Holy Name of Jesus

The naming of Jesus, SN in Croatia, and Irish naming trends

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Happy Wednesday! Less than ten days until Christmas, as my boys keep on (and keep on) reminding me!

When I was going through the posts and articles about Advent and Christmas names that I posted the other day, I realized that one I did about the naming of Jesus for CatholicMom a couple of years ago didn’t survive their site redesign, so I’m posting it below.

I also have the fun news that the article I wrote for CatholicMom in October — “Praying the Rosary with Children” — was reprinted (with permission) on a Croatian web site. How cool! Check it out!

Finally, Sara at the DMNES shared this article with me, it’s such a fun read!: Name that Child! at The Irish Times (Dec. 28, 1999).

Glory to the Newborn King

by Kate Towne for CatholicMom.com (December, 2017)

Our newly beatified Bl. Solanus Casey was known to have a great love for The Mystical City of God (affiliate link), a history of the life of Our Lady said to have been revealed by her to Ven. Mary of Agreda in the seventeenth century. Because of my mom’s great love for Bl. Solanus, she decided to read the book that was so dear to him, and she fell in love with it as well, and has talked about it ever since — well over thirty years. In fact, her tattered copy of it is a fixture in my memories of my childhood home.

(It’s important to note that the contents of The Mystical City of God consist of private revelation, and are therefore not required to be believed by the faithful. (see the Catechism of the Catholic Church, no. 67) . )

I was looking through the book recently for the first time, and discovered a section regarding the naming of Jesus. Thanks to the St. Andrew Novena, I’d already been meditating frequently this Advent on “the hour and moment in which the Son of God was born of the most pure Virgin Mary, at midnight in Bethlehem, in the piercing cold,” and because my own experiences with giving birth have included the naming of the baby as soon as he’s born, I’d forgotten (or perhaps hadn’t fully realized) that Jesus wouldn’t have been named until His circumcision eight days later. But also, I’d never thought about His actual naming, beyond simply the acknowledgment that He would be known as Jesus per God’s instruction, and I loved reading this bit:

“Then most holy Mary and Joseph took counsel concerning the name to be given to the divine Infant in the Circumcision [in which they both shared that the name Jesus had been revealed to them both, separately] … While the great Mistress of Heaven and St. Joseph thus conversed with each other, innumerable angels descended in human forms from on high, clothed in shining white garments, on which were woven red embroideries of wonderful beauty … The holy angels divided into two choirs in the cave, keeping their gaze fixed upon the King and Lord in the arms of His virginal Mother. The chiefs of these heavenly cohorts were the two princes, St. Michael and St. Gabriel, shining in greater splendor than the rest and bearing in their hands, as a special distinction, the most holy name JESUS, written in larger letters on something like cards of incomparable beauty and splendor.

The two princes presented themselves apart from the rest before their Queen and said: “Lady, this is the name of thy Son (Matt. 1:21), which was written in the mind of God from all eternity and which the Blessed Trinity has given to thy Only-begotten Son and Our Lord as the signal of salvation for the whole human race …” (pp. 243–244)

I’ve written before about the power of names, and specifically the power of the Name of Jesus, at which mention every “every knee should bend, in heaven and on earth and under the earth” (Philippians 2:9-10), and in which “whatever you do, in word or in deed” should be done, “giving thanks to God the Father through him” (Col 3:17), so I don’t have a hard time at all believing that the revelation of His Name would be accompanied by such heavenly fanfare and celebration!

My book, Catholic Baby Names for Girls and Boys: Over 250 Ways to Honor Our Lady (Marian Press, 2018), is available to order from ShopMercy.org and Amazon (not affiliate links) — perfect for the expectant parents, name enthusiasts, and lovers of Our Lady in your life!

Happy Feast of the Holy Name of Jesus! (And redemption of Black Friday Special No. 3)

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I just posted a [not fun] Friday question a few minutes ago, completely forgetting to wish you all a happy Feast of the Holy Name of Jesus! I’ve written several things about His Holy Name, which I link to in this post, and I also just discovered that the diocese of Raleigh, North Carolina has the Holy Name of Jesus as one of its patrons! (The other is the Sacred Heart of Jesus — those are some heavy hitting patrons!) So happy patronal feast day to all you Raleigh-ites!

Today is also the day that I start accepting consultation requests from those of you who took advantage of my Black Friday Special No. 3. I look forward to hearing from you!

