Men for Christ

Holy Name Society

With the urbanisation of Europe in the Middle Ages came the growth of various forms of association: guilds, sodalities, confraternities and so on. One such association was the Holy Name Society, which was born on the Iberian Peninsula in the fifteenth century, under Dominican auspices and with papal approval, focussing not only on fostering love of the Holy Name, but also on uprooting bad habits of swearing and oath-taking.

This international confraternity was, however, only one form among many of collegial devotion to the name of Jesus. Eamon Duffy’s The Stripping of the Altars outlines the immense popularity of so called ‘Jesus brotherhoods’ in late medieval England, drawing on all ranks of society. These local guilds were energised by the vernacular writings of the influential mystic Richard Rolle (1300-1349) – ‘I do not know how to meditate’, he once wrote, ‘unless when sounding the name of Jesus’– and they were almost invariably led and organised by laypeople. These men maintained ‘Jesus altars’ in their parish or cathedral churches, and provided support for a priest to celebrate a votive Mass in honour of the Holy Name – a ‘Jesus Mass’ – on Fridays. In areas of English influence in Ireland such guilds flourished too: the medieval guild of St Anne in St Audoen’s, Dublin, sponsored a ‘Jesus Mass’ every Friday in that church.

These devotions and associations remained vigorous – even patronising much new music – right up to the point where they were forbidden by law. Even as late as 1546 the Dean of Christ Church Cathedral, Dublin, was hiring a musician to play the organ at ‘Jesus’ Mass every Friday’. A year later the Chantries Act suppressed all such activities, and the prayer-book imposed by the Crown in 1549 made no provision for traditional devotion to the Holy Name.

Holy Name Society, is being relaunched in Ireland by Dominican Fathers as a fellowship for men. Watch this space!