‘Name Binding’ was the way Saint Patrick unveiled the remembrance of God in his Lorica, his Breastplate invocation of the Name. ‘I bind unto myself the Name,’ he chanted, communicating ‘Name Binding’ as bondage breaking, an unbinding that binds powers of bondage by releasing them with blessed bonds of boundless love. The wisdom of Saint Patrick’s Lorica breaks, then binds, then bonds in turn, as it binds us to the Name. By invocation of the strong Name of the Trinity, the three in one is unveiled as one in three, Father, Son and Spirit, one Lord, one Name, one salvation, but thrice holy in its bond of hallowing love. One in Christ in death, one in Christ in resurrection, one in Christ in glory, saints are unbound by boundless love in a bond that releases bondage. Name Binding breaks out of bondage to bond saints in the hallowing Name. Lorica liturgies burst out of hell, unbound with heavenly bonds of freedom. Bonds of boundless love liberate bondage, unfettering them from the bondage of infernal heaviness, but it is the Name that reveals their liberation and the luminous weight of God’s weightless glory.
The bond with Christ is boundless in its liberating freedom, chanting with Saint Patrick: ‘Christ be with me, Christ within me, Christ behind me, Christ before me, Christ beside me, Christ to win me, Christ to comfort and restore me, Christ beneath me, Christ above me, Christ in quiet, Christ in danger, Christ in hearts of all that love me, Christ in mouth of friend and stranger.’ The bread is broken to share in the unbroken Christ, the wine is consumed to share in the love of the bleeding Christ, consumed but unconfused. Name Binding is bondage-breaking with Christ in the bonding Name, a breastplate of boundless love indeed. Lorica liturgies and Name-binding are boundless in their scope, unbounded in their bonding embrace. Name-Binding remembers God with God’s own hallowing remembrance, re-membering what was broken, healing what was dis-eased. But the Name must separate before it unites, breaking before it rebinds the bonds of boundless love.
Name-Binding is Name-Breaking when it shatters vanity, Name-Bonding when it unites Christ with his beloved, seeing as in-seeing sees, knowing as in-knowing knows. Glory rightly glorified extinguishes vanity and glorifies as it is glorified. Name-Bonding does what God does when he lives divine life as Holy Trinity, which Saint Patrick transmits as Name-Binding, a breastplate of protection for the war in heaven as it is fought on earth. Name-Binding breaks chains of hell to open heaven, bonding heaven and earth with an embrace of boundless love. Binding breaks to bond, separates to unite what was broken, uniting on earth what was broken in heaven. Name-Binding hallows the Name of the reign of glory, obedient to the will of God on earth as it is obedient to the will of God in heaven. We bind unto ourselves the Name to open earth to an unbroken heaven, renewing bonds of light with bonds of love, strengthening bonds of love in bonds of boundless glory, embracing glory with bonds of gracious peace.