My book, Catholic Baby Names for Girls and Boys: Over 250 Ways to Honor Our Lady (Marian Press, 2018), is available to order from ShopMercy.org and Amazon — perfect for the expectant parents, name enthusiasts, and lovers of Our Lady in your life!

Happy feast of the Holy Name of Jesus!

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I love when things like this happen: My December CatholicMom column was moved to after Christmas because of the topic I wrote about (the naming of Jesus), but I didn’t know what day it was being moved to, and yesterday I discovered that it was posted last Friday, so I planned to link to it here today, and when I was scrolling through Facebook this morning I saw that today’s the feast of the Holy Name of Jesus! How perfect that I was already planning to share an article about His Name on the feast of His Name!

This is my new article: Glory to the Newborn King.

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It links to an older one I’d written on the power of Jesus’ Name (Planned Parenthood vs. the Holy Name of Jesus); I also did a post a while back on some of the saints who were promoters and lovers of the Holy Name of Jesus (THE promoter of the Holy Name), as well as a post discussing some of the names of Jesus (March for Life: Comfort and confidence in the Holy Name of Jesus). And then today I looked up “prayers to the Holy Name of Jesus” and found this beautiful Litany of the Holy Name of Jesus, which my littlest guy and I just said together. His Name is such a beautiful thing to contemplate today, on Its feast and while we look forward to the Epiphany!

Names for the Joyful Mysteries

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Yesterday was one of my very favorite feast days and the first of the Joyful Mysteries, which makes today the perfect Tuesday to post names associated with them! And also, Dwija’s little Helen was discharged from the NICU yesterday and is home with her family, happy and thriving. Joy all around!!

Today’s post is a continuation of my Mysteries of the Rosary series, having already done names for the Sorrowful and Glorious Mysteries, and your comments have been invaluable — keep them coming!

These are the Joyful Mysteries (read more here) (and here’s how to pray the Rosary):

The Annunciation by Gabriel to Mary (yesterday’s feast!)
The Visitation of Mary to Her Cousin Elizabeth
The Nativity of Jesus
The Presentation of the Baby Jesus in the Temple
The Finding of the Child Jesus in the Temple

Names associated with the Joyful Mysteries might include:

Girls

Angela, Angeline, Angelica, Archangela, Angel — the angel names all point to St. Gabriel

Annunziata — an Italian name referring to the Annunciation

Annunciación — a Spanish name referring to the Annunciation

Christina, Christine, Christiane/a, Kristin, etc. — the Christ- names refer to Jesus in the last three Mysteries

Elizabeth, Elizabeth, Elise, Elisa, Eliza, etc. — for St. Elizabeth, Our Lady’s cousin

Emmanuelle, Emmanuella — for Jesus, especially in the Nativity

Felicity, Felicitas — means “happiness,” for the Joyful Mysteries

Fiat — for Our Lady’s agreement to what Gabriel announced (“let it be done”); Amy suggested Fiat recently, and suggested the particular first name-middle name combo Marian Fiat

Gabrielle, Gabriela — for St. Gabriel

Jane, Joan, Jo(h)anna — for St. John the Baptist, who leapt in his mother’s womb for joy at being in the presence of his Unborn Savior

Josephine, Josefa — for good St. Joseph

Joy, Gioia — means “joy” in English and Italian, respectively

Joyce — behindthename says it originally came from a name meaning “lord,” and that its more recent popularity may be related to its similarity to the Middle English word for “to rejoice.” “Lord” or “rejoicing” — it’s all good for a Joyful Mysteries name!

Mary, Maria, Marie, etc. — for Our Lady, of course

Natalie, Natalia — literally refers to Christmas Day

Noel, Noelle — French for “Christmas”

Presentación — a Spanish name referring to the Presentation

Seraphina, Serafina, Seraphine — refers to the angels (specifically the seraphim, but I think the angelic meaning is what most people think of)

 

 

Boys

Angelo, Angel — see the Angel names above

Annunziato — see Annunziata above

Baptista, Baptiste, Battista, Bautista — alone or in combination with a John name, for St. John the Baptist (these are all listed as masculine by behindthename, but they could easily be used for girls as well, as I don’t think they come across as masculine [or at least not exclusively so] in America)

Christian, Christopher — see the Christ- names above

Emmanuel — see Emmanuelle above

Felix — see Felicity above

Gabriel — of course!

Jesús — it’s not considered reverent to use the name of Jesus in English, but it is in Spanish

John — for St. John the Baptist

Joseph — see Josephine above

Noel — see Noel above

Ryan — means “little king,” which especially calls to mind the Baby Jesus

Seraphim — see Seraphina above

What others can you add to this list? (There are lots more Christmas names, which I’ve posted about a few times — I just included the ones here that seemed particular to what I think of when I’m meditating on the Mystery of the Nativity.)

