The Holy Name and the Hundredfold
MASS Os justi
LESSON Ecclus. 31: 8-11
GOSPEL St Matthew 19:27-29.
PROPER LAST GOSPEL St John 1:1-18
HOMILIST Mt Revd Jerome Lloyd OSJV
Beloved faithful,
There are names which history remembers for a season, names engraved upon monuments, whispered with reverence for a generation, and then quietly forgotten. There are kings whose crowns have crumbled into dust, conquerors whose empires have dissolved into silence, thinkers whose systems have collapsed beneath the weight of time. Yet above every earthly name there stands one Name that does not fade, does not diminish, does not pass away. It is the Name before which Heaven bows, Hell trembles, and every knee shall one day bend, as the Apostle declares: “At the name of Jesus every knee should bow, of those that are in heaven, on earth, and under the earth.”
It is this mystery that Holy Mother Church places before us today in the person of St Bernardine of Siena, that burning Franciscan preacher who became, in the fifteenth century, the great herald of that divine Name. The Collect reveals the secret of his sanctity: an “unusual love” for the Holy Name—not a passing devotion, not a pious accessory, but a consuming interior fire. He did not merely preach the Name; he lived in it, moved in it, and spent himself for its glory. As he himself proclaimed, this is the Name long desired by the patriarchs, invoked in danger, sought in suffering, and adored in glory.
The Church sets him before us within the Octave of the Ascension, and this is no incidental arrangement. Christ has ascended into Heaven, not to abandon the world, but to reign over it; not to depart from humanity, but to elevate it. In His Ascension, our nature is carried into the very life of God. The Name of Jesus, once uttered in humility upon the roads of Galilee, now resounds in triumph in the courts of Heaven. And therefore the Church prays that as He has ascended bodily, we may ascend spiritually—that our hearts may follow where He has gone. Yet hearts do not rise if they are weighed down by the world. They do not ascend if they are entangled in attachments. They do not burn if they have grown cold. And so the Church gives us Bernardine, a man whose heart was already lifted above the earth.
Born in 1380 into a noble family in Siena, Bernardine entered a world fractured by violence, rivalry, and moral disorder. Italy was divided by factions, cities set against one another, families bound in cycles of revenge. Even the Church had been shaken by the Great Western Schism, and confidence in authority had been deeply wounded. It is a familiar pattern. We imagine our age uniquely unstable, yet history shows that God permits such crises—and answers them not first with institutions, but with saints.
As a young man, Bernardine possessed natural gifts that could easily have led him astray. He was intelligent, refined, and notably handsome. Such qualities attract admiration, but also temptation. Yet the Epistle of today’s Mass describes him with exact precision: he could have transgressed, and did not. He stood firm where others yielded. He restrained himself where others indulged. Here is the forgotten foundation of holiness. The modern world speaks much of freedom, yet misunderstands it entirely. It equates freedom with expression, indulgence, and the satisfaction of desire. But a man ruled by his desires is not free; he is governed. A soul enslaved to appetite is not flourishing; it is divided against itself. Bernardine understood that true freedom begins in self-mastery, and that the path to holiness passes through discipline.
This interior strength soon manifested itself outwardly. When plague struck Siena, Bernardine did not flee as many did, but remained to care for the sick and dying. He laboured in hospitals, carried the afflicted, buried the dead, and exposed himself daily to danger. This was not the charity of words, but of sacrifice. The saints resemble Christ not in sentiment, but in self-gift. They do not speak merely of love; they enact it.
In time, Bernardine renounced his wealth entirely and entered the Franciscan Order in 1402. He embraced poverty, penance, and apostolic labour, placing no trust in riches, no hope in security, no confidence in worldly advancement. He fulfilled in his own life the very words of today’s Gospel, leaving all for the sake of Christ’s Name, and thereby laying hold already of that hundredfold promised by the Lord. In an age intoxicated by accumulation, he chose dispossession. In a world grasping for control, he entrusted himself to Providence. And from that renunciation came a power far greater than anything the world could offer: spiritual authority.
