CCC 64 Through the prophets, God forms his people in the hope of salvation, in the expectation of a new and everlasting Covenant intended for all, to be written on their hearts.1 The prophets proclaim a radical redemption of the People of God, purification from all their infidelities, a salvation which will include all the nations.2 Above all, the poor and humble of the Lord will bear this hope. Such holy women as Sarah, Rebecca, Rachel, Miriam, Deborah, Hannah, Judith and Esther kept alive the hope of Israel’s salvation. The purest figure among them is Mary.3
CCC 368 The spiritual tradition of the Church also emphasizes the heart, in the biblical sense of the depths of one’s being, where the person decides for or against God.4
CCC 715 The prophetic texts that directly concern the sending of the Holy Spirit are oracles by which God speaks to the heart of his people in the language of the promise, with the accents of “love and fidelity.”5 St. Peter will proclaim their fulfillment on the morning of Pentecost.6 According to these promises, at the “end time” the Lord’s Spirit will renew the hearts of men, engraving a new law in them. He will gather and reconcile the scattered and divided peoples; he will transform the first creation, and God will dwell there with men in peace.
CCC 1287 This fullness of the Spirit was not to remain uniquely the Messiah’s, but was to be communicated to the whole messianic people.7 On several occasions Christ promised this outpouring of the Spirit,8 a promise which he fulfilled first on Easter Sunday and then more strikingly at Pentecost.9 Filled with the Holy Spirit the apostles began to proclaim “the mighty works of God,” and Peter declared this outpouring of the Spirit to be the sign of the messianic age.10 Those who believed in the apostolic preaching and were baptized received the gift of the Holy Spirit in their turn.11
CCC 1432 The human heart is heavy and hardened. God must give man a new heart.12 Conversion is first of all a work of the grace of God who makes our hearts return to him: “Restore us to thyself, O LORD, that we may be restored!”13 God gives us the strength to begin anew. It is in discovering the greatness of God’s love that our heart is shaken by the horror and weight of sin and begins to fear offending God by sin and being separated from him. The human heart is converted by looking upon him whom our sins have pierced:14
Let us fix our eyes on Christ’s blood and understand how precious it is to his Father, for, poured out for our salvation it has brought to the whole world the grace of repentance.
CCC 2812 Finally, in Jesus the name of the Holy God is revealed and given to us, in the flesh, as Savior, revealed by what he is, by his word, and by his sacrifice.15 This is the heart of his priestly prayer: “Holy Father. .. for their sake I consecrate myself, that they also may be consecrated in truth.”16 Because he “sanctifies” his own name, Jesus reveals to us the name of the Father.17 At the end of Christ’s Passover, the Father gives him the name that is above all names: “Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.”18
CCC 2814 The sanctification of his name among the nations depends inseparably on our life and our prayer:
We ask God to hallow his name, which by its own holiness saves and makes holy all creation. .. It is this name that gives salvation to a lost world. But we ask that this name of God should be hallowed in us through our actions. For God’s name is blessed when we live well, but is blasphemed when we live wickedly. As the Apostle says: “The name of God is blasphemed among the Gentiles because of you.” We ask then that, just as the name of God is holy, so we may obtain his holiness in our souls.19
When we say “hallowed be thy name,” we ask that it should be hallowed in us, who are in him; but also in others whom God’s grace still awaits, that we may obey the precept that obliges us to pray for everyone, even our enemies. That is why we do not say expressly “hallowed be thy name ‘in us,”’ for we ask that it be so in all men.20
1 Cf. Isa 2:2-4; Jer 31:31-34; Heb 10:16.
2 Cf. Ezek 36; Isa 49:5-6; 53:11.
3 Cf. Ezek 2:3; Lk 1:38.
4 Cf. Jer 31:33; Dt 6:5; 29:3; Is 29:13; Ezek 36:26; Mt 6:21; Lk 8:15; Rom 5:5.
5 Cf. Ezek 11:19; 36:25-28; 37:1-14; Jer 31:31-34; and cf. Joel 3:1-5.
6 Cf. Acts 2:17-21.
7 Cf. Ezek 36:25-27; Joel 3:1-2.
8 Cf. Lk 12:12; Jn 3:5-8; 7:37-39; 16:7-15; Acts 1:8.
9 Cf. Jn 20:22; Acts 2:1-14.
10 Acts 2:11; Cf. 2:17-18.
11 Cf. Acts 2:38.
12 Cf. Ezek 36:26-27.
13 Lam 5:21.
14 Cf. Jn 19:37; Zech 12:10.
15 Cf. Mt 1:21; Lk 1:31, Jn 8:28; 17:8; 17:17-19.
16 Jn 17:11, 19.
17 Cf. Ezek 20:39; 36:20-21; Jn 17:6.
18 Phil 2:9-11.
19 St. Peter Chrysologus, Sermo 71, 4: PL 52:402A; cf. Rom 2:24; Ezek 36:20-22.
20 Tertullian, De orat. 3: PL 1:1157A.