by taking on the name of Christ as our identity, but not behaving according to the teachings of Christ. In that case I am taking on the name of God in vain. So if you want God to bless you this year, then make the kind of choices that reflect the God you believe in, do not take the Lord’s name in vain.

         This is the focus the Church wants us to have at the beginning of every year when we are all thinking about resolutions and how we want to improve our lives, and we do so with the solemnity of a woman whom we honor because she received the blessing of the name of the savior. Moses received it in the burning bush as Yahwe, a name to be placed upon the people of Israel of the old covenant, and Mary receives it at the annunciation as Jesus the Christ, a name to be placed upon the people of the new covenant.

         The name of Jesus is as you imagine significant because it speaks of his mission. Jesus is the Greek form of the Hebrew Joshua or Jeshua, which means “The Lord Saves.” The Matthew of Gospel calls Jesus Emmanuel, God with us. In the gospel of John, Jesus calls himself by the name of Yahweh, I AM. As someone who has been baptized into Christ, you then share in the mission to save the world, to make God present, and to recognize Jesus as God. That means that all your new years resolutions should have that aim… if I want God to bless me then I need to live a life where I am helping people realize they are children of God, making God present, and letting others know of Jesus the Son of God.

         This is our role, for bearing the name of Christ, which is the role Mary exemplifies for us. The most ancient prayer to Mary is an Egyptian prayer called the Septuum Presidium dated to about the year 250. We fly to your patronage oh Holy Mother of God, despise not our petitions and our necessities but deliver us always from all dangers, oh glorious and most blessed virgin. Just 200 years after the resurrection, Christians where already calling Mary mother of God and January 1^st became the day to honor this title. It is an important title because it, again, reveals the name of God… through Mary we have Jesus, Emmanuel, I AM. Through her, you and I have received the name of God.

St. Paul gives us another name for God, Abba, Father. Abba is the most intimate of all the names given to God. It is the name Jesus himself used in prayer. St Paul says we are given permission to use it because we have confidence in God’s love for us. In Jesus God does not come to judge or punish us, Jesus has entered into the struggles and suffering to open up the possibility of new life for us. The blessing of God, when we bear his name, will always lead us to life.

         So, with all that being said, as you think of what resolutions you want to have this year, take to heart the resolve the Church is giving you today… may your first resolution always be to be blessed by God by bearing God’s name.      

First you have to claim it, you have to make this name yours. You need to say with conviction: I am a Christian, a child of God. That’s the easy part, because next you have to actually live like you mean it and not take the Lord’s name in vain. Gee, thanks Fr… I think I’ll have better luck finally getting in shape this year than living up to God’s name perfectly!

Well just remember that being a child of God does not mean perfect behavior all the time, leave that to Mary Immaculately conceived. For us it means always striving for what we know is good, and when we fail, remembering that God is merciful and forgiving. To be a child of God is to be continually transformed. This year God wants to bless you so that you can be a little better, a more realized version of yourself than you were last year. That means seeing this year with eyes on the future, eyes of hope, eyes on what you could be, NOT with eyes on the past, on what you have been.  

         To not take the name of God in vail. Let that be our resolution for the new year. To claim the name of Christ for ourselves, and to live in accords to whom we claim to be. You do that, and you will live in God’s blessing, joy, not only this year, but for the rest of our lives onto eternity. Bow down for the blessing:s The Lord bless you and keep you. The Lord let his face shine upon you, and be gracious to you. The Lord look upon you kindly and give you peace. Happy and Blessed New Year everyone.