The Hallowed Name

ERIKA GLADHORN

To grasp the deep significance of the words "Hallowed be thy name"^{Matt. 6:9;} in the Lord's Prayer, we might recall that in Jesus' time a name often signified the nature of the name-bearer; it characterized as well as identified him. In his prayer for his disciples at the Last Supper, Christ Jesus said, "I have manifested thy name unto the men which thou gavest me out of the world: thine they were, and thou gavest them me; and they have kept thy word."^{John 17:6;}

More clearly than anyone had ever before shown it, Jesus revealed God's true nature. To be sure, the children of Israel acknowledged God as "heavenly Father," but they attributed some very human traits to Him. To them, He could become angry, was sometimes moody, and not always just in favoring some of His children.

Jesus revealed God as all-loving, all-forgiving, all-caring. He knew Him as the loving Father who ceaselessly cares for all His children, not in a prejudiced and partial way but in a divinely just and evenhanded way. Jesus said of Him: "He maketh his sun to rise on the evil and on the good, and sendeth rain on the just and on the unjust."^{Matt. 5:45;} In full agreement with the Master's teaching, Christian Science teaches that God is divine Principle, Love, ever present and ever operative to bless.