God's Name

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erik_none

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What do you think of calling God by His name Yahweh :bowdown:(YHWH)? I feel like it is much more personal and a good way to grow in connection with Him. For example;

“Please pray for my friend. He is very sick.”
“I will pray for Yahweh’s Grace to be upon him.”

I like Yahweh over Jehovah because Jehovah just reminds me of the Witness’.

Thoughts?
 
209 Out of respect for the holiness of God, the people of Israel do not pronounce his name. In the reading of Sacred Scripture, the revealed name (YHWH) is replaced by the divine title “LORD” (in Hebrew Adonai, in Greek Kyrios). It is under this title that the divinity of Jesus will be acclaimed: “Jesus is LORD.”

scborromeo.org/ccc/p1s2c1p1.htm#209

scborromeo.org/ccc/p1s2c1p1.htm#206

Jesus taught us - when you pray say “Father”…(see the Gospels)

scborromeo.org/ccc/p4s2a2.htm#II

scborromeo.org/ccc/p4s2a1.htm#II

Quite personal…

And of course not only the Father but Jesus is YHWH (as is the Holy Spirit!) - he is the Lord. Christians have called upon his name and prayed to him - which is quite personal…

446 In the Greek translation of the Old Testament, the ineffable Hebrew name YHWH, by which God revealed himself to Moses, is rendered as Kyrios, “Lord”. From then on, “Lord” becomes the more usual name by which to indicate the divinity of Israel’s God. The New Testament uses this full sense of the title “Lord” both for the Father and - what is new - for Jesus, who is thereby recognized as God Himself.

scborromeo.org/ccc/p1s2c2a2.htm#446

2666 But the one name that contains everything is the one that the Son of God received in his incarnation: JESUS. The divine name may not be spoken by human lips, but by assuming our humanity The Word of God hands it over to us and we can invoke it: “Jesus,” “YHWH saves.” The name “Jesus” contains all: God and man and the whole economy of creation and salvation. To pray “Jesus” is to invoke him and to call him within us. His name is the only one that contains the presence it signifies. Jesus is the Risen One, and whoever invokes the name of Jesus is welcoming the Son of God who loved him and who gave himself up for him.
 
You response is much appreciated, but I am not looking for a technical answer by referencing books and such. I just want to know from a personal stand point.

Also, if we can invoke the name of JESUS as God and man why can we not invoke God The Father alone by invoking His name Yahweh?
 
erik_none said:
You response is much appreciated, but I am not looking for a technical answer by referencing books and such. I just want to know from a personal stand point.

Also, if we can invoke the name of JESUS as God and man why can we not invoke God The Father alone by invoking His name Yahweh?
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Note - Yahweh is not only the Name of the Father.

Please read all of the above and go back to the links - it is important for you to go and read those…they will shed lots of light on the subject.

The Jews did not pronounce YHWH. Christians in turn used “Lord” etc…
 
More from the Church:

adoremus.org/CDW_NameofGod.html

It is from the “Congregation for Divine Worship and the Discipline of the Sacraments”

One can see the Church has removed the use of YHWH from any liturgical usage (such as music - where it had become popular to use in songs–it was not part of the Liturgy itself but the music that ended up being used in many places).

And the Church there gives the explanation of why this was decided.

It is very very short so please read it - it will help you see why down through the centuries Christians in the Church have used “Lord” rather. (etc).
 
I always called my dad, “Dad,” never his first name. That seemed pretty personal to me. If I said something like “George, I need some advice,” or “Harry, I need your help” somehow I don’t think he would have responded well. “Dad” was filled with love, honor, and respect in a way that George or Harry would not have been. People OUTSIDE the family use those names.

Jesus showed us that the Father wants that same kind of loving relationship with us. So why reject that and refer to him the way someone on the outside would?
 
To remove something from use doesn’t seen right. You cannot just remove something from Scripture. Replace maybe, but not remove.

In the sense of calling your dad by his first name;

God is our Father. He has a name, YHWH.

If God is our Father, who created everything, how can we be outside Him? Calling Him God, Yahweh, Allah or Lord, it shouldn’t matter. He is who He is. Just as He instructed Moses to tell them I AM sent you. Why wouldn’t God say your Father sent you? Plus, when you pray or tell someone about Him, do you say I believe in the Lord or I believe in Father or Dad? No. You simply say I believe in God.

In retrospect, I do not feel God really cares what we call Him. I mean, obviously we can’t call Him anything bad or offensive.
 
erik_none said:
To remove something from use doesn’t seen right. You cannot just remove something from Scripture. Replace maybe, but not remove.
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Please read the above again. The use crept in some songs etc - so the Church -restored things as they have been* from the beginning*.

