"Hallowed be thy Name." Luke 11:2

This second verse of Luke, chapter 11, is the first petition Jesus Christ teaches the Disciples to make when praying to the Father. Pope Benedict XVI draws a link between this first petition of the Our Father and the second of the Ten Commandments: Thou shalt not speak the name of the Lord thy God in vain.
The Pope sets this in historical context, bringing us back to the voice of God calling to Moses from the burning bush, in a polytheistic era. When Moses asks God His name, God's reply is both a refusal and a pledge, explains the Pope. God replies: "I am who I am."
The Pope writes the following in his book: "This pledge is a name and a non-name at one and the same time. The Israelites were therefore perfectly right in refusing to utter this self-designation of God, expressed in the word YHWH, so as to avoid degrading it to the level of names of pagan deities." Then he goes on to state that recent translations of the Bible are wrong to write out this name "as if it were just any old name".
And then the Pope goes further back, to Adam, and makes what struck me as a particularly insightful observation. Adam named the animals of Eden and, by doing so, he names their essential natures and fits thim into his human world. Assigning names allows us to address and invoke one another. By replying "I am who I am" to Moses, God establishes a relationship between Himself and us and puts Himself within reach of our invocations and in a sense hands himself over to the human world.
In other words, this is a great privilege that has been accorded to us and should not be abused. Yet, I'm sure many of us hear the word "God" often being used in expressions of surprise, or "Jesus" as part of an expletive.
I have the misfortune of having the first syllable of my given name corresponding to an expletive in Argentine jargon. My ex-spouse regularly addresses me using only the first syllable of my given name, knowing full well I know the other, less-than-flaterring meaning, of my abbreviated name. This habit has proven particularly offensive to me, but I exercise restraint not to take the bait, but it does make it more difficult for me to listen attentively to her when she moves on to matters of more importance, like our childrens' welfare. Imagine someone using your name as an expletive on a regular basis, and then turning around, uttering your name to you before asking you to do something for them.
This is when it dawned on me at a much deeper level that if we indulge in speaking the name of the Lord our God in vain, it must undoubtedly alienate Our Father and make it harder to hear our supplications.
I found the Pope's summation of this verse particularly poignant: "How do I treat God's holy name? Do I stand in reverence before the mystery of the burning bush, before his incomprehensible closeness, even to the point of his presence in the Eucharist, where he truly gives himself entirely into our hands? Do I care that God's holy companionship with us will draw us up into his purity and sanctity, instead of dragging Him down into the filth?"