Names of God

By Cheryl Dickow -
Knowing God by name allows us to enter into a relationship with him in a very intimate, personal way. While many of us know him as “God” or “Father,” there are a vast array of names to which he will answer—and each signifies yet another of his unique aspects.

The Eternal One

The name of God is often represented by the four Hebrew letters Yud-Hay-Vav-Hay and is never actually spoken. The High Priests in the Old Testament would have known the correct pronunciation but in their understanding of its sacredness, would have only uttered it in the silence of their hearts.

This four letter name is the name used when God identified Himself to Moses as “I AM WHO I AM;” thus identifying Himself as The Eternal One.

Adonai

To overcome the avoidance of uttering the too-sacred name—or of mispronouncing it, the title Adonai is the most often used substitution for Yud-Hay-Vav-Hay. In the Old Testament, the Tetragrammaton is found as the capitalized word “LORD.”

Hashem

Like Adonai, HaShem is a very popular name for God and means “The Name.”       read more>

 Cheryl Dickow
www.BezalelBooks.com

p.s. Bezalel is Hebrew and means "in the shadow of God" and is exactly where I always want to be!

Comments

  1. Melanie Jean Juneau11:56 am, September 17, 2013

    I attended a few conferences given by a Jewish convert to Christianity who taught us about the names of God; thank-you for bringing this back.For me these Hebrew names are powerful because them seem to pierce right to my soul.

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

SAINT ELIZABETH, MOTHER OF JOHN THE BAPTIST- Feast: November 5

By -
Image
Elizabeth appears in the Gospel of Luke, where she is described as “righteous in the eyes of God, observing all the commandments and ordinances of the Lord blamelessly,”.  I imagine that she was warm, loving and obviously a safe harbour for young Mary, who was not married when she conceived.  When Mary came to visit her, Elizabeth was pregnant with St. John the Baptist and in her sixth month: “Blessed art thou among women and blessed is the fruit of thy womb. And how have I deserved that the mother of my Lord should come to me? For behold, the moment that the sound of thy greeting came to my ears, the babe in my womb leapt for joy. And blessed is she who has believed, because the things promised her by the Lord shall be accomplished.” 
Read more

The Memorare

By Helen Gonsalves -
Image
This popular prayer, a favorite of many Catholics, dates back to the 15th century and takes its name from the first Latin word of the prayer, "memorare," which means "remember." The Memorare is of unknown authorship, although it has been attributed to St. Augustine (354-430), St. John Chrysostom (c. 347-407) and, with more reason, to St. Bernard of Clairvaux (c. 1090-1153). St. Bernard's sermons on Mary were famous, and it was his Cistercian monks in the monastery of Citeaux in the 12th century who popularized the name "Our Lady" for Mary. The Memorare has also been attributed to the French cleric Claude Bernard (1588-1641), known as the "poor priest" of Paris, whose homilies contain passages that echo its words. No matter who wrote this prayer, it was Father Bernard who did much to popularize it, teaching it in hospitals and prisons, where Mary's intercession was effective in working miracles of grace. The first manuscript of the Mem...
Read more

'Greater Love: Richie Fernando SJ', a joy-filled Filipino missionary

By -
Image
 I haven't been able to post for more than a week as I was giving an eight-day directed retreat to eight sisters of the Missionaries of Charity near Manila. While I had some access to the internet it was rather slow. I had intended to make a post here on the murder of Fr Fausto Tentorio PIME , a 59-year-old Italian priest, in the Diocese of Kidapawan, Mindanao, on Monday 17 October. I will save that post for a later date. As I was looking for a video about Father Fausto I came across one about Brother Richard Michael 'Richie' Fernando SJ, a Filipino Jesuit scholastic who died while trying to prevent a troubled and disabled young man in Cambodia from throwing a grenade. That was in 1996 - on 17 October. Father Fausto gave his life exactly 15 years later. I remember the mixture of sorrow and pride I felt when I read of the death of Brother Richie, pride as a missionary in the Philippines that a young Filipino seminarian had given his life so spontaneously in order to sav...
Read more