Category: emoji

“The priesthood is the love of the heart of Jesus.” The line comes from Saint John Vianney, the Curé of Ars, patron saint of parish priests, who spent whole days in the confessional receiving pilgrims from all over France. It captures what a priest emoji ought to suggest: not an official of the sacred, but…

Nine o’clock in the morning, in Jerusalem. A crowd from every nation hears a group of Galileans speaking in each listener’s own language, and some sneer: “They have had too much new wine!” Peter stands up and points out, with admirable timing, that it is only the third hour of the day. So begins, in…

“Make a U-turn when possible.” Your GPS says it without judging, and that is exactly the sense of the Greek word the Gospels use for repentance: metanoia, a turning around, a change of mind and of direction. A penance emoji should not show someone beating themselves up, but someone turning back toward God. It is…

“How I would like a Church which is poor and for the poor!” Three days after his election in March 2013, Pope Francis used those words to explain his choice of name to journalists. The line went around the world, yet it still has no keyboard equivalent. For money, the selection is generous: 💰, 🤑,…

One winter evening at the gates of Amiens, a young soldier meets a poor man, almost naked and shivering. He has nothing left on him but his weapons and his cloak, so he draws his sword, cuts the cloak in two and hands over half. That night, his biographer tells us, he sees Christ in…

Somewhere between March 22 and April 25: that is the window in which Easter falls for Western Christians. The date follows a half-astronomical rule, the Sunday after the first full moon of spring, which is why everyone checks the calendar again every year. What never moves is the Easter emoji kit: 🥚, 🐣, 🐇, and,…

The emoji keyboard features an astronaut, a firefighter, a vampire and a ninja. A pope emoji, on the other hand, is nowhere to be found. To talk about the successor of Peter, we’re stuck with 👴⛪ or 🇻🇦, which looks more like a tour guide’s itinerary. Yet few figures are as recognizable: the white cassock,…

This is the moment when the whole cathedral holds its breath. While the congregation sings the Litany of the Saints, the men about to be ordained lie face down, full length, on the stone floor. The names of the saints roll on, their prayers are invoked, and families in the front row see their son,…

“She gave birth to her firstborn son and wrapped him in swaddling clothes, and laid him in a manger” (Lk 2:7). Saint Luke tells the birth of Jesus with the plainness of a civil register. At that moment there is no choir of angels, no trumpets: a mother, some cloths, a feeding trough. A Christian…

Sunday, 10:28 a.m. A family hunts for four seats together, the organist launches the opening hymn a tone too high, a small child asks loudly whether it is nearly over. Millions of Catholics live this scene every week, in country chapels and city cathedrals alike. And when it comes to texting about it, there is…