“Moses said to God, ‘But when I go to the Israelites

and say to them, ‘The God of your fathers has sent me to you,’

if they ask me, ‘What is his name?’ what am I to tell them?’

God replied, ‘I am who am.’

Then he added, ‘This is what you shall tell the Israelites:

I AM sent me to you.’

God spoke further to Moses, ‘Thus shall you say to the Israelites:

The LORD, the God of your fathers,

the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, the God of Jacob,

has sent me to you.

This is my name forever;

thus am I to be remembered through all generations.’”

Shakespeare wrote in Romeo and Juliet, “What’s in a name? That which we call a rose by any other name would smell as sweet.” While the essence of a thing, it’s very core identity, may not be dependent upon what we call it, names can have significance. As a child, I received a little prayer card that was based on my name, Jeffrey. It informed me that my name meant “God’s peace.” It resonated with me and became something of an ideal to aim for. In college, we used the Myers-Briggs personality types to assist with self understanding. My type was INFP (close to the borderline between introvert and extrovert). An explanatory phrase for that type was, “still waters run deep.” It seemed like an affirmation to me of God’s peace. Even today, I still sign most of my correspondence with the closing, “Peace.” Perhaps by happy coincidence, the meaning of my name felt descriptive, like there was a connection between who was and what I was called. It also felt like a calling, like a connection between who I was and who I would become. In any case, my name has not been irrelevant. 

In the reading from Exodus today, we get God’s revelation to Moses of his name, his name forever, how all generations are to remember him. There are actually three references by God to his own name. Without going into the Hebrew (and I am not an expert), the English translations are, “I am who am,” “I AM,” and “LORD.” LORD is used in the New American Bible to indicate the four letter name of God, technically called the Tetragrammaton, or YHWH, without vowels, but it is usually written and pronounced Yahweh. Granted that it is overly simplistic, it can be understood to mean “He is.” Each of these is a derivative of the verb “to be.” In Catholic tradition, there has always been a connection between what God is called and who he really is, his core identity, his essence. 

This is the connection between existence itself, what we call being, and God. God has been called subsistent being itself and absolute being to get at the idea that God is existence in and of itself or God is being beholden to nothing else. God is that which only necessarily exists, that is purely and simply being, and whose essence is being. This can get very heady, but the point is not to get lost. God is existence itself, exists in and of himself, and is absolute. The name(s) he reveals to Moses is significant. God’s name reflects his true identity. It is holy. God is eternal. And this eternal being of God, his essence, is love. Saint Pope Paul VI wrote, “He is He who is, as He revealed to Moses; and He is love, as the apostle John teaches us: so that these two names, being and love, express ineffably the same divine reality of Him.” God is and God is love. In God, being and love are the same. All else that is, the universe, is because of God. All else that is, the universe, is because of love. At the heart of all existence is love. At the heart of our existence is love. And, as St. Paul tells us, “Love never fails.