Category: emoji

Depending on who sends it, 🙏 means thank you, please, praying for you or, for some, a high five. Its official name just mentions folded hands, without saying who they’re addressed to. For Christians it has become the default prayer emoji, for lack of anything better. It does the job, but it does it alone,…

“Tony, Tony, turn around, something’s lost and must be found.” Generations of Catholic children have recited that rhyme to Saint Anthony while hunting for keys under the sofa. Every day of the year has its saints, and almost every name has a patron. Yet to mention them in a message, the only saint emoji on…

Paraclete: the Greek word means the one called to your side, an advocate, a defender, a comforter. That is how Jesus speaks of the Spirit in John’s Gospel. In Hebrew the Spirit is ruach: breath, wind, the air in your lungs. No single word quite suffices, and there is no Holy Spirit emoji either: the…

In any café in Athens, people say “efcharistó” when the waiter brings their coffee. Thank you. The word Eucharist comes from there: in Greek it means “thanksgiving.” Before it is a rite, it is a thank-you. A Eucharist emoji should therefore look grateful, in the most literal sense. It all begins with a meal. On…

At Mass, just before the Gospel is read, the whole congregation stands and traces three small crosses: on the forehead, on the lips, on the heart. The gesture is quick, often learned in catechism class without much explanation. Yet it asks for the Word to enter the mind, pass through the mouth and settle in…

An old Latin saying explains the shape of the crozier: the hook at the top draws in and brings back the stray sheep, the shaft guides, and the point at the bottom prods the stragglers. Whether many bishops actually use it to poke their flock is unclear, but the image captures their mission as shepherds.…

The keyboard has 🎉 and 🥳, and they do the job nicely for a birthday. For the feast of your parish’s patron saint, a Corpus Christi procession, or the name day that a Teresa celebrates in much of Europe, things get blurrier. A proper Christian feast emoji is still waiting to be invented. The liturgy,…

Wednesday, 9 a.m., by the office coffee machine. A coworker keeps staring at your forehead and finally hands you a tissue: “You’ve got something, right there.” You explain that no, it’s on purpose, you’ve just come from the Ash Wednesday service. An Ash Wednesday emoji would have settled that conversation in a second. The day…

There is almost always a moment when the baby objects. The water is a little cold, the priest or deacon pours it three times over the forehead, and the whole congregation smiles while the godparents pretend not to be moved. To announce the day, we make do with 👶💧🙏, because there is no baptism emoji.…

We say “God bless you” after a sneeze, “bless your heart” in the South, and “blessed” under a photo of our brunch. The Latin word behind the liturgy is plainer: benedicere, “to speak well.” When God blesses, his word does what it says; when we bless, we entrust someone to that word. A bless emoji…