St. Bernardine of Siena

A Franciscan friar of remarkable charisma, Bernardine drew thousands across Italy with sermons preached in piazzas under the open sky. He popularized the IHS monogram for the Holy Name of Jesus, painting it in golden rays on a blue tablet and holding it up at the climax of his preaching. He reformed the Franciscan Observance and refused three bishoprics to remain a wandering preacher.

Orphaned at six and raised by a devout aunt, Bernardine tended plague victims in Siena's hospital at the age of twenty before entering the Franciscan Order. His preaching against usury, gambling, and factional violence was so effective that bonfires of vanities blazed in city squares wherever he went, and merchants reported that sales of dice and playing cards collapsed.

He died at Aquila on May 20, 1444, while still on a preaching tour, and was canonized only six years later — one of the fastest canonizations in Church history. His devotion to the Holy Name endures in the IHS monogram found above church doorways and altars throughout the Catholic world.