Parishable Items

Recently we noted that A.D. signifies that we are living in the 2,013^th “Year of our Lord.” Today we present the meanings behind other enigmatic Catholic acronyms & symbols.

INRI = “Jesus the Nazarene, King of the Jews”
At the crucifixion, Pilate ordered a sign to be written in Hebrew, Greek and Latin and placed atop Jesus’ cross to display the charge against him. The Latin read “Iesus Nazarenus, Rex Iudaeorum,” from which INRI comes. Though the punishment of Jesus was unjust, this charge against him was true.

CCD = “Confraternity of Christian Doctrine”
In other words, a group in service of teaching the faith to children.

RCIA=“Rite of Christian Initiation for Adults”
The process, involving lessons and sacraments, by which adults and older youths are gradually introduced into full communion with the faith of Christ’s  Roman Catholic Church.

IHS = “Jesus”
In Greek, the name Jesus is ΙΗΣΟΥΣ. These first three letters were Latinized into “IHS,” forming a symbol for the Holy Name of Jesus.

☧ = “Christ”
In Greek, the title Christ, or “anointed one,” is ΧΡΙΣΤΟΣ. These first two letters, the Chi and Rho, were merged to form a symbol for   Christ known as the Chi-Rho.

 = “Jesus Christ, God’s Son, Savior”
The fish was an early Christian symbol containing a summary of the faith. The letters of the Greek word for fish, ΙΧΘΥΣ (or “ichthys,”) are an acronym for the phrase above.

This entry was posted on September 16, 2013 at 4:23 pm and is filed under Catholic Church, Jesus Christ. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.