Passport to Perfection: The Passport Monogram

This article is the first of a series of excerpts from David Torkington’s new book, Passport to Perfection. This little book is a guide to living the sacrificial, contemplative spirituality of the early Church. It offers practical, orthodox advice for serious seekers, providing a step-by-step blueprint for prayer, from meditation to contemplation.

You must therefore be perfect, just as your heavenly Father is perfect (Matthew 5:48).

Most passports carry some sort of insignia or sign, a crest or coat of arms on the cover, to show where the bearer comes from and who is guaranteed to support them on their journey. For this passport we have chosen an ancient Catholic monogram of the Holy Name of Jesus. It is He who makes this journey possible in the first place, and it is He who guarantees to support us on ‘The Way’ to perfection, to the perfect love that resides in God His Father. His Father sent Him to bring us to the place where His perfect Love will be our reward in the Kingdom without end, for which He created us.

We have seen this monogram many times, and in different forms, but so few of us actually understand where it came from and how it came to be formed, even though we know to whom it refers. Let me explain. When the ancient Jews gave a person a name, that name was meant to define their identity and their purpose, who they were, and what they did. That is why when God finally told His people His name, He told them that it is Love. When St John said that God is Love, he was only repeating what Jesus Himself told him and the other Apostles. That is, what He is in Himself as well as what He does. Notice that this name is not a noun but a verb – God is both love and loving at the same time. We do not have a tense in the English language tohelp us appreciate precisely what this means, but the ‘present continuing tense’ in the Irish language does. It means that God has loved us, is loving us, and will continue to love us forever.

In order to tell us this and explain what it means for us, God sent us His only son Jesus, who was, and still is the flesh and blood embodiment of His infinite loving. This means that all who were and all who still are open to receive His son’s love, will receive the self-same life and Love that animates Him now. This love can save us all from enthralment with the selfishness and sinfulness that is the cancer of the soul and the greatest threat to the journey that we have undertaken. That is why God insisted that His son be called Jesus, which means ‘The one who saves us, the deliverer, or the Saviour’, because only His love can do what nothing else can do. That is why His holy name is the most powerful name on earth as St Paul tells us (Philippians 2:10-11). It should not be surprising then that it was made into and constantly used as a prayer in the early Church ultimately coming to be called the Jesus Prayer. Repeating this prayer in its shortest form, as taught by Abbot Macarius, came to be used as a special act of devotion and was particularly championed by St Bernard and eventually by the Dominican and Franciscan schools of spirituality.

However, it was with St Bernadine of Siena (1380-1444) and his fellow Franciscan reformers of the fifteenth century that this devotional practice took off in a major way. He told the hundreds of thousands of his followers to enshrine the word Jesus on their hearts and continually recite it with their tongues, but lest they forget to do this to do something else too. The abbreviation for the Greek word for Jesus, IHS (Ihsous), was used by ancient scribes. For St Bernadine it became a monogram or Christogram that he encouraged them to place in and outside of their churches, public buildings, and inside and outside their own homes, as tourists can still see all over Italy to this day. The genius of this short prayer is that it can be just as helpful to complete beginners on their spiritual journey as it can be to those advanced in the mystic way.

This short prayer is particularly helpful when the spiritual life deep distractions, temptations, and dark nights that threaten to make us turn back, or even give up the journey completely. In times like this, the simpler the prayer the better. What better prayer to make than this; calling on His name for help, in good times and in hard times when all seems to be well or when everything seems to be falling apart. Then, when mystical purification is at its height and only a single word is as much as a person can muster, what more appropriate word can be used as a prayer for spiritual succour and support than the Holy Name of Jesus. Towards the end of her life, when my mother was lying in bed seriously ill with her rosary beads in her hand, she was almost in tears. She told me she could no longer say her favourite prayer. All she could say was the single word, the simplest and most powerful of all prayers, the Holy Name of Jesus. When, after her death I told my Father about her tears, he said they were not tears of pain but of joy. He said she was never more joyful at the end of her life than at any other time.

After the Renaissance and the decline of the Greek language in favour of Latin, the IHS came to be used as an acronym for the Latin, ‘Jesus Hominum Salvator’, meaning ‘Jesus Saviour of Humankind’. The three nails used to fix Jesus to the Cross were then added to the monogram, and a small cross was mounted on the letter ‘H’. There is no letter ’J’ in the Greek alphabet and that is why the letter ‘I’ (iota) was used to write the first letter of the holy name, a practice that remained after the Latin came to be used in the new acronym.

However, lest we should forget, our redemption did not end with His death on the Cross, but with His glorification, so the monogram was set in a circle of fire. The circle of fire represents the Sun which
from the earliest times was seen as a symbol of the Resurrection and glorification of Jesus. The flames that radiate from the perimeter are meant to be a continual reminder of the unquenchable fire of love that Jesus first released upon us all on the first Pentecost day and on every subsequent day for those who are open to receive it.

When you recite the word ‘Jesus’ as the prayer par excellence, you need say no more. The One who hears your prayer hears your deepest needs that Jesus came to satisfy, even though you may not realise what they are yourself, and so cannot find words to express them. When you are in trouble and the whole world seems to have conspired against you, do not think you have to explain your plight to
the One who knows anyway; just say the ‘Jesus Prayer’. When you are in the blackest moment of the ‘Dark Night of the Soul’ and the very gates of hell seem to be open to engulf you, just say the ‘Jesus
Prayer’. It is not a mantra, but the most powerful prayer of all and a prayer which will always be answered because as Jesus promised at the Last Supper, anything you ask of God in His name will be
granted (John 16:23-24). When I asked a contemporary contemplative how he prayed, he said, “I use the Holy Name followed by the words of St Thomas, ‘My Lord and My God’ and then the prayer of St Francis, ‘My God and My All’, which is the motto of the Francis can order. But the prayer I use most is the Holy Name, until Love’s response is savoured in Silence”.

If you persevere on your spiritual journey to Perfect Love, this prayer will gradually lead you into the prayer of experience, when what was asked for in darkness will be received in light. It is the light of the same love that raised Jesus from the dead that will raise us from the dead too, from the tomb that we have made for ourselves through sin and selfishness. This light will enable us to rise in, with, and through Jesus, drawing us up and into His all-engrossing and totally enthralling loving of God. It is here that we are filled with the fruits of contemplation where Jesus can continue to do again through us what He first did Himself whilst He was on earth and did again through the Apostles and those who followed Him after His Resurrection. What a perfect monogram for our passport to Perfect Love.

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