Catholic Dictionary

Find accurate definitions of over 5,000 Catholic terms and phrases (including abbreviations). Based on Fr. John Hardon's Modern Catholic Dictionary, © Eternal Life. Used with permission.

Random Term from the Dictionary:

MONTSERRAT (shrine)

The Holy Mountain, twenty miles from Barcelona, Spain. Its central feature is a statue of the Virgin Mary and her divine Son, thirty-eight inches high, made of wood now blackened with age. It is housed in a church built on the top of the rocks where a Benedictine abbey now stands. According to tradition previous to A.D. 888, this image of Christ and his Mother was miraculously found among the rocks of Montserrat, strange lights and angelic music guiding searchers to a mountain cavern where it was hidden. All the kings of Spain came to worship at the shrine chapel, and the names of saints such as Ignatius of Loyola, Vincent Ferrer, and Joseph Calasanz have been connected with this shrine. Since the Napoleonic Wars and the more recent Spanish Civil War all the buildings have been modernized.