The Most Holy Name of Jesus

Eight days after his birth the child of Mary was given the name Jesus, as the angel had told Joseph: "for he will save his people from their sins." The name, Yeshua in Hebrew, means "God saves." Saint Paul writes that at the name of Jesus every knee should bend, and the first Christians healed, baptized and prayed in that name.

Devotion to the Holy Name grew in the Middle Ages through the preaching of Saint Bernardine of Siena and Saint John of Capistrano, who spread the monogram IHS, the first letters of the name in Greek. The feast was extended to the whole Church in 1721. It was dropped from the calendar in 1969 and restored by Saint John Paul II in 2002 as an optional memorial on January 3.

The IHS monogram appears on altars, vestments and hosts, and it is the emblem of the Jesuits, whose mother church in Rome is the Church of the Gesù. Many Catholics bow their heads at the name of Jesus, and the Litany of the Holy Name is a traditional prayer for this day. Holy Name Societies in the United States were founded to promote reverence for the name of God.