+ My soul proclaims the greatness of the Lord; my spirit rejoices in God my Savior. +

Spotlight on: Ryan

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We’re going to finish up Irish week with an Irish spotlight! ((irish twinkle eyes!!) (Thanks too for all the great ideas for Colleen yesterday!)

Not too long ago, Katrina of Hatch Prints (hand lettering and art shop on Etsy, goorrrgeous) and Cedars and Tiny Flowers (mama blog) fame posted about her oldest’s name, Ryan Donald (he who looks uncannily like my oldest nephew in several of his photos — Mom/sisters/sisters-in-law, do you agree?), and wrote,

“We didn’t put much emphasis on for having a saintly base to his name. We think our names get a passing grade as long as there is just one saint that can be connected. I have all the hope in the world that there will be a St. Ryan someday even with my ordinary mothering especially after reading this the other day. There happens to be a St. Donald, but it is kind of a downer because there is almost nothing known about him. I do wish we had a specific intercessor picked out to call upon for Ryan. Maybe Kate could do a spotlight on Ryan? Hint, hint.”

I totally picked up the hint (:) ) and thought it would be the perfect name to spotlight not only at the end of Irish week (because it’s Irish, just in case you weren’t sure), but also as we go into Holy Week, since I’m totally thinking that the best faithy connection for Ryan is Jesus Himself.

Ryan is said by behindthename and babynamesofireland (which only has an entry for Ryanne, “a female form of Ryan,” but not Ryan. Weird) to come from from ri (=king) and the diminutive –in, in essence meaning “little king,” which is, to me, all that tiny Babe in the manger. How cool. I might then consider it a possible Christmas name as well. I’m totally loving this idea!

Further digging shows there may indeed be a St. Ryan, under the name St. Rhian, and he is a mysterious (but so intriguing!) fellow. There’s a Welsh town called Llanrhian, where “llan” means “place of” (according to my Welsh expert friend Clare from Name News [a treasure trove of name info] — check out her comments about Welsh names and pronunciations on my post here, so cool!), and “There are lots of place names that are Llan + saint’s name, e.g. Llanfair (Mair = Mary), Llanbedr (Pedr = Peter).” so Llanrhian is named after someone named Rhian, and despite the fact that behindthename says Rhian is a Welsh female name meaning “maiden,” this site says about St. Rhian,

“Little is known of this saint, or of any other dedications to him. A few suggestions have been made:

  • The name may originally have been Rian, Rayn or Ryan, as early documents spelt it this way, and he could have been one of St David’s followers.

  • He could have been Rein, or Rhun, son of Brechan Brycheiniog, whose children have churches dedicated to them in various parts of Pembrokeshire

  • He could have been Reanus, Abbot of the 7th century

  • The name could have been descriptive – rian was an old Irish word for a trackway and Llanrhian might refer to the church on the trackway

  • It would recall some local chieftain who had embraced the Christian faith (rhi = king, an = little)

  • The Welsh word for maiden is rhiain, so the dedication might be to the Virgin Mary.”

(What’s that? A possible connection to Mother Mary?? ((heart eyes!!)) ) You can read more about Llanrhian and its founder/saint in this great document, and he even has a feast day (March 8).

So I’d say, if Katrina, or anyone else, wants a known patron for Ryan, I’d look to Jesus, and how awesome is that. But if a saint with the actual name is desired, St. Rhian’s the best we got, and not a terrible option at all.

What do you think of Ryan as a Jesus name? Do you have any other ideas for a patron saint for Ryan? Thanks to Katrina for the shout out and request!

 

March for Life: Comfort and confidence in the Holy Name of Jesus

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I really wanted to write about the March for Life today, I feel like my heart’s right in D.C. with the marchers who are braving the cold and snow and ridicule and hatred and silent media all for the babies. And I thought — what better way than by writing about the Holy Name of Jesus? I found such comfort in the Holy Name during the height of the Planned Parenthood Videos expose, even writing about it in my August CatholicMom.com column: Planned Parenthood vs. the Holy Name of Jesus. I also looked into devotion to the Holy Name a little more, and was delighted to discover that the saint my alma mater was named after, St. Bernardine of Siena, was THE promoter of the Holy Name! And then yesterday my mom and I were talking about Jesus’ different names and what they mean, specifically Christ, Emmanuel, Jesus, and Messiah. So I thought I’d do just a small bit of info about each:

Christ
From Behind the Name: “Means ‘anointed’, derived from Greek χριω (chrio) ‘to anoint’. This was a name applied to Jesus by early Greek-speaking Christians. It is a translation of the Hebrew word מָשִׁיחַ (mashiyach), commonly spelled in English messiah, which also means ‘anointed’.”

