What are the canonical hours?
The canonical hours are times of day set aside for prayer.
As specified by church regulations, the divisions of the day are:
matins, lauds, prime, terce, sext, none, vespers, and compline.
As described in Leviticus 16:1-27, part of a Hebrew ritual on the Day of Atonement involved the presentation of two male goats at the altar of the tabernacle. After lots were cast, one goat was sacrificed to the Lord; the other, the scapegoat, was set aside for Azazel, an evil spirit of the wilderness. The…
The Jewish spiritual movement was founded by Israel ben Eliezer, now better known as the Ba’al Shem Tov (Master of the Good Name). He was a healer and holy man who lived in the Ukraine (c. 1700-1760).
Yes, a raven and a dove. In Genesis 8:7-8, they are the birds Noah sent out to see if the waters had begun to subside: And he sent forth a raven, which went to and fro, until the waters were dried up from off the earth. Also he sent forth a dove from him, to…
It could have been any kind of snake that tempted Eve, or none at all. Eve was tempted by a “serpent”, which, in Biblical times, could refer to any creeping animal, particularly if it was venomous. Thus, Eve could have been tempted by anything from a snake to a salamander to a crocodile.
Gethsemane was the garden where Jesus was visited by an angel and betrayed by Judas. It was located on the western slope of the Mount of Olives, east of Jerusalem.
The practice of using a string of knots or beads as a memory aid in prayer was developed long before the time of Christ. It was popularized among Catholics in the twelfth century by Saint Dominic of Spain, founder of the Dominican order. The word rosary may come from one of two sources: the early…