The Name of God: "I Am." Moses --- St. Paul ---- St. Josemaria Escriva

The name God gives of Himself before Moses is “I Am.” St. Paul experiences becoming Christ as “I Am.” St. Josemaria Escriva experiences that the universal call to sanctity proclaimed in Chapter V of Vatican II’s Lumen Gentium consists in the achievement of becoming  “another Christ” – I Am – through the exercise of ordinary work in the world.

I - The name of God is revealed to Moses from the burning bush as “I Am Who Am:” the Tetragrammaton JHWH.

The name of Jesus is His action of saving: Christ. Jesus Christ. Benedict XVI writes that “concealed within the name of Jesus is the tetragrammaton, the mysterious name from Mount Horeb, here expanded into the statement: God saves. The, as it were, ‘incomplete’ name from Sinai is finally spoken. The God who is, is the saving God, now present.”[1]

  Christ explicitly refers to himself as “I Am” in Jn. 8, 24: ”If you do not believe that I am [Ego eimi], you will die in your sin”; 8, 28: “When you have lifted up the Son  of Man, then you will know that I am [Ego eimi];” 8, 58: “Before Abraham came to be, I am” [Ego eimi].”

II – St. Paul: Galatians 2, 20: “I live; no, not I. Christ lives in me.”

III – St. Josemaria Escriva: “The work of salvation is still going on, and our Lord wants to share that work. He wants Christians to open to his love all the paths of the earth. He invites us to spread the divine message, by both teaching and example, to the farthest corners of the earth. He asks us, as citizens of both ecclesial and civil society, to be other Christs by fulfilling our duties conscientiously, sanctifying our everyday work and the responsibilities of our particular walk of life.” [2]

The panorama of St. Josemaria on the Alter Christus, Ipse Christus is the following:

  The alter Christus, ipse Christus:

                -contemplates the life of Christ

                -imitates his actions

                -does things like a son of God

                -follows Jesus by doing his duties

                -united to Christ, allows the Master’s life to express itself through him

                -moves others to share in the Redemption

                -is priest of his own existence

                -realizes that he is called to serve all men as Christ did

                -offers all things to the Father with Christ the Mediator

                -is committed to continuing Christ’s mission and to do so by sanctifying earthly structures from within, bringing to them the leaven of Redemption

                -sanctifies his everyday work and the duties of his state-in-life

                -thereby perpetuates Christ’s mission among men.[3]

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[1] Benedict XVI, “Jesus of Nazareth – The Infancy Narratives” (III) Doubleday (2012) 30.

[2] St. Josemaria Escriva “Christ is Passing By,” Scepter #150.

[3] Antonio Aranda “The Christian, alter Christus, iipse Christus¸in the thought of Blessed Josemaria Escriva de Balaguer,” Holiness and the World, Scepter (1997) 184.