There are a lot of names connected to Christ that are familiar, like Christian, Christopher, Christine/a, and some that are unfamiliar, like (according to the DMNES): Christophera, Christred, Christwin, and Christwina! I think my favorite version is Christiana.

Emmanuel
From Behind the Name: “From the Hebrew name עִמָּנוּאֵל (‘Immanu’el) meaning ‘God is with us’. This was the foretold name of the Messiah in the Old Testament. It has been used in England since the 16th century in the spellings Emmanuel and Immanuel, though it has not been widespread. The name has been more common in continental Europe, especially in Spain and Portugal (in the spellings Manuel and Manoel).”

I know you’ll laugh, but ever since seeing Manny the Mammoth in Ice Age, I’ve though Manny was a pretty great nickname for a boy, and I love the meaning of Emmanuel. It would be great for a Christmas baby! I love the feminine variants Emmanuelle and Emmanuela as well — lots of good nickname options! Emma, Ella, Nell(a), and even Manny (my husband’s godmother’s name was one of the Emmanuel variants [I’m just not sure which] and she went by Manny).

Jesus
From Behind the Name: “English form of Ιησους (Iesous), which was the Greek form of the Aramaic name יֵשׁוּעַ (Yeshu’a). Yeshu’a is itself a contracted form of Yehoshu’a (see JOSHUA). Yeshua ben Yoseph, better known as Jesus Christ, was the central figure of the New Testament and the source of the Christian religion. The four Gospels state that he was the son of God and the Virgin Mary who fulfilled the Old Testament prophecies of the Messiah. He preached for three years before being crucified in Jerusalem.”

“Yeshua ben Yoseph” always jumps out at me — it’s equal parts so cool and also so common. Does that make sense? I always think of Him as Jesus, which equals God in my mind; seeing Yeshua ben Yoseph makes Him seem so “normal.” Which of course he was, both, God and Man, fully. What an awesome mystery.

This is the Joshua bit: “From the Hebrew name יְהוֹשֻׁעַ (Yehoshu’a) meaning “YAHWEH is salvation”. Joshua was one of the twelve spies sent into Canaan by Moses, as told in the Old Testament. After Moses died Joshua succeeded him as leader of the Israelites. As an English name, Joshua has been in use since the Protestant Reformation. The name Jesus comes from a Greek translation of the Aramaic short form יֵשׁוּעַ (Yeshu’a), which was the real name of Jesus.”

Messiah
See Christ above. The entry at Nameberry references that Tennessee judge who ruled that parents couldn’t name their son Messiah “because there’s only one” — it was overturned, and in fact the name Messiah was #298 in 2014!

I was delighted to discover recently that the month of January also happens to be devoted to the Holy Name of Jesus! I’m sure it’s no coincidence — even if the organizers of the March for Life didn’t realize that in the beginning, we all know Heaven did.


So I have a small giveaway today! I have three copies of Fr. Paul O’Sullivan, O.P.’s book The Wonders of the Holy Name, and how I’d like to do it is offer them first to any of you readers that might be at the March for Life today. I know you’re probably not reading this if you are! So I won’t choose the recipients until Sunday evening, in hopes that gives enough time to get home, thaw out (!), and catch up on your blog reading. 🙂 Second, if none of our readers are marchers, I’d like to give them to any of you who personally know a marcher, who can pass it on to that person. Finally, if there are no marchers and no friends of marchers, I’ll pick randomly from those who comment on this post. It’s a powerful little book! And I love the dedication: “This booklet is lovingly dedicated to the Sweet Mother of Jesus. No one loves the name of Jesus as she does.”

“Therefore God highly exalted him and bestowed on him the name which is above every name, that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, in heaven and on earth and under the earth …” (Philippians 2:9-10).

From the footnote in my bible (Ignatius Catholic Study Bible, Second Edition RSV): “heaven … earth … under the earth: The three principal realms in the worldview of ancient Israel (Ex 20:4). Homage will come from all creatures great and small — the angels and saints above, the family of man and beasts spread over the earth, and the dead and the demons of the underworld.”

