This site's editor-in-chief is a Catholic husband, father, and author. He loves sharing the Catholic faith through art and graphic design. Check out his prayer books and coloring books on Amazon.com
Please Subscribe or Donate [https://sdcason.com/donate] to Help Keep This Site Free! According to tradition, John the Baptist wears a hair shirt under a white cloth, associated with newly baptized Christians. The flag bearing a red cross symbolizes resurrection. In marked contrast, the background features a lavish gold-patterned...
Please Subscribe or Donate [https://sdcason.com/donate] to Help Keep This Site Free! "A chasuble is the sleeveless outer vestment worn by the celebrant at Mass. Its color is prescribed according to the seasons of the Church or the particular feast being celebrated. It is typically made of...
Please Subscribe or Donate [https://sdcason.com/donate] to Help Keep This Site Free! Dürer made four engravings of the Virgin and Child standing on a crescent moon. These devotional images link the Madonna with the pregnant woman of the apocalypse from chapter 12 of the Book of Revelation. The...
Please Subscribe or Donate [https://sdcason.com/donate] to Help Keep This Site Free! This is a stained glass window—designed in North Netherlands—portrays the story told in I Kings 17: 8-24, in the city of Zarephath the prophet Elijah met a widow gathering sticks who gave him food...
Please Subscribe or Donate [https://sdcason.com/donate] to Help Keep This Site Free! Our Lady of the Most Holy Rosary - La Naval de Manila (Spanish: Nuestra Señora del Santísimo Rosario - La Naval de Manila; Tagalog: Mahal na Ina ng Santo Rosaryo ng La Naval de Manila; commonly...
Please Subscribe or Donate [https://sdcason.com/donate] to Help Keep This Site Free! Saint Catherine was among the most popular virgin martyrs during this period and was particularly venerated in Dürer’s hometown of Nuremberg for her intermediary role between the faithful and God. A princess from Alexandria, Catherine...
Please Subscribe or Donate [https://sdcason.com/donate] to Help Keep This Site Free! This diptych, or two-panel painting, is hinged at the center so that it could be opened and closed and easily transported. It was clearly designed as an object for private devotion. The owner would have been...
Please Subscribe or Donate [https://sdcason.com/donate] to Help Keep This Site Free! A Paschal candle is a large, white candle used in liturgies in Western Christianity (viz., the Roman Catholic Church, the Lutheran Churches, the Anglican Communion, and the Methodist Churches, among others). A new Paschal candle is...
Please Subscribe or Donate [https://sdcason.com/donate] to Help Keep This Site Free! Like his earliest engraving of the subject, Dürer portrayed the Madonna and Child within an enclosed garden. In addition to the garden, which refers to Mary’s virginity, the artist included other elements that reference each...
Please Subscribe or Donate [https://sdcason.com/donate] to Help Keep This Site Free! The Book of Judith is a deuterocanonical book, included in the Septuagint and the Catholic and Eastern Orthodox Christian Old Testament of the Bible, but excluded from the Hebrew canon and assigned by Protestants to the...
Please Subscribe or Donate [https://sdcason.com/donate] to Help Keep This Site Free! The Greek word stole means garment. The stole is a long band of silk of the same width and color as the maniple, but three times its length. The priest wears it around the neck and...
Please Subscribe or Donate [https://sdcason.com/donate] to Help Keep This Site Free! Forty days after his Resurrection, Christ made his final appearance to his apostles. The story of the Ascension (Acts 1:9-12) tells that Christ's apostles were standing with him on the Mount of Olives...
Please Subscribe or Donate [https://sdcason.com/donate] to Help Keep This Site Free! Christ the Redeemer is an icon discovered by accident in a dilapidated woodshed near Zvenigorod in 1919. With several other icons stored nearby, it was attributed as the work of the great Andrei Rublev, painted for...
Please Subscribe or Donate [https://sdcason.com/donate] to Help Keep This Site Free! Catholics believe that the consecrated bread is literally the body of Christ. The Host thus became an object of veneration, and containers were made in which to keep or display it to the faithful. The monstrance...
Please Subscribe or Donate [https://sdcason.com/donate] to Help Keep This Site Free! Saint Veronica, also known as Berenike, was a woman from Jerusalem who lived in the 1st century AD, according to extra-biblical Christian sacred tradition. She is a celebrated saint in many pious Christian countries. According to...
Please Subscribe or Donate [https://sdcason.com/donate] to Help Keep This Site Free! An Ethiopian Orthodox painting on wood of the Virgin Mary nursing the infant Christ. The twelve Apostles are depicted on the opposing side panels. Dating places this work in the middle or second half of the...
Please Subscribe or Donate [https://sdcason.com/donate] to Help Keep This Site Free! A Eucharistic procession is one in which the Host is carried in procession in a monstrance. It is often covered with a canopy and accompanied with candles. This Eucharistic procession is held annually on the Virginia...
Please Subscribe or Donate [https://sdcason.com/donate] to Help Keep This Site Free! A guardian angel is a type of angel that is assigned to protect and guide a particular person, group or nation. Belief in tutelary beings can be traced throughout all antiquity. The idea of angels that...
Please Subscribe or Donate [https://sdcason.com/donate] to Help Keep This Site Free! The burial of Jesus refers to the burial of the body of Jesus after crucifixion, before the eve of the sabbath described in the New Testament. According to the canonical gospel accounts, he was placed in...
Please Subscribe or Donate [https://sdcason.com/donate] to Help Keep This Site Free! Altar of the church of St Felix, Torralba de Ribota, province of Zaragoza, Spain. The church, of mudéjar and late gothic style was built between 1367 and 1420. The church is a national heritage monument in...
Please Subscribe or Donate [https://sdcason.com/donate] to Help Keep This Site Free! Jerome (c. 342–347 – 30 September 420) was born at Stridon, a village near Emona on the border of Dalmatia and Pannonia. Jerome is best known for his translation of most of the Bible into Latin...
Please Subscribe or Donate [https://sdcason.com/donate] to Help Keep This Site Free! In retaliation for Samson’s single-handed decimation of their army, the Philistines bribed his lover Delilah to discover the source of his strength: his hair, uncut since birth. Samson’s hair was shorn as he lay...
Please Subscribe or Donate [https://sdcason.com/donate] to Help Keep This Site Free! This reliquary uses the form of a miniature Gothic tower. It makes an elaborate architectural frame for a transparent rock-crystal vessel holding a relic that is identified as a tooth of Saint John the Baptist by...
Please Subscribe or Donate [https://sdcason.com/donate] to Help Keep This Site Free! Samuel (flourished 11th century BC, Israel) is a religious hero in the history of Israel, represented in the Old Testament in every role of leadership open to a Jewish man of his day—seer, priest, judge,...
