Glossary
77 terms you may hear at a bedside or a graveside, listed alphabetically because that is how you look up a word somebody has just said to you. Each links to the tradition it belongs to.
A
- aartiHinduism
- The lamp ceremony: a flame circled clockwise before the deity to bells and hymns, then often shared with worshippers as a blessing; performed daily in temples.
- ACTSProtestant Christianity
- A widely taught prayer outline: Adoration, Confession, Thanksgiving, Supplication. A teaching device rather than a required form, used to structure both private and group prayer.
- AmenChristianity
- A Hebrew loanword meaning firm or sure, roughly so be it; said at the end of prayers, and by congregations to make a spoken prayer their own.
- AmidahJudaism
- The standing prayer at the core of every service, nineteen blessings on weekdays, prayed quietly and then repeated aloud by the leader in traditional congregations.
- Anointing of the SickCatholicism
- A sacrament in which a priest anoints a seriously ill person with blessed oil and prays for healing, peace, and strength. It may be repeated and is not reserved for the dying.
- ArdasSikhism
- The standing communal petition offered at the close of Sikh services and ceremonies, with a fixed frame and a flexible middle naming the occasion.
B
- BenedictionProtestant Christianity
- The blessing, usually scriptural, spoken over the congregation at the close of a Protestant worship service, sending worshippers out with words of grace and peace.
- berakhahJudaism
- A short fixed blessing, plural berakhot, opening with the Hebrew word barukh, blessed. Berakhot accompany food, drink, ritual acts, and much of daily life.
- Book of Common PrayerProtestant Christianity
- The Anglican service book first compiled by Thomas Cranmer in 1549, containing daily offices, Sunday services and rites for marriage, sickness and burial, revised many times across the Anglican world.
C
- Celebrantnon-religious life
- A trained officiant who creates and leads personalized ceremonies such as weddings, namings, and funerals. Humanist celebrants work wholly without religious content; independent celebrants may mix religious and secular elements.
- Chaplaininterfaith settings
- A professional provider of spiritual care in hospitals, the military, prisons, and universities, trained to support people of any faith or none and to refer requests outside their own tradition.
- Civil religioninterfaith settings
- Sociologist Robert Bellah's 1967 term for the generic religious language of national ceremony, such as broad references to God in inaugural addresses, distinct from any congregation's own worship.
D
- Daily OfficeChristianity
- The historic cycle of prayer at fixed hours of the day, kept today as the Catholic Liturgy of the Hours and in Anglican Morning and Evening Prayer.
- DaimokuBuddhism
- The chanted title of the Lotus Sutra, the core practice of Nichiren Buddhism, including the Soka Gakkai movement.
- darshanHinduism
- The devotional exchange of sight between worshipper and deity: seeing the sacred image and being seen by the deity, the core act of a temple visit.
- Dedication of meritBuddhism
- The closing act of most Buddhist practice, directing the positive force of what was done toward others: the sick, the dead, or all beings.
- DhikrIslam
- Remembrance of God through short repeated phrases or divine names, counted silently or on beads, practiced alone or in groups; Sufi orders make it the heart of communal devotion.
- Disparity of cultinterfaith settings
- Catholic canon law's term for marriage between a Catholic and an unbaptized person, which requires a dispensation from the local bishop for the marriage to be recognized.
- Divine LiturgyEastern Orthodoxy
- The eucharistic service of the Orthodox Church, celebrated on Sundays and feasts, in which bread and wine are consecrated and distributed as communion.
- DoxologyChristianity
- A short formula of praise to God. The familiar conclusion many congregations add to the Lord's Prayer is a doxology, standard in Protestant use and said separately at Mass.
- DuaIslam
- Personal supplication: praising God, asking for help, or praying for others, in any language and at any time, commonly with raised open hands. No set form is required.
E
- Extemporaneous prayerChristianity
- Unscripted prayer in the speaker's own words, prized in evangelical and Pentecostal churches as sincere and Spirit-led; also called free or spontaneous prayer.
- Extemporaneous prayerProtestant Christianity
- Prayer composed spontaneously rather than read from a text, spoken in everyday language. Prized in Baptist, Pentecostal and evangelical circles as heartfelt and led by the Spirit.