(You might also be interested in reading my post from the summer: I would imagine Planned Parenthood fears names, which doesn’t mention the Name of Jesus but totally should. It does reference Call Him Emmett and the 50 Million Names project.)

Spotlight on: Ruby

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Julie asked me to do a spotlight on Ruby, which I’ve been really loving in the last couple of years, so I’m delighted to do so! She was specifically hoping for faith-based references beyond the mentions in Proverbs in some translations referring to the value of Wisdom (3:15; 8:11; 20:15) and a good wife (31:10) as being greater than rubies (other translations say “corals,” “jewels,” and even “pearls” instead of rubies — this is a pretty good explanation of why).

This web site said, “The ruby has long been seen as the gem of passion, love, and courage for its vibrant red tone” and this site said rubies signify “friendship, fire, love, royalty, happiness, the opening of the heart,” all of which got me thinking about the courage and blood of Jesus and the courage and blood of the martyrs, and the Passion of Christ and His love for us, and His Sacred Heart, so I did a little research down that path and discovered several products with actual rubies used for Jesus’ heart (e.g., Sacred Heart medal; Sacred Heart with Ruby pendant), and several instances of “ruby” being used instead of “red” to describe the color of an object having to do with the Sacred Heart (e.g., Sacred Heart of Jesus Rosary with Ruby Crystal Beads; Sacred Heart Ruby Chaplet).

As for “ruby” and “red” being interchangeable, I found that “ruby” comes from the Latin ruber, meaning “red,” I loved this description of the reason behind red vestments:

“Red has a dual imagery: On one hand, red symbolizes the shedding of blood and is therefore used on Palm Sunday (when Christ entered Jerusalem to prepare for His death), Good Friday, any other commemoration of the Lord’s passion, the votive Mass of the Precious Blood, the days marking the martyrdom of the apostles (except St. John), and the feasts of other martyrs who offered their lives for the faith.

On the other hand, red also signifies the burning fire of God’s love. For this reason, red vestments are won on Pentecost when the Holy Spirit descended on the apostles and tongues of fire rested on their heads; for the celebration of the Sacrament of Confirmation; and for the votive Masses of the Holy Spirit.” (source)

I really wanted to find the significance of rubies in art, but couldn’t find anything — do any of you know?

So I’m totally loving the idea of Ruby for the Sacred Heart or for Jesus’ Passion and Death or for the martyrs, and I like that Ruby could also be sort of a Holy Spirit name, based on the red of the tongues of fire that descended upon the Apostles … using Ruby in these ways feels similar to the usage of Cora for the Sacred Heart, and Halle as part of Hallelujah: they require a little explanation but the intention behind the name is impeccable (and you know how I feel about intentions).

As I’ve mentioned before (here and here), I once saw Ruby used as a nickname for Rebecca and I fell head-over-heels for that first name/nickname combo! I thought of other ways of getting to Ruby as a nickname and came up with ideas like:

Rosa Beatrice
Ruth Abigail (although why you wouldn’t go with Ruthie is beyond me)
Roma Benedicta
Regina Kolbe

But I definitely think “just Ruby” could work with the beautiful connections I mentioned above.

What do you think of Ruby? Would you use it on its own as a given name, or would you prefer it as a nickname? Do you know any little girls named Ruby?

December CatholicMom.com article posted today!

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Last year I wrote what I thought was a pretty comprehensive post about Christmas names.

Oh, what a newbie name writer I was!

Not only have I since found better, more comprehensive articles (like this one), but I’ve also found articles and posts that cover ideas I’d never even considered (like names from Christmas TV specials).

So it seemed the only “new” thing to write about Christmas names was to just try to take a new angle (like the aforementioned Christmas TV specials idea), a new-ish way of talking about the same names we always talk about in regards to Christmas.

That’s what I tried to do with my latest column at CatholicMom.com, which posted today: Holy Family Names for Christmastime Babies. If you couldn’t guess from the title 😉 , I focused on names solely having to do with the Holy Family. They’re familiar to you, of course, but it’s always a nice idea to rehash ways of naming babies after the Major Players in The Christmas Story. I’m also limited with space, which is freeing, because I wouldn’t be able to list All The Names, even if I wanted to. (Whew! Thank goodness for word limits!)

Please hop on over and leave a comment — I’d love to hear your thoughts on these ideas for Christmastime babies, or tell me yours!

Jesus’ genealogy

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I went to my oldest’s school Mass yesterday, and the priest started his homily by suggesting that having to listen to all the names of Jesus’ ancestors, as listed in the reading for yesterday’s Feast of the Birth of Our Lady, was not anyone’s favorite thing to do.

