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which has been instituted that we may honour the
Name given to the divine Infant of Bethlehem at His
Circumcision. The Gospel narrative tells us that the
Name of Jesus had been indicated to Mary by the Angel
Gabriel, even before the mystery of the Incarnation
was accomplished.
This Feast is not of very ancient origin in the Church.
At first, it was special to the Franciscan Order in which
St. Bernardine of Sienna and St. John Capistran, in the
fifteenth century, had spread the devotion to the holy
Name of Jesus. Clement VI granted to the whole
Franciscan Order the privilege of celebrating this Feast.
In 1721 Pope Innocent XIII decreed that it should be
celebrated throughout the Church, and fixed the second
Sunday after the Epiphany as the date of its celebration,
By a recent decision of the Pope Pius X, the Sunday
between the Feast of the Circumcision and the Epi
phany has been fixed as the date, or should no Sunday
occur between January i and 6, then the Feast is to
be observed on the second of the month.
Devotion to the holy Name of Jesus is not a novelty,
for Mary and Joseph were the first to honour this Name,
brought from heaven to earth. The apostles preached
it, and by its invocation wrought miracles. St. Paul
urges us to invoke the holy Name of Jesus before all
our actions, and prescribes that on hearing it pronounced
every knee should bend, in heaven, on earth and in
hell.
We must honour this holy Name because it is a name
of majesty. The Son of God made Man, in conformity
to the direction of the eternal Father, had willed to be
called Jesus. Further, this Name recalls to us the love,
the mercy, the tenderness, the infinite goodness of God
to men. It is in itself an Epiphany, that is, it