He went forth preaching—ceaselessly, courageously, and with extraordinary effect. Town after town, city after city, he proclaimed repentance, reconciliation, and renewal. Vast crowds gathered. Hardened sinners repented. Feuds were reconciled. Public vice diminished. Yet the centre of his preaching was always the same: the Holy Name of Jesus. This devotion was not sentimental, nor merely personal. It was, in the deepest sense, civilisational.
Bernardine preached the Name of Jesus against division, setting it against the factional hatred that tore cities apart. He preached it against corruption, against greed, against the moral decay of public life. He understood that disorder in society flows from disorder in the soul, and that no lasting renewal can occur without conversion. In a striking gesture, he held before the people the sacred monogram IHS, urging them to replace the emblems of rivalry with the Name of their Saviour. Where once there were banners of division, he placed the sign of unity in Christ. There is, indeed, no other name under heaven given to men whereby we must be saved.
And now the Holy Gospel speaks with piercing clarity. St Peter says to Our Lord: “Behold, we have left all and followed Thee; what then shall we have?” And Christ answers with a promise both astonishing and demanding: that those who have left all for His Name’s sake shall receive a hundredfold and shall possess life everlasting. Here is the true measure of Bernardine’s life. He did not merely revere Christ; he renounced all for Him. He did not admire the Name; he surrendered himself to it. And the Gospel makes clear that such renunciation is not loss, but exchange—earth for Heaven, the passing for the eternal, the finite for the infinite.
This is the point at which the Gospel ceases to be comfortable. For it is one thing to honour the Name of Jesus; it is another to leave all for it. One thing to speak it; another to live by it. One thing to admire the saints; another to imitate them. Yet Christ leaves no ambiguity: those who cling to this world lose it; those who surrender it gain eternity.
How far we have travelled from this clarity. Our age seeks solutions everywhere except where they are found. We reorganise structures, draft policies, and refine systems, yet neglect the one thing necessary: conversion of heart. We treat symptoms but ignore causes. We speak of peace but reject the Prince of Peace. Bernardine would recognise our condition immediately, and he would give the same answer: the Holy Name of Jesus—reverenced, invoked, and lived.
Yet how is that Name treated today? It is spoken casually, even profanely, used without reverence, and often in blasphemy. The world has forgotten what the saints knew well: that this Name is not merely a word, but power. Not symbolic power, but real authority. Every knee shall bow. The demons know this. The saints knew it. It is modern man who has forgotten.
The Ascension now reveals the full depth of this truth. Christ has not withdrawn from the world; He reigns over it. He intercedes for us. He governs all things from the right hand of the Father. And this means that devotion to His Name is not nostalgia—it is allegiance. To honour the Name of Jesus is to acknowledge His Kingship. To invoke it is to submit to His authority. To live by it is to belong to His Kingdom. And to leave all for that Name is to share, even now, in the glory into which He has entered.
Near the end of his life, Bernardine was warned that his death was approaching, and in 1444, worn out by years of apostolic labour, he surrendered his soul to God. He died as he had lived: not preserving himself, but spending himself; not seeking comfort, but fulfilling his mission; not clinging to life, but offering it.
And here lies the challenge for us. We lament the state of the world. We speak of decline, fragmentation, and crisis. Yet Bernardine reminds us that renewal does not begin with systems, but with sanctity. One soul on fire with divine charity can transform a city. One life wholly given to Christ can alter the course of history. The question is not whether the world is dark. The question is whether we will burn.
Do we honour the Holy Name of Jesus as Bernardine did? Do we speak it with reverence? Do we invoke it in temptation? Do we teach it to our children? Do we make reparation when it is profaned? Or has it become for us merely familiar—present on the lips, but absent from the heart?
As we continue in these days of Ascensiontide, the Church calls us upward. Christ has gone before us, and where the Head has gone, the Body is called to follow. But that ascent begins now—in the heart, in conversion, in reverence, in love for the Holy Name.
For in the end, when kingdoms fall, when history is silenced, when every earthly name is forgotten, one reality alone will remain: Jesus Christ, Lord of Heaven and earth. And blessed—eternally blessed—is the soul that has not only bowed before that Name, but has left all for it, and so comes to possess that hundredfold and the life everlasting promised by Christ.
In the Name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost. Amen.
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