G
H
- HesychasmEastern Orthodoxy
- A contemplative tradition of inner stillness centered on the Jesus Prayer, developed among monks and affirmed by fourteenth-century councils after Gregory Palamas defended it.
- Holy MysteriesEastern Orthodoxy
- The Orthodox term for the sacraments, including baptism, chrismation, communion, confession, marriage, ordination, and unction; the phrase is also used for communion itself.
- HukamnamaSikhism
- The passage received when the Guru Granth Sahib is opened and read from the page where it falls open, taken as guidance for the day or the occasion.
- Humanismnon-religious life
- A non-religious worldview that grounds ethics and meaning in human experience, reason, and care for others, without reference to gods; organized nationally by bodies such as Humanists UK and the American Humanist Association.
I
- IconostasisEastern Orthodoxy
- The icon-bearing screen that separates the sanctuary from the nave in an Orthodox church, pierced by doors used by clergy during services.
- IntercessionChristianity
- Prayer on behalf of others, from a sick neighbor to the whole world; one of the classic forms of Christian prayer and a fixture of Sunday worship.
- IntercessionCatholicism
- Prayer offered on behalf of another person. Catholics also ask Mary and the saints to intercede, that is, to pray to God for them.
- Invocationinterfaith settings
- A short opening prayer at a civic meeting or public ceremony, often worded broadly; in the United States its use at legislative sessions was upheld by the Supreme Court in 2014.
J
K
- KaddishJudaism
- An Aramaic praise of God's name said at set points in services. Its mourner's form, which never mentions death, is Judaism's signature public act of grief.
L
- LangarSikhism
- The free vegetarian meal cooked by volunteers and served in every gurdwara to anyone who comes, with all diners seated together as equals.
- LiturgyChristianity
- A composed, public order of worship. Liturgical churches pray mainly from set texts; free-church worship composes prayer in the moment.
- Liturgy of the HoursCatholicism
- The Church's daily cycle of psalms, hymns, and readings prayed at set times, especially morning and evening. Clergy and religious orders commit to it; many laypeople join in.
M
- MalaBuddhism
- A loop of beads, classically 108, used to count recitations of a mantra or a buddha's name; Japanese forms are called juzu.
- mantraHinduism
- A sacred sound, syllable, name or verse, usually Sanskrit, repeated aloud or silently as worship; particular mantras attach to particular deities and purposes.
- MassCatholicism
- The central Catholic liturgy, combining Scripture readings with the Eucharist, in which Catholics believe bread and wine become the body and blood of Christ. Participation is expected on Sundays and holy days.
- MettaBuddhism
- Loving-kindness: active goodwill toward all beings, cultivated in a meditation that extends well-wishing outward and voiced in some of Buddhism's most recited texts.
- minyanJudaism
- The quorum of ten required for full public worship, including Torah reading and Kaddish. Orthodox practice counts ten men; Conservative and Reform communities count all adults.
- Moment of silencenon-religious life
- A shared period of quiet marking a death or a grave occasion. Because silence asserts no creed, people of any belief or none can take part on equal terms.
- Multi-faith roominterfaith settings
- A neutral space in a hospital, airport, or university set aside for prayer or quiet reflection by people of any religion or none, usually plain, with religious items brought in or stored away.
- murtiHinduism
- A consecrated image or statue through which a deity is present to worshippers; from the Sanskrit for form or embodiment, and not accurately translated as idol.
N
- NembutsuBuddhism
- Japanese term for reciting or recollecting the name of Amitabha Buddha, the central Pure Land practice; the Chinese equivalent is nianfo.
- NitnemSikhism
- The set of daily prayers recited by observant Sikhs in the morning, at sunset, and before sleep, often read from a small prayer book called a gutka.
- Non-Religious Pastoral Support Networknon-religious life
- A Humanists UK network of trained volunteers offering like-minded pastoral care to non-religious people in British hospitals, prisons, and hospices, parallel to chaplaincy.
- Nonesnon-religious life
- Survey shorthand for the religiously unaffiliated, from the answer none of the above; covers atheists, agnostics, and people who say their religion is nothing in particular.
