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Some Special
Devotions
THE help of St. Joseph is invoked when in need of money; of St. Anthony of
Padua for things that are lost or misplaced; of St. Aloysius, the patron
of youth, for assistance in studies and the virtue of purity; of St.
Cecilia, the patroness of musicians, for success in musical studies; of
St. Thomas Aquinas, patron of philosophers, for a clear understanding of
philosophical and theological questions; of St. Roch for the restoration
of health, and when a plague is threatened; of St. Blasé for a cure of all
diseases of the throat.
We pray to St. Anne, mother of the Blessed Virgin and
patroness of married women, for all the graces and assistance necessary in
the matrimonial state; to St. Catherine for a husband; to St. Patrick, the
great Apostle of Ireland, for conversions.
Those who desire the protection and assistance of St. Aloysius
should “make the Aloysius Sundays”; that is, approach holy communion on
the six Sundays preceding his feast─the 21st of June.
By approaching holy communion on the five Sundays preceding
the feast of St. Francis of Assisi─October 4th─a plenary indulgence may be
gained on each Sunday. In all churches belonging to the Franciscans, as
well as in all churches and chapels in which the Third Order of St.
Francis is canonically established, the same indulgences can be gained as
are attached to the Church of the Portiuncula in Rome by following the
same conditions, namely, confession and holy communion and visiting the
church, praying for the intention o f the Holy Father.
Special Devotions for the Days and Months of the Year
IN addition to the regular feasts there is a special devotion for each day
of the week, as follows:
Sunday, the Holy Trinity.
Monday, the Souls in Purgatory.
Tuesday, the Holy Angels.
Wednesday, St. Joseph.
Thursday, the Blessed Sacrament.
Friday, the Sacred Heart and the Passion.
Saturday, the Blessed Virgin.
The months are also consecrated to particular devotions, the most
generally observed being:
January, the Holy Infancy.
February, the Holy Family.
March, St. Joseph.
April, the Passion of Our Lord.
May, the Blessed Virgin.
June, the Sacred Heart.
July, the Precious Blood.
August, the Holy Ghost.
September, the Immaculate Heart of Mary, in Her Sorrows and
Her Joys.
October, the Guardian Angels and the Rosary.
November, the Souls in Purgatory.
December, the Advent of Our Lord.
Missions
MISSIONS are a course of sermons and other religious exercises conducted
by able priests for the purpose of giving a fresh impetus to the spiritual
life of a community or congregation. Such home missions are entirely
distinct from foreign missions. They are held for the most part by
members of Orders. The Jesuit, Redemptorist, Lazarist, Paulist or
Passionist Fathers and specially trained for the work by their several
constitutions which specify giving missions as part of the duties of their
calling. These missions effect an immense amount of good. Being
something out of the common, they make more impression on the
parishioners, and the sermons, coming close upon one another, exercise a
potent influence on the heart. The Holy Ghost speaking through the mouth
of His servants imparts to their words an unction calculated to soften the
hardest sinner. Many persons also make their confession more freely to a
priest who is a complete stranger to them. Missions generally result in a
special renewal of spiritual life in a congregation or parish.
Retreats
RETREATS have much the same effect as missions. Retreats consist of a
series of discourses and religious services, held in convents or any other
place, for a certain class of persons, whether priests, teachers, or men
and women living in the world. The retreat ends with the reception of the
sacraments. The exercises, which require the one in retreat to labor with
greater fervor at the work of his salvation, conduce signally to quicken
faith and inspire morals. A clock, although it is wound up daily, after a
time needs to be cleaned and repaired. It is the same with the soul. It
must ever and anon be stimulated to increased exertion by spiritual
exercises. The saints were wont to withdraw into solitude for a time.
Our Lord Himself spent forty days in the desert. The Holy See has
frequently urged upon the faithful to make diligent use of spiritual
exercises.
Processions
PROCESSIONS are a figure of our life here below. We but pass over the
earth, “for we have not here a lasting city, but we seek one that is to
come” (Heb. xiii. 14). Each procession repeats to those who will hear the
language of the liturgy: Life is a passage: it flows away as rapidly as
the brook in the valley; it flies like the cloud in the heavens; it
vanishes like the breath of a flower, fades like a smile of a child.
In its course the procession advances by roads sometimes
stony, sometimes smooth; here the sun’s burning rays beat down, a little
further great trees throw upon us their refreshing shade. The processions
do not return by the same road; does man see again the years that are
gone? They have disappeared, the days of childhood, those of youth, and
in their turn follows old age, and eternity.
We have all issued forth from the bosom of God, as the brook
from its source, the ray from the sun. God is our beginning; He is also
our end. Created from Him, our vocation is to go to Him; come forth from
His bosom, after our pilgrimage we should re-enter there. The church from
which we go out and to which we return will remind us of our divine origin
and our divine destiny.
The recollection of our grandeur should not alone present
itself to us. Humanity, in the person of Adam and Eve, was driven from
the earthly paradise and condemned to exile in this vale of tears; and we
ourselves have many times, like other prodigals, left our Father’s house.
Who will be the guide of humanity in the darkness and danger
of its pilgrimage? Jesus Christ, whose glorious standard is carried at
the head of the procession.
We must follow after it if we would come to His kingdom. What
does it matter by what road the Lord wills us to march? Jesus has
sanctified its pains in taking them upon Himself. He, the man of all
sorrows, has preceded us in all suffering.
Among the virtues there are two above all others recommended
to us: humility and charity. The Church recalls their practice by the
order followed in her processions. The most worthy come last, and the
least worthy are at the head of the procession, according to the counsel
of the Savior: “And he that will be the first among you, let him be your
servant” (Matt. xx. 27). This is the procession’s lesson of humility.
The faithful, who march two by two, by this symbolic number
figure the double charity recommended by Our Lord when He sent His
disciples two by two to preach the Gospel. The Church invites us to
practice this virtue at the moment when the procession is leaving the
sanctuary. “Do not forget,” she says, “to walk in peace and harmony.”
How maternal, too, is the care of the Church! She puts her little
children close to the cross, by the side of Him who always kept his
tenderest blessings, his sweetest caresses, for them. During the
procession the ringing of bells repels the assaults of the evil spirits.
The bell is the sacred trumpet of the Church militant; its peals remind us
that life is the time of combat, and that “the powers of the air” are our
chief enemies. But what arms shall we use? Prayer. This is why during
the course of the procession the sacred chants arise; we must oppose
perpetual resistance to an enemy that never sleeps. “Watch, then, and
pray,” says the Church with Jesus Christ. “We ought always to pray, and
not to faint.” (Luke xviii. 1).
The common cause of our falls is forgetfulness of our destiny;
strangers and travelers here below, we make of this earth a permanent
dwelling-place. And when the Church wishes to call down upon her guilty
children the pardon of heaven, she commands processions, and God allows
himself to be disarmed. St. Anthony cites a memorable example of this.
