FEAST OF THE NAME OF JESUS. — Celebrated, since the reform of Pius X, on the Sunday that falls between 2 and 5 January, and, when there is no such Sunday, on 2 January, with a double rite of the 2nd class.
A liturgical feast in honor of the Name of Jesus existed in various places as early as before 1530, although without permission from the Holy See, and even under the title: Triumph of the Most Holy Name of Jesus. Bernardino de' Bustis (v.), who had composed and published, with the approval of Sixtus IV, an Officium et Missa gloriasi Nominis Jesu (Milan 1492), was nevertheless unable to obtain liturgical use of his composition. Finally, in 1530, Clement VII approved the said Office together with the Mass, establishing its liturgical celebration on 14 January. The Franciscans, Augustinians, Mercedarians, Trinitarians, Carmelites, and later the Society of Jesus, to name only some Orders, as well as the dioceses of Siena (1582), Florence (1643), and many others, accepted the feast. In Antwerp, in the church of the convent of St. Michael, the feast had been in use, through the devotion of a layman named Hippolytus, since 1458, and in a festive liturgical form since 1492, but on 15 January. This date was subsequently adopted by many other dioceses and by the Dominicans, who remained faithful to it until 1923. Finally, in 1721 (29 November–20 December), Innocent XIII, at the request of Emperor Charles VI, extended the feast of the Name of Jesus to the entire Church as a double of the 2nd class, assigning it to the second Sunday of January. Then came the reform of Pius X with the motu proprio Abhinc duos annos of 23 October 1913, which instead designated the Sunday between 2 and 5 January (AAS, 5 [1913], pp. 458–60).
Litanies of the Most Holy Name of Jesus. — Litany invocations of the Name of Jesus were already known in the Middle Ages. In the seventeenth century, various litanies in honor of Jesus, the Savior, and the Name of Jesus circulated in different books of devotion. They were composed by unknown authors, although at times they were groundlessly attributed to St. Bernard, St. Bernardino da Siena, Bernardino de' Bustis, and others. Clement VIII’s severe prohibition (1601) against publishing any other unapproved litanies, apart from those of the saints and the “Lauretans,” did not cause the various private litanies of the Name of Jesus to disappear. On the contrary, the Sacred Congregation of Rites was repeatedly urged to approve them, as, for example, in 1631 by the Augustinians of Montescalfioso, in 1640 by the Priests of the Mission of Paris, and shortly afterward by the archdiocese of Paris itself (1642), but always in vain. Finally, in 1862, on the occasion of the solemn canonization of the Japanese martyrs, many bishops gathered in Rome; they humbly presented to Pius IX a petition that, on the basis of the various formularies in circulation, a single litany of substantial content in honor of the Name of Jesus be compiled and its universal use permitted. This was in fact published in 1876 (23 March: Acta S. Sedis, 9 [1876], pp. 366–68), with an indulgence of 300 days, but solely for those Ordinaries who had requested II. Only in 1886 (16 January) did
Leo XIII approve the said litany for the entire Church and for public liturgical use (ibid., 18 [1886], p. 509), with the same indulgence, which Pius XI increased in 1933 (2 January) to seven years (Enchiridion Indulgentiarum, 1950, no. 114).