Jesus/Emmanuel?

[Aesajay]

I am a recently returned Catholic and was reading Matthew, specifically 1:23

“Behold, the virgin shall be with child and bear a son, and they shall name him Emmanuel, which means ‘God is with us’.”

If they named him Emmanuel, why do we call him Jesus?

I should probably know this but have never asked until now.

Thanks

 

[Fr.Charles_Grondin]

For Matthew the importance of the name is not that His name is literally Emmanuel but that He ***is ***“God with us.”

Matthew fleshes this out later in the Gospel in two passages:

For where two or three are gathered together in my name, there am I in the midst of them.
- Matthew 18:20

And behold, I am with you always, until the end of the age.
- Matthew 28:20

Matthew was clearly aware that Mary and Joseph did not name their child Emmanuel. However he sees the meaning of the name Emmanuel (“God with us”) as being perfectly fulfilled in the fact that Jesus ***is ***the presence of God.