Feast of Saint Bernadine of Sienna (20 May 2008)

Do you know exactly what the letters IHS mean, which we often see in our churches and other religious places or structures or printed matter? When I was a child, I was told that they meant “I Have Suffered,” referring to Our Lord. That’s an edifying theory but it isn’t true.If we’re going to talk about IHS, let’s also talk about XP, since the two sets of letters go together. I mention this today because the Church celebrates today the commemoration of Saint Bernardine of Siena who was known for having cards printed with the letters IHS on them which he then distributed among the hearers of his very popular sermons.

The letters IHS are Greek letters, not our Roman ones. They are pronounced “iota; eta; sigma” and they are the Greek equivalent of our letters I-E-S. You see, in Greek the holy name of Jesus is spelled “I-E-S-O-U-S” and pronounced “yay-zoos.” And back in the ancient world, abbreviation was done by using the first two or three letters of a word to save space and work, in the case of incising letters into stone. The entire New Testament was first written in Greek; it wasn’t until Pope Saint Damasus asked him to that Saint Jerome translated it into Latin beginning about the year 380. So it was common in those days to indicate the Holy Name of Jesus by writing the Greek letters “IHS.” And then, they abbreviated the word Christ with the first two letters of the Greek word “Christos,” which, in the Greek letters is written “XPISTOS,” and abbreviated “XP.”

For this reason, we often see the Greek letters IHS and XP in sacred places or on sacred writings of various kinds. And they mean “Jesus Christ.”

To minimize gambling and promote devotion to the Holy Name of Jesus, Saint Bernardine persuaded the playing card producers to print cards with the sacred monograms “IHS” and “XP” on them. He urged his hearers to carry one of those cards on their persons and put them in their homes where their Catholic faith could thus be proclaimed. He was such a popular preacher that soon the playing card producers were making more money with the holy cards than they had previously made with playing cards.

We might well remember the beautiful words of Saint Bernard of Clairvaux, another saint very devoted to Our Lord’s holy name. He says in one of his writings: “The Holy Name of Jesus is honey in the mouth, music in the ear, a shout of gladness in the heart.” Thank you for seeking God’s truth. God bless you. Father Victor Brown, O.P.