TRADITIONAL CATHOLIC DICTIONARY ONLINE—Q

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Q

Quadragesima , n.; L. Literally, the fortieth. The name denoting the number of days in Lent; the name sometimes applied to the first Sunday of Lent, or to the first four Sundays of Lent together with their respective designating numbers as Quadragesima, etc. The word has come to be applied to the entire season of Lent itself.

Quaestor, n.; L. Title given to one who is commissioned to preach for the collection of alms for a special purpose.

Quarant Ore, n.; It. Forty Hours Devotion.

Quam Singulari, The opening words of the 1910 Decree of Pope St. Pius X  restoring the right of children who have attained the age of reason to receive Holy Communion.

Quarantine, n.; L., It. A period of forty days. The term is applied to a partial indulgence and means the temporal punishment due to sin which the Pope as Vicar of Christ remitted by a public penance performed for forty days. Indulgences are now given in direct terms of years or days and are no longer expressed by quarantines.

Quarter tense, n.; L. A name formerly applied to the Ember days. (Obs.)

Quasi domicile, n.; L. The residence of one within a parish or diocese, taken with the intention of remaining there six months but not indefinitely, and which ceases with departure and intent of not returning.

Quasimodo Sunday (Kwoz-zee-moh-doh), An alternate name for Low Sunday. It is so called from the first words of the Introit.

Quest, n.; O.Fr. The office of begging for alms by lay-brothers or sisters for their own support.

Quicumque, (Kwee-kum-kway) The opening word of the Athanasian creed found in the Breviarium and Rituale Romanum. Literally translated, Whoever.

Quietism, n.; It. A dangerous system which arose in the seventeenth century and which taught that earthly perfection was a passive state of the soul in which it was necessary neither to make acts of faith, hope, or love nor to desire heaven or fear hell.

Quinquagesima, n.; L. Literally, fiftieth. The name applied to the Sunday before Lent. The fifty days before Easter.

Quire, n.; O.Fr. Old spelling of the word choir.

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