Veni, Veni, Emmanuel

Ribbon-shaped U with a Dot

The following symbol has been on our parish bulletin for the last two years, but I did not remember what it means. Maybe you don't either. It is the Arabic letter ن​ (Nūn), the first letter in the word Nasrani (plural Nassarah), which means Nazarene. Islamic State soldiers spray-painted the letter on the walls of Christian houses and businesses in Mosul, and warned them that they had to quickly leave the city, convert to Islam, pay a fine or face ‘death by the sword.’ Some who chose to flee were robbed anyway. Since then, people around the world have displayed the ن​ as a symbol of solidarity with the persecuted Christians of the Middle East.