The liturgical use of ashes originates in Old Testament times. Ashes symbolized mourning, mortality and penance. Job (whose story was written between the 7th and 5th centuries B.C.) repented in...
Ash Wednesday
Queenship of the Blessed Virgin Mary
...that feast. In his 1954 encyclical To the Queen of Heaven, Pius XII points out that Mary deserves the title because she is Mother of God, because she is closely...
Advent and Christmas Traditions
...to bring the Bible to life for a population of believers who were not literate. The use of small figures and elaborate displays was perfected during the 1700s in Naples,...
Presentation of the Lord and Candlemas
...of Christ into the house of God, was in the earliest times celebrated in the Church of Jerusalem. Once in the temple, Jesus was purified by the prayer of Simeon,...