the Holy Name of Jesus, so as to leave no doubt as to the feeling of the Church for a devotion from which she gathered such precious fruits. St. John Capistran carried the banner of the name of Jesus, against which so many sacrilegious attacks had been directed. Religious of all Orders, the secular clergy and a large body of the people followed, singing canticles. Thus the holy name of Jesus was blessed, glorified, and extolled to the enthusiastic delight of every Christian heart. The memory of this event was perpetuated later on in the Order of St. Francis, by the feast of the Triumph of the Holy Name of Jesus. This feast was, by permission of Pope Innocent VIII, established in the Franciscan Order in the year 1530, and observed on the 14th day of January. In 1721 Innocent XIII extended the celebration of the feast to the universal Church, and appointed it to be kept on the second Sunday after Epiphany. In 1863 Pius IX approved the Litany of the Holy Name of Jesus, at the request of the general of the Franciscan Order.
Next to the devotion to Our Lord's holy infancy the worship of the name of the holy child has thus become one of the sweetest traditions bequeathed by St. Francis to his children.
The Dominicans and the Holy Name Society
In the course of time a number of associations were formed, having for object the love and honor of the Holy Name of Jesus. The Dominican Friars were especially zealous in spreading these fraternities. They were eventually united into the present Holy Name Society, "which has since encircled the globe, developing a sturdy religious spirit, a deep love of God, and an abiding reverence of the name of Jesus. Nowhere has the society made more rapid growth than here in our own country. The good it has done can be only faintly estimated, but it is certain that the Society is checking the foul habit of profane and indecent language, that it is teaching men to mention with reverence the name of Jesus, that it is bringing to Mass on Sundays and to the sacraments at regular intervals, thousands of
