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Please Subscribe or Donate [https://sdcason.com/donate] to Help Keep This Site Free! This small-scale Byzantine icon depicts a half-length figure of the Virgin holding the Christ child. When the icon was mounted in its present frame by a German artist in the 14th century, it was considered to...
Please Subscribe or Donate [https://sdcason.com/donate] to Help Keep This Site Free! A powerful vision that Saint Francis experienced on Mount Alverna left him with the wounds of Christ's Crucifixion permanently marking his hands, feet, and chest. The dramatic physical transformation of the saint's...
Please Subscribe or Donate [https://sdcason.com/donate] to Help Keep This Site Free! In this work the artist creates a strikingly beautiful pair of figures whose serene poses and serious facial expressions project an aura of sadness without sentimentality. The Virgin is seated on a stone bench holding the...
Please Subscribe or Donate [https://sdcason.com/donate] to Help Keep This Site Free! Elaborately carved from a section of an elephant’s tusk, this ivory pyx (Greek for "box") depicts a number of New Testament scenes, namely the Annunciation, Christ’s entry into Jerusalem, Christ raising Lazarus,...
Please Subscribe or Donate [https://sdcason.com/donate] to Help Keep This Site Free! Joseph was the first son of Jacob by his second wife Rachel, and the eleventh son Jacob had fathered. Joseph is mentioned in the Bible Old Testament Book of Genesis. Most prominent about Joseph was his...
Please Subscribe or Donate [https://sdcason.com/donate] to Help Keep This Site Free! The infant Jesus embraces his mother with his left arm while tenderly grasping at the ruff of her shirt with his right hand. This intimate painting is characteristic of Morales, who was heavily influenced by the...
Please Subscribe or Donate [https://sdcason.com/donate] to Help Keep This Site Free! The epitome of an intellectual Christian saint, Catherine of Alexandria is said to have debated the foremost philosophers of her age and converted them to Christianity with her brilliant logic. Her legend recounts that she was...
Please Subscribe or Donate [https://sdcason.com/donate] to Help Keep This Site Free! Joseph was the first son of Jacob by his second wife Rachel, and the eleventh son Jacob had fathered. Joseph is mentioned in the Bible Old Testament Book of Genesis. Most prominent about Joseph was his...
Please Subscribe or Donate [https://sdcason.com/donate] to Help Keep This Site Free! The young figure on horseback can almost certainly be identified as Louis of Toulouse (1274-97), the second son of Charles II, king of Naples, who renounced the throne of Naples and entered the Franciscan order. He...
Please Subscribe or Donate [https://sdcason.com/donate] to Help Keep This Site Free! Solemn Mass (also known as a Solemn High Mass), is the full ceremonial form of the Tridentine Mass, celebrated by a priest with a deacon and a subdeacon, requiring most of the parts of the Mass...
Please Subscribe or Donate [https://sdcason.com/donate] to Help Keep This Site Free! The Parable of the Prodigal Son is one of the parables of Jesus in the Bible, appearing in Luke 15:11–32. In the story, a father has two sons. The younger son asks for his...
Please Subscribe or Donate [https://sdcason.com/donate] to Help Keep This Site Free! This leaf was excised from a volume of a large set of choral books known to have been commissioned by Bartolomeo delle Rovere for Ferrara Cathedral. Delle Rovere, nephew of Pope Sixtus IV, was the Bishop...
Please Subscribe or Donate [https://sdcason.com/donate] to Help Keep This Site Free! Solemn Mass (also known as a Solemn High Mass), is the full ceremonial form of the Tridentine Mass, celebrated by a priest with a deacon and a subdeacon, requiring most of the parts of the Mass...
Please Subscribe or Donate [https://sdcason.com/donate] to Help Keep This Site Free! The Parable of the Prodigal Son is one of the parables of Jesus in the Bible, appearing in Luke 15:11–32. In the story, a father has two sons. The younger son asks for his...
Please Subscribe or Donate [https://sdcason.com/donate] to Help Keep This Site Free! This life-size painting, a serene vision of angels serenading the sleeping Jesus in the arms of a graceful young Mary, is one of the most important works by Bouguereau in the United States. Bouguereau's...
Please Subscribe or Donate [https://sdcason.com/donate] to Help Keep This Site Free! A ciborium is a chalice-like vessel used to contain the Blessed Sacrament. According to modern liturgical usage the word denotes exclusively the sacred vessel employed for the reservation of the Consecrated Species. At the present day...
Please Subscribe or Donate [https://sdcason.com/donate] to Help Keep This Site Free! The Parable of the Prodigal Son is one of the parables of Jesus in the Bible, appearing in Luke 15:11–32. In the story, a father has two sons. The younger son asks for his...
Please Subscribe or Donate [https://sdcason.com/donate] to Help Keep This Site Free! Jerome, (c. 342–420) also known as Jerome of Stridon, was a Latin priest, confessor, theologian, and historian; he is commonly known as Saint Jerome. Jerome was born at Stridon, a village near Emona on the...
Please Subscribe or Donate [https://sdcason.com/donate] to Help Keep This Site Free! The Book of the Gospels or Evangeliary contains the full text of the passages from all four gospels that the deacon or priest is to read or chant at Mass in the course of the liturgical...
Please Subscribe or Donate [https://sdcason.com/donate] to Help Keep This Site Free! Almost all details of the life of Sebaldus are uncertain. However various legends about his life have been recorded. One of the earliest legends (ca 1280) claims Sebaldus was a contemporary of Henry III (died 1056)...
Please Subscribe or Donate [https://sdcason.com/donate] to Help Keep This Site Free! According to the ancient Martyrologies, Margaret was the daughter of a pagan priest named Aedesius. Her mother having died soon after her birth, Margaret was nursed by a Christian woman five or six leagues (6.9–...
Please Subscribe or Donate [https://sdcason.com/donate] to Help Keep This Site Free! The Code of Rubrics is a three-part liturgical document promulgated in 1960 under Pope John XXIII, which in the form of a legal code indicated the liturgical and sacramental law governing the celebration of the Roman...
Please Subscribe or Donate [https://sdcason.com/donate] to Help Keep This Site Free! Virgin and Child was clearly meant to be seen from a distance. The large, uncluttered composition allows the flowing lines to stand out. Its creator, Sebald Beham, meant it for public devotion of the Madonna. He...
Please Subscribe or Donate [https://sdcason.com/donate] to Help Keep This Site Free! Saint Ursula is a legendary Romano-British Christian saint, died on 21 October 383. Her feast day in the pre-1970 General Roman Calendar is 21 October. There is little definite information about her and the anonymous group...
