with scrupulous diligence and by methods calculated to persuade. This we command." It was singularly fitting that this apostolic commission should have been given to the sons of Dominic. The saint, according to a tradition, used to add the Name of Jesus to the Hail Mary, a practice not then adopted in the Church. The successor of St. Dominic, Blessed Jordan, composed the Little Office of the Most Holy Name, recited even to-day by his children. So dear was this Name to him that he used to sing five psalms, the initial letters of which spelled the name of Jesus. Blessed Jordan, speaking of his contemporary, Fr. Henry, O.P., of Cologne, says: "He used to advise all Christian people to practise devotion to the Holy Name of Jesus." The martyred Dominican, St. Peter, who died in 1252, was accustomed to gather pious people together to sing the praises of the Adorable Name. This devotion of the first sons of Dominic to the Divine Name may have been known to the Sovereign Pontiff Gregory N. At any rate he knew that the Friars Preachers spoke with the zeal of their Founder, whose life and death were still fresh in their minds; he knew that all Europe resounded with their preaching; he knew that the office of preaching, as their special work, was in perpetuity given to them by apostolic authority; and, therefore, what more wise provision could be made than that they should receive the perpetual commission of preaching greater reverence for the Name of God?
Not satisfied merely with preaching, the Dominicans everywhere erected in their churches an altar to the Holy Name. This devotion continued to be cultivated among the sons and daughters of Dominic. Blessed Henry Suso, O.P., who died in 1365, cut the letters of the Sacred Name into his flesh. St. Catharine of Siena, whose death occurred in 1380, began all her letters, " In the Name of Jesus Crucified." To give permanency to the devotion, societies or confraternities were established in Dominican churches. Naturally these, in the beginning, had not that definite organization which subsequent Papal Constitutions gave
