(Encyclopedia) Ash Wednesday, in the Western Church, the first day of Lent, being the seventh Wednesday before Easter. On this day ashes are placed on the foreheads of the faithful to remind them of…
—By Borgna Brunner
Disaster. Hurricane Katrina slammed into the U.S. Gulf Coast on Aug. 29, destroying towns in Mississippi and Louisiana, displacing a million people, and killing almost 1,800.…
1997 News of the Nation
One of the most hotly debated topics of the year was that of affirmative action. A ballot initiative in California, Proposition 209, gave a resounding mandate to efforts to…
Danny Glover and Oprah Winfrey in Touchstone's adaptation of Toni Morrison's BelovedSeveral fall films take their cues from classics like It's a Wonderful Life (1946) and channel otherworldly…
(Encyclopedia) Advent [Lat.,=coming], season of the Christian ecclesiastical year preceding Christmas, lasting in the West from the Sunday nearest Nov. 30 (St. Andrew's Day) until Christmas Eve. In…
(Encyclopedia) Joel, prophetic book of the Bible. It is a collection of the oracles of an otherwise unknown prophet, dated variously from the 9th to the 3d cent. b.c., though a date in c.400 b.c. is…
(Encyclopedia) Watts, Isaac, 1674–1748, English clergyman and hymn writer, b. Southampton. He was one of the most eminent Dissenting divines of his day. As a pastor in London he was known for his…
(Encyclopedia) Rogation Days, in the calendar of the Western Church, four days traditionally set apart for solemn processions to invoke God's mercy. They are Apr. 25, the Major Rogation, coinciding…
