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:

STATIONS OF THE CROSS

A devotion performed by meditating on the Passion of Christ, successively before fourteen stations of the Cross. The stations are wooden crosses, normally attached to the interior walls of a church, although they may be erected anywhere, e.g., outside along a pathway. The pictures or representations depicting various scenes from Christ's Via Crucis are aids to devotion on the traditional stations: 1. Jesus Is Condemned to Death; 2. Jesus Bears His Cross; 3. Jesus Falls the First Time; 4. Jesus Meets His Mother; 5. Jesus Is Helped by Simon; 6. Veronica Wipes the Face of Jesus; 7. Jesus Falls a Second Time; 8. Jesus Consoles the Women of Jerusalem; 9. Jesus Falls a Third Time; 10. Jesus Is Stripped of His Garments; 11. Jesus Is Nailed to the Cross; 12. Jesus Dies on the Cross; 13. Jesus Is Taken Down from the Cross; 14. Jesus Is Laid in the Tomb. A plenary indulgence is gained, once a day, for making the Way of the Cross. But is only necessary for a person to move from one station to the next and "nothing more is required than a pious meditation on the Passion and Death of the Lord, which need not be a particular consideration of the individual mysteries of the stations."