- NovenaCatholicism
- Nine consecutive days of prayer for a particular intention or in preparation for a feast, a form modeled on the nine days the apostles prayed before Pentecost.
P
- ParittaBuddhism
- Protective discourses of the Pali canon chanted in Theravada communities for blessing and safeguarding at homes, ceremonies, and sickbeds; the Metta Sutta is among the best known.
- PaschaEastern Orthodoxy
- The Orthodox name for Easter, the year's central feast, reckoned by a calculation that keeps nearly all Orthodox churches celebrating on the same date.
- Pastoral prayerProtestant Christianity
- The extended intercessory prayer a minister offers on behalf of the whole congregation in Sunday worship, traditionally gathering adoration, confession, thanksgiving and petitions for church, community and world.
- prasadaHinduism
- Food or other offerings presented to a deity and returned to worshippers as blessed; sharing prasada distributes the grace of the worship.
- Prayer rope (komboskini, chotki)Eastern Orthodoxy
- A knotted cord, commonly of 33, 50, or 100 knots, used to count repetitions of the Jesus Prayer; the Greek name is komboskini, the Russian chotki.
- Praying in tonguesProtestant Christianity
- In Pentecostal and charismatic practice, prayer voiced in syllables unknown to the speaker, understood as a prayer language given by the Holy Spirit; also called glossolalia.
- pujaHinduism
- Ceremonial worship in which a deity receives offerings and attentions as an honored guest; performed daily at home shrines and, with priestly mediation, in temples.
Q
- QiblaIslam
- The direction of prayer, toward the Kaaba in Mecca. Worshippers everywhere orient salah toward it, and hospital patients may ask staff which way it lies.
- Quiet timeProtestant Christianity
- Evangelical term for a daily period of personal Bible reading and prayer, usually in the morning, treated as the core discipline of individual devotion.
R
- RosaryCatholicism
- A meditative devotion using a string of beads to pace repeated prayers while reflecting on twenty scenes, called mysteries, from the lives of Jesus and Mary.
S
- SalahIslam
- The ritual prayer performed five times daily at set times, in Arabic, with cycles of standing, bowing, and prostration, after ablution and facing Mecca. Also written salat.
- Sequential interfaith prayerinterfaith settings
- The format in which representatives of each tradition pray in turn, in their own words, while the others listen respectfully rather than joining in.
- siddurJudaism
- The Jewish prayer book, from a Hebrew root meaning order. It fixes the sequence of weekday and Shabbat services; holiday liturgy fills a companion volume, the mahzor.
- Spiritual but not religiousnon-religious life
- A self-description claiming spirituality, awe, or connection while declining religious affiliation; about 22 percent of American adults in Pew's 2023 measurement, skewing younger than religious Americans.
- Syncretisminterfaith settings
- The merging of elements from different religions into one practice. Most interfaith organizers deliberately avoid it, keeping each tradition's prayer distinct.
T
- tallitJudaism
- A four-cornered prayer shawl with knotted fringes called tzitzit, worn at morning services. In many non-Orthodox communities women as well as men wear one.
- tefillinJudaism
- Small leather boxes holding Torah passages, bound to arm and head with straps for weekday morning prayer. They are not worn on Shabbat.
- The Lord's PrayerChristianity
- The prayer Jesus taught his followers, recorded in the gospels of Matthew and Luke; also called the Our Father. The nearest thing to a universal Christian text.
- The Pausenon-religious life
- A brief voluntary silence some clinical teams observe in the room after a patient dies, honoring the person and the care given; begun by a University of Virginia nurse.
- TheotokosEastern Orthodoxy
- The principal Orthodox title of Mary, a Greek term usually rendered God-bearer or Mother of God. Many supplicatory services, including the Paraklesis, ask her intercession.
- TurbahIslam
- A small tablet of natural clay or earth on which many Shia Muslims rest the forehead during prostration, often made from the soil of Karbala.
U
- UposathaBuddhism
- Theravada observance days set by the lunar cycle, when laypeople may keep extra precepts, visit monasteries, and join chanting and meditation.
V
- ViaticumCatholicism
- Holy Communion given to a person close to death, understood as food for the passage from this life. The Catechism calls it the last sacrament of the Christian.