Clearly this blog is not the place for him. 😛

Of course I had hung on every word of that reading, loving the listing of names, and the priest went on to give a pretty amazing homily about the significance of the fact that Jesus’ ancestors were a mix of, as he put it, “saints and scoundrels,” which Matthew likely felt important to include to show that there’s hope for all of us.

It made me think, too, of how many of us love to look through our own family trees for names that we might like to consider for our own children — “it’s a family name” makes any name okay, no matter how popular/unpopular/weird/unusual/difficult to say or spell, etc. So it’s kind of cool to think of doing the same with Jesus’ family names — a nod to Him in the naming of your baby.

These are the names as listed in that reading:

Abraham
Isaac
Jacob
Judah
Perez (whose mother was Tamar)
Hezron
Ram
Amminadab
Nahshon
Salmon
Boaz (whose mother was Rahab)
Obed (whose mother was Ruth)
Jesse the father of David the king.

David
Solomon
Rehoboam
Abijah
Asaph
Jehoshaphat
Joram
Uzziah
Jotham
Ahaz
Hezekiah
Manasseh
Amos
Josiah

Jechoniah
Shealtiel
Zerubbabel
Abiud
Eliakim
Azor
Zadok
Achim
Eliud
Eleazar
Matthan
Jacob the father of Joseph, the husband of Mary.
Of her was born Jesus who is called the Christ.

There are definitely some cool possibilities in there for boys:

Abraham
Isaac
Jacob (TWO of Jesus’ ancestors, how great for all the Jakes!)
Judah
Ram
Boaz (love love love love! I think it’s juuuust a little too far for us, but only just — such a cool name)
Obed
Jesse
David
Solomon
Joram
Jotham
Amos
Josiah
Achim
Eleazar
Matthan (I’m digging this one — kind of like Matthew/Matthias, but different)
Joseph

And a couple girl names too:

Tamar
Ruth
Mary

Incidentally, since we know Mary leads us to Jesus, it’s kind of cool to think that naming a little girl Mary in light of this reading is really a nod to Jesus name-wise. I never thought of it that way before. ❤

What names would you consider from this list? Would you ever consider a name like Uzziah or Zerubbabel? What do you think of the idea of using one of the ancestors’ names as an honor name for Jesus?

My newest CatholicMom.com column

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You all know I’m struggling with these Planned Parenthood videos so you shouldn’t be surprised that my August column at CatholicMom.com (up today) tackles the issue again (my previous post here on the blog, I would imagine Planned Parenthood fears names, was the most shared of all the posts I’ve ever written, by a landslide, so I know you’re all feeling it too): Planned Parenthood vs. the Holy Name of Jesus.

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(I blogged about the Holy Name the other day too, especially in regards to Its major promoter, St. Bernardine of Siena.)

Of course I had no way of knowing when I wrote it that the seventh video would be released today, but I’m glad my article’s coinciding with the release of this new information of horror: babies alive after an attempted abortion, with still beating hearts, having body parts harvested, including “how the abortionist made [the “former procurement technician with Planned Parenthood partner StemExpress” who revealed this info] harvest the baby’s brain by cutting his face open with scissors.”

This is a bit from a historical novel I just read (Winter of the World by Ken Follett, about the Second World War, including the Nazis):

image

This particular bit is about how the Nazis rounded up disabled children — and adults too, though it doesn’t reference them in this particular passage — but most of the German citizens either didn’t know it or didn’t believe it.

Then there’s this, from the same book:

imageIt explains more about that very program:

“The program was called Aktion T4 after its address, 4 Tiergarten Strasse. The agency was officially the Charitable Foundation for Cure and Institutionalized Care … Its job was to arrange the painless deaths of handicapped people who could not survive without costly care. It had done splendid work in the last couple of years, disposing of tens of thousands of useless people … The problem was that German public opinion was not yet sophisticated enough to understand the need for such deaths, so the program had to be kept quiet.”

Of course parallels have been drawn for a long time between the Holocaust and abortion, but still I was struck by the similarity between what I was reading and what Planned Parenthood (and all abortionists) is and has been doing. In fact, our government does sanction the killing of handicapped children. Healthy children too! The particular horrors have been kept quiet for some time, and there are those (one example here) that seem to think the same as what’s being said in this passage — that the graphic revelation of horror shouldn’t change hearts because we need to be “sophisticated” enough to understand the need for this “necessary” evil.

Just like the Nazis.

God help us all, in Jesus’ name.