“Avoiding pronouncing the tetragrammaton of the name of God on the part of the Church has therefore its own [rationale]. Apart from a motive of a purely philological order, there is also that of remaining faithful to the Church’s tradition, from the beginning, that the sacred tetragrammaton was never pronounced in the Christian context nor translated into any of the languages into which the Bible was translated” - See more at: adoremus.org/CDW_NameofGod.html#sthash.OxlD9dXZ.dpuf
 
Through the ages it has not been the practice in the Church among Christians to use Yahweh (YHWH). Please read that document from the Church it explains why.
 
The Tetragrammaton is held so sacred that the tradition of leaving it untranslated continues among some of our Eastern brethren. I own a Syriac Bible that, in Exodus 3, 14, doesn’t even translate “I AM who AM” into Syriac, but transliterates it–it’s in Hebrew still, but is written in Syriac letters. My Old Testament professor confirmed this, and we thought maybe it was a feature of the translation, since it was a modern translation. But a little research found that even in the Patristic era in the East, you had Bishops writing about transliterating rather than translating the Name.

-ACEGC
 
Jesus teaches us when we pray say “Father”…

Abba, Father! Galatians 4:6
 
So if I say “Yahweh bless you,” what’s going to happen? Is God going to be mad? Will I be excommunicated? Will the Church look down on me and deny me The Eucharist?
 
erik_none said:
So if I say “Yahweh bless you,” what’s going to happen? Is God going to be mad? Will I be excommunicated? Will the Church look down on me and deny me The Eucharist?
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I would want to act as Christians have for ages. For such is not the Christian usage in the Church.

(Some phrases could be: The Lord bless you - for example or The Lord be with you etc)

Please study the links I posted.

And the use of such will likely make them think your part of the various fringe groups out there in Protestantism.

And if the person is a Jew - one will be offending them and not putting the Church in a good light in their eyes if they find out your a Catholic…
 
erik_none said:
So if I say “Yahweh bless you,” what’s going to happen? Is God going to be mad? Will I be excommunicated? Will the Church look down on me and deny me The Eucharist?
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Is that the standard to use? I can do anything that won’t get me excommunicated. How about aspiring to a higher standard than that?

Besides, the issue with being excommunicated is being separated from the Church. But if you’re going to reject Church teachings out of hand then what difference does it make if you’re formally excommunicated? You’ve already separated yourself and decided that you know better than thousands of years of tradition. (And we’re talking tradition that’s not only 2000 years of Christianity but thousands of years before that.)

Consider that some Jews will spell out G_d rather than even risking typing it out completely. They understand the awesomeness we’re encountering here. They don’t say “Yahweh bless you” because they haven’t been given permission (and neither have we).

One of the gifts of the Holy Spirit is fear of the Lord. That’s fear in the sense of being awed, not fear in the sense of cowering. It’s fear of offending someone we love and who loves us without measure. Perhaps it’s a gift to pray for more of.
 
SuscipeMeDomine said:
You’ve already separated yourself and decided that you know better than thousands of years of tradition. (And we’re talking tradition that’s not only 2000 years of Christianity but thousands of years before that.)
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Sounds like you’ve decided that for me. Not once did I say i know better than anyone or anything. I merely asked a question that I had been contemplating. So, at least i know you have the right to tell me what I have done. Thank you.
 
SuscipeMeDomine said:
Is that the standard to use? I can do anything that won’t get me excommunicated. How about aspiring to a higher standard than that?

Besides, the issue with being excommunicated is being separated from the Church. But if you’re going to reject Church teachings out of hand then what difference does it make if you’re formally excommunicated? You’ve already separated yourself and decided that you know better than thousands of years of tradition. (And we’re talking tradition that’s not only 2000 years of Christianity but thousands of years before that.)

.
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Note that he though is* not *“rejecting Church Teachings” here…
 
When Moses was speaking with the Entity in the Burning Bush and asked Him what His Name was, He replied, “Ehyeh asher ehyeh.” However, Moses did not hear this utterance as a string of sounds with no meaning; he heard it as “I am that I am,” which is probably what God would have said if he had been talking to an English-speaker “Ehyeh” is the first-person singular of the Hebrew verb for “to be,” but somewhere along the line the Hebrews changed it to YHVH, the 3rd-personal singular masculine form.

This is just me talking: I don’t think using “YHVH” in personal, private devotions is going to cause God to fall off His throne, nor do I think that He would get insulted at the mispronunciation “Jehovah,” given that “Yaa-way” itself is a mispronunciation (don’t get me started on the linguistic distance between “Yeshua” and “Dzheezus”). However, in my own private devotions I prefer the New Testament usage of “Father” or “Lord.” That’s just me. Other people’s sensitivities are different.
 
erik_none said:
Sounds like you’ve decided that for me. Not once did I say i know better than anyone or anything. I merely asked a question that I had been contemplating. So, at least i know you have the right to tell me what I have done. Thank you.
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I wasn’t clear and I apologize. I should have said that one who is excommunicated has separated oneself. It was meant as a general statement, not something directed at you personally.

It appears I gave Bookcat the same impression. I don’t seem to bf expressing myself very well this morning.
 
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