HOLY
420
HOLY
Holy Name, Feast of the, is celebrated on the
second Sunday after Epiphany (double of the second
class). It is the central feast of all the mysteries of
Christ the Redeemer; it unites all the other feasts of
the Lord, as a burning glass focusses the rays of the
sun in one point, to show what Jesus is to us, what He
has done, is doing, and will do for mankind. It orig-
inated towards the end of the fifteenth century, and
was instituted by the private authority of some bishops
in Germany, Scotland, England, Spain, and Belgium.
The Office and the Mass composed by Bernardine dei
Busti (d. 1500) were approved by Sixtus IV. The
feast was officially granted to the Franciscans 25
February, 1530, and spread over a great part of the
Church. The Franciscans, Carmelites, and Augustin-
ians kept it on 14 Jan.; the Dominicans 15 Jan. At
Salisbury, York, antl Durham in England, and at
Aberdeen in Scotlantl it was celebrated 7 Aug., at
Liege, 31 Jan., at Compostela and Cambrai, 8 Jan.
(Grotefend, " Zeitrechnung", II, 2, 89). The Carthu-
sians obtained it for the second Sunday after Epiph-
any about 1043; for that Sunday it was also extended
to Spain, and later, 20 Dec, 1721, to the LTniversal
Church. The Office used at present is nearly identi-
cal with the Office of Bernardine dei Busti. The
hymns "Jesu dulcis memoria", "Jesu Rex admira-
bilis", "Jesu decus angelicum", usually ascribed to
St. Bernard, are fragments of a very extensive "ju-
bilus" or "cursus de a-terna sapientia" of some un-
known author in the thirteenth century. For the
beautiful sequence " Dulcis Jesus Nazarenus" (Morel,
" Hymnen cles Mittelalters", 67) of Bernardine dei
Busti the Franciscans substituted a prose sequence
of modern origin: "LaudaSionSalvatoris"; they still
celebrate the feast on 14 Jan.
Albers, Bliithenkriinze uuf die Festtage GoUes und seiner Heiligen, I (Paderbora, 1890), 167 sq.; CoLVENERins, Liturgia Mariana, 15 3An.\ Featvm glor. et dulc, nominis Jesu in Bou- EA8SE, Summa Aurea (Paris, 1866); Behinger, Die Abldsse
(Paderbom, 1906).
Frederick G. Holweck.
Holy Name, Society of the (Confraternity of
THE Most Holy Name of God and Jesus), an indul-
genced confraternity in the Catholic Church. The
primary object of the society is to beget due love and
reverence for the Holy Name of God and Jesus Christ.
The secondary object is to suppress blasphemy, per-
jury, oaths of any character that are forbidden, pro-
fanity, unlawful swearing, improper language, and,
as far as the members can, to prevent those vices in
others (Pius IV, 13 April, 1564). It had its origin in
the Council of Lyons, 1274, which prescribed that the
faithful should have a special devotion to the Holy
Name of Jesus, that reparation might be made for
insults offered to it by Albigenses and other blasphe-
mers. The Friars Preachers were preaching every-
where with the zeal of St. Dominic; it was natural,
then, that Gregory X selected the Dominicans to
preach the dc\'otion, which he did by a letter to
Blessed John of \'crcclli, master general of the order,
20 September, 1274 (Const it." Xuper in"). Thomaster
general immediately WTote to all the provincials of the
order, expressing the pope's wish, and enjoining upon
all the duty of labouring for its fulfilment (Litterae
Encyclica; Mag. Gen. Ord. Pra-d., Reichert, 1900).
The brethren gave their best energies in executing
the command, preaching everywhere the power and
glory of the Holy Name of Jesus; and, to give per-
manency to the devotion excited in the hearts of the
people, it was ordained that in every Dominican
church an altar of the Holy Name should be erected,
and that societies or confraternities under the title
and invocation of the Holy Name of Jesus should be
established. St. Peter, MartjT (d. 1252); John of
Vercelli, a contemporary of St. Dominic; Blessed
.\mbrosc of Siena (d. 1286) are said to have been great
propagators of the devotion. In the fourteenth cen-
tury Blessed Henry Suso (d. 1365) is the most notable
apostle of devotion to the Holy Name.
The history of the society in the fourteenth and the fifteenth centuries is somewhat obscure, but that it continued to exist is certain from papal Bulls addressed to the Order of St. Dominic. Boniface IX in his Constitution "Hodie", 31 October, 1401, granted in- dulgences to those visiting the altar of the confrater- nity in the Dominican monastery at Schusen, Diocese of Werden, Saxony. In 1432 at Lisbon the devotion preached by a retired Dominican bishop, .Andrea Diaz, was the means of stopping the ravages of a plague which was then afflicting that city. In grati- tude for their deliverance, the people of all classes in Lisbon held, on 1 Jan., 1433, what was probably the first procession in honour of the Holy Name of Jesus. At tliis period St. Bernardine of Siena, an Italian Franciscan, gained great renown as a promoter of the devotion in Italy. In the sixteenth century Emperor Charles V and King Philip II, moved liy the prevalence of blasphemy and sacrilege, exhorted and encouraged the Dominicans to spread the devotion and to estab- lish the society throughout their dominions. Among the preachers engaged in this apostolate, the most celebrated was the Spani.sh Dominican, Didacus of Victoria (d. 1450), who may be properly called the great preacher of the devotion of the Holy Name of God. He founded a confraternity known as the So- ciety of the Holj' Name of God, of which the special object was to suppress the horrijjle profanation of the Divine Name by blasphemers, jierjurers, and by men in their ordinary conversation, and to this end he drew up a rule and constitution for its government.
His confraternity was approveil by Pope Pius IV 13 April, 1564, who richly endowed itwith indulgences, commanded all ecclesiastical authorities to favour it with all their power, and, in a special letter, recom- mended it to the laity (Bullarium Ord. Pra'd., tom. I, v). Later, this confraternity was merged into the Society of the Holy Name of Jesus. Thereafter the society was called by both titles. It also bore the title of "Confraternity against Oaths". Following the example of Pius IV, the popes of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, notably Innocent XI, made the society an object of special solicitude, encouraging its promotion, granting indulgences, and regulating its organization. St. Pius V, in the Motu Proprio " Decet Romanum", 21 June, 1571, absolutely restricted the canonical erection of the society to the Dominican order. Letters patent from the master general of the Dominicans are required for the canonical establish- ment of the society (for the United States these letters are issued through the bureau of the Holy Name Society, New York). In missionary countries special provision is made for the establishment of the society.
The acts of the general chapters of the order held since 1571 contain numerous regulations and admoni- tions insisting upon zeal in propagating the confra- ternity. Great encouragement to the development of the society was given at the clo.se of the nineteenth century by Pope Leo XIII, who decreed through the Congregation of Indulgences, 20 May, 1896, that the bishops may dispense from the Clementine decree "Qua>cumque", requiring that there should be only one confraternity in a town or city. Before this the society had existed in many churches of various cities of the ITnite<l States, by virtue of dispensations olv tained from Rome. Since then branches of the so- ciety have multiplied very rapidly and in several dioceses; following the example set in the Archdiocese of New York, 21 May, 1882, they have been formed into diocesan imions under a director general ap- pointed by the ordinary. Being thus united, the men of the society in thellnited States (they number about 500,000) are able to accom])lish great good by public yearly processions of many thousands profess-
