Our Sharpest Tool

Children know thirty to forty offensive words by the time they enter school, suggests data from psychology professors Timothy Jay and Kristin Janschewitz, though no one knows if kids are aware of what the words mean. Likewise, children may not fully understand all the words they use in prayer. I’ve heard kids not only say—but pray—the darnedest things: “Our Father, who art in heaven, hollowed be thy name.” “O my God, I am hardly sorry for having offended thee.” As children, St. Paul writes, we tend to speak, think, and reason like a child; but we give up childish ways when we become adults (1 Corinthians 13:11). When adults pray, “Hallowed be thy name,” we are asking God to enable us to give him the reverence that is due; it comes first in the Lord’s Prayer before we ask anything for ourselves—a sure sign of respect for God and of our maturity in giving up childish, narcissistic behaviors. Outgrowing childish ways, however, doesn’t mean abandoning petitionary prayer altogether. On the contrary, petitions indicate total dependence on our heavenly Father, so it is far better for us to approach God in prayer like little children. Even addressing God as Father “belongs to the order of trust and intimacy” (Catechism of the Catholic Church 2143). Moreover, because the Lord’s name is holy, we must not abuse it. Saint James writes that, with our tongue, “we bless the Lord and Father, and with it we curse men, who are made in the likeness of God. From the same mouth come blessing and cursing. This need not be so” (James 3:9–10). What happens when the tongue we use in reverence for God is contradicted by the one used for cursing? For some, cursing produces a cathartic effect in response to pain or anger. Those who view it as a form of stress management or as a substitute for physical aggression also contend that any abuse of God’s name in this context is neither literal nor deliberate. The God who knows our hearts can determine if our misuse of his name is merely a form of venting. So, then, what’s the harm? “A sharp tongue is the only edged tool that grows keener with constant use,” wrote Washington Irving. In other words, if we constantly and carelessly use God’s sacred name in cursing, over time we can begin to feel hardly sorry if it offends him. Is not that attitude even more offensive than the vocabulary when it leads us to give hollow praise rather than hallowed reverence? When we return to speaking, thinking, and reasoning like a child? Better instead to consider this prayerful petition: “Heavenly Father, enable my tongue to give you and those made in your likeness the reverence that is due.”