i

342

THE AMERICAN ECCLESIASTICAL REVIEW

intelligent, prudent, priestly priest who has had adequate profes­
sional training, and a staff of assistants sufficient to the needs of
the seminary·. It will be only librarians of this calibre who can
begin to carry out a program effectively aimed at training the capa­
ble priests desired by our Holy Father in his encyclical Menti
nostrae.
Vincent T, Mallon, M.M.

Maryknoll Seminary
Glen Ellyn, III.

Fifty Years Ago

The leading article in The American Ecclesiastical Review for No­
vember, 1903, contributed by Fr. W. R. Carson, of Shefford, England,
is entitled ‘"The Twofold Aspect of Purgatory.” The author explains
that purgatory can be viewed either as a state of expiatory punishment
or as a state of purificatory cleansing. In whichever light it is con­
sidered, the reasonableness of the Church's teaching will be apparent.
Fr. Carson himself regards purgatory primarily as a state of punish­
ment. . . . The series entitled 'Tn Father Martin’s Library,” by Fr.
A, Waldron, continues, with a discussion on the use of snuff and to­
bacco by the clergy. . . . Fr. R. Schwtckerath, S.J., in a lengthy article
entitled "Modern Scientists and Religion,” complains that many scien­
tists are too prone to encroach on the field of religion. He also enu­
merates some luminaries of the scientific world who have been deeply
religious. · . - The editor, Fr. Heuser, writing on “Slav Catholics in
the United States,” suggests some practical measures for providing
adequate religious care for the many immigrants of Slavic nationality
constantly entering our country. . . . An anonymous writer, signing
himself "C. M.." under the heading "Blessed are the Dead,” explains
the ways in which Catholics should manifest respect and reverence to­
ward the bodies of the deceased. ... In the Analecta appears the Latin
text of E supremi afostolatns cathedra, the inaugural encyclical letter
of Pope Pius X, in which the newly elected Sovereign Pontiff an­
nounces as the keynote of his pontificate the inspiring phrase "In­
staurare omnia in Chrism." A correspondent pleads for a band of
priests who will preach total abstinence.
F. J. C.

THE INVOCATION OF THE HOLY NAME AND THE
BASIC CONCEPT OF THE CATHOLIC CHURCH
The names employed in the New Testament to designate the
true Church of Jesus Christ and its members bring out ver}'
dearly a great part of the divinely revealed teaching about the
nature and the characteristics of that society. The great encyclical
letter Mystici Corporis, issued by the Holy Father ten years ago
last June, shows the immeasurably rich doctrinal content of one
of these titles, that of ’“Body of Christ,” which was used by St.
Paul in the course of his epistles. Other names, such as "ecclesia"
itself, and titles like “the Kingdom of God,” the “City of God,”
and the “Household of the faith,” are likewise tremendously rich
in meaning.
The ninth chapter of the Acts of the Apostles contains six of
these designations, all of them magnificently indicative of the na­
ture and properties of the Church. This chapter, the first part of
which tells of Saul’s journey to Damascus and of the miracle of
grace by which this bitter persecutor was converted to the very
Church against which he was raging, speaks of the members of
the Catholic Church as “the men and women of this way,”1 as
"those that called upon this name,”2 as “the saints,”3 as "the
disciples,”* as “the brethren,”3 and as those “who were converted
to the Lord.”* In this brief paper we shall consider only the second
of these titles, that according to which the members of the Catholic
Church are indicated as the people who call upon or invoke the
name of the Lord.
The disciple Ananias, the Christian leader in the Church at
Damascus, used this designation of the members of the Church
when he tried to urge objections against God’s command to go
and receive Saul, the future Apostle of the Gentiles, into the
Church.
Mrf.r 9:2.
■Ibid., w. 14. 21.
3 Ibid., vv. 13, 32.
'Ibid., w. 1, 10. 19. 25, 26, 36, 38.
5 Ibid., v. 30.
8 Ibid., v. 35.

343

344

THE AMERICAN ECCLESIASTICAL REVIEW

But Ananias answered : Lord, I have heard by many of this man,
how much evil he hath done to thy saints in Jerusalem.
And here he hath authority from the chief priests to bind all that
invoke thy name (rebras -rois Ιπικαλ,ονμίνσί'ϊ το όνομά σοΐ').1

The text of the Acts likewise shows that this title for the mem­
bers of the Church was used, not only within the Church itself,
but also by those outside its ranks. It appears in this way as part
of the comment on the astonishing change in Saul’s attitude made
by those citizens of Damascus rvho were aware of his former
attitudes.
And all that heard him were astonished and said : Is not this he
who persecuted in Jerusalem those that called upon this name and
came hither for that intent, that he might carry them bound to the
chief priests?8

St. Paul himself applied this term to the membership of the uni­
versal Church, in contradistinction to the membership of the local
Church in the city of Corinth.
Paul, called to be an apostle of Jesus Christ by the will of God. and
Sosthenes a brother,
To the church of God that is at Corinth, to them that are sanctified
in Christ Jesus, called to be saints, with all that invoke the name of
our Lord Jesus Christ in every place of theirs and ours?

The Acts of the Apostles gives two valuable indications about
the meaning of this expression. In the first place, St. Paul him­
self. in describing his conversion to the hostile Jewish mob in
Jerusalem, connects the invocation of the Holy Name in some
way with the process of baptism itself.
But he [Ananias] said: The God of our fathers hath preordained
thee that thou shouldst know his will and see the Just One and shouldst
hear the voice from his mouth.
For thou shalt be bis witness to all men of those things which thou
hast seen and heard.
And now why tarriest thou ? Rise up and be baptized and wash away
thy sins, invoking his name (erruraAea-d^cox το όνομα αϊτοί·).10
• Ibid., w. 13. 14.
« Ibid., v. 21.
? I Cor. 1:1-2.
i'J Acts Ώ: 14-16.

INVOCATION OF THE HOLY NAME

345

The term is used again with reference to the proto-martyr, St.
Stephen.
«qi.‘ ·.;

And casting him (St. Stephenj forth without the city, they stoned
him. And the witnesses laid down their garments at the feet of a young
nan, whose name was Saul.
And they stoned Stephen, invoking (ΐπικαλονμενι»') and saying:
Lord Jesus, receive my spirit.11

Invoking the Holy Name. then, meant nothing more or less
than praying to Our Lord as God. It is interesting to note that
Pliny’s report to Trajan the Roman emperor contains an interest­
ing statement to the effect that the proscribed Christians were
people who “had been accustomed tn meet before daybreak, and
to recite a hymn together (caruten . . . dicere serum invicem} to
Christ as to God.”13 This was the first characteristic of the
Catholic people noted by Pliny. To him. the members of the
Church were primarily the people who performed the corporate
social work of worship of Our Lord, publicly and openly acknowl­
edging His divinity.
One portion of the Shepherd of Hermas is of great value in
bringing out what the teachers themselves understood as the func­
tion of the Holy Name in the true Church of Jesus Christ. The
Shepherd or the Angel of Repentance is represented as explaining
to Hermas that “No man shall enter into the kingdom of God
except he take His holy Name.”13 and that, specifically, “a man
cannot otherwise enter into the kingdom of Gad except through
the Name of His Son, who was beloved by Him."11 The Shepherd
is depicted as teaching that
The Name of the Son of God is great and incomprehensible, and
supports the whole world. If then the whole creation is supported by
the Son of God, what do you think of those who are called by Him,
and bear the Name of the Son of God, and walk in His command­
ments? Do you see them whom He supports? Those who bear His
Name with their whole heart. He then was their foundation and He

7:57-58.
13 Pliny, Ep. X (ad Traianum), xcri.
™ Shepherd, Simii. IX, xii, 4.
11 Ibid., n. 5.

i^'y

■-ΛΖ -■

346

THE AMERICAN ECCLESIASTICAL REVIEW

supports them joyfully, because they are not ashamed to bear His
Name.15

It is evident from these passages and from the context in which
they are placed in the Shepherd that, for Hermas, and for the
men of his circle, the members of the true Church were primarily
the people of the Holy Name, the people who recognized the fact
that Our Lord is actually the Son of God, and who expressed that
recognition or acknowledgment in their prayers to Him or their
invocation of His holy Name. They are the people who have been
joined together, united among themselves and with God, in the
power of the Name of their divine Redeemer. Their corporate life
of prayer centers around a statement of the fact that He is truly
the Incarnate Word of God.
From this point of view, the expression “those who call upon
the name of the Lord” is identical, objectively speaking, with the
old scholastic definition of the Church as the “congregatio fi­
delium.” The fidelis is not merely one who has the theological
virtue of faith. He is rather one who, by the force of the baptismal
character within him, is empowered and commissioned to profess
and manifest that belief in the course of his daily activities. The
fidelis, in other words, is thus designated by reason of the bap­
tismal profession or outward expression of faith, which he has
never publicly revoked or rejected, and by reason of the association
into which he has been incorporated by virtue of his baptismal
character, an association which he has not abandoned, and which
has not expelled him from its membership.

The member of the group of those who invoke the name of the
Lord has obviously the same set of characteristics. He is one who
not only realizes that Our Lord is the Incarnate Word of God,
bat one who gives open and public expression to that recognition.
Moreover, this outward expression or profession of the faith is
something which is done rightly only in the society which God
has instituted as His Kingdom of the New Testament here on
earth. The corporate expression of the faith, the corporate invoca­
tion of the Holy Name, these are tasks which belong essentially
to the true Church of God. A man is designated as one who in15 Ibid., xiv, 5 f.

INVOCATION OF THE HOLY NAME

347

vokes the name of the Lord primarily by reason of his membership
in this community.
There is, however, a special and highly important implication
contained in the designation of the Church as the group of people
who call upon the name of the Lord. That implication is in the
line of eternal salvation. Indeed, the Holy Name itself, the Name
which the Church, as a social unit, is commissioned by God to
invoke, is explained in divine revelation in terms of eternal salva­
tion, The first chapter in the Gospel according to St. Matthew
tells us that the Angel, speaking to St. Joseph, commanded him
to impose the name of Jesus upon Mary’s Son precisely because
He was to be the Author of salvation. “And she shall bring forth
a son : and thou shalt call his name Jesus. For he shall save his
people from their sins.”16 Thus, from the outset the Holy Name
itself was explained as something indicative and effective of eternal
salvation.

The famous tenth chapter of St. Paul’s Epistle to the Romans
brings out this implication with great clarity. It is in the light of
this teaching that the full meaning and richness of the designation
of the fidelis as one who calls upon the name of the Lord is to be
sought and found.

But what saith the scripture? The word is nigh thee, even in thy
mouth and in thy heart. This is the word of faith, which we preach.
For if thou confess with thy mouth the Lord Jesus and believe ία
thy heart that God hath raised him up from the dead, thon shalt be
saved.
For, with the heart, we believe unto justice: but, with the mouth,
confession is made unto salvation.
For the scripture saith; Whosoever believeth in him shall not be
confounded.

For there is no distinction of the Jew and the Greek: for the same
is Lord over all, rich unto all that call upon him.
For whosoever shall call upon the name of the Lord shall be saved.
How then shall they call on him in whom they have not believed?
Or how shall they believe him of whom they have not heard? And how
shall they hear without a preacher?
«Μβίί. 1:21.

34S

THE AMERICAN ECCLESIASTICAL REVIEW

And how shall they preach unless they be sent, as it is written : How
beautiful are the feet of them that preach the gospel of peace, of them
that bring glad tidings of good things ?1T

According to God’s own teaching, set down in this letter of
St. Paul, salvation will come to those who call upon the name of
the Lord. This is merely another and a very strong way of bring­
ing out the doctrine of the infallible efficacy of prayer, a teaching
which Our Lord Himself repeated and insisted upon many times
during the course of His instructions to the disciples. And, in
order that prayer may be infallibly efficacious, it must be endowed
with those qualities which make it a true and reverent petitio
decentium a Deo. 18
Obviously not every instance of the use of the Holy Name could
qualify as the type of invocation which leads to eternal salvation.
St. Paul himself, in the course of his Second Epistle to Timothy,
issues the command: “let every one depart from iniquity who
nameth the name of the Lord.”10 The very obvious implication is
that it is quite possible for a man to act as part of the community
which calls upon the Lord's name, and which prays to Him as
God, and, at the same time, by the force of his own conduct, to
make his own petitions to Our Lord manifestly insincere and
valueless. What St. Paul wants the members of the Church to do,
so as to guarantee the sincerity of their invocation of Christ, is to
manifest the kind of charity about which he wrote in the Epistle
to the Hebrews, wherein he speaks to his “dearly beloved" and
reminds them that “God is not unjust, that he should forget your
work and the love which you have shewn in his name, you who
have ministered and do minister to the saints.’’20
In the last analysis, we must remember that the designation of
the faithful as the people who call upon or invoke the Lord's
name is to be understood in terms of St. Peter's pronouncement
that “there is no other name under heaven given to men, whereby
KRom. 10:8-15.
18 Prayer is infallibly efficacious when it is offered for oneself, when it is
made for salvation itself, or for something actually necessary for the attain­
ment of salvation, when it is offered piously, and when it is persevering. Cf.
Fenton, The Theology of Prayer (Milwaukee: Bmce, 1939), pp. 210-215.
»H 7»m.2:19.
»Heb. 6:10.

INVOCATION OF THE HOLY NAME

349

we must be saved,”21 The members of the one true Church of
Jesus Christ on earth were and are the men and women who have
been called by God, and endowed with the light of divine faith.
Through the power of that faith they are privileged to know Our
Lord, to know Him as their Brother, to know Him so as to be
able to call upon Him, and, through this invocation, to procure
for themselves the salvi fie fruit of His sacrificial death.
The most serious intellectual temptation of our time is that of
minimizing the revealed truth about the Catholic Church by re­
fusing, in some measure at least, to admit that these glorious New
Testament titles of the people of God actually designate the visible
Catholic Church of our day. The Holy Father, through his encycli­
cal Myrtiri Corporis, and more recently through the Humant
generis, has put a stop, once and for all, to the once all-tooprevalent tendency to identify the Mystical Body of Jesus Christ,
the social entity which St. Paul called “the body of Christ,” as
something other than the visible Catholic Church, It is to be hoped
that this tendency never reappears.
The other New Testament designations of the people of God
are just as proper to the Catholic Church as is the expression
“body of Christ.” The visible Catholic Church, with its bad mem­
bers mingled with the good, is likewise truly and exclusively
God's kingdom in this world. It is the City of God, and the true
household of the faith. It is also, by the ineffable supernatural gifts
God has bestowed upon it, the one society of those who truly call
spaa die name of Our Lord, and through Him gain eternal salva­
tion. It is the one society which God Himself has described as
truly necessary for the attainment of eternal salvation,
Joseph Clifford Fentom

The Catholic University of America
Washington, D, C.
''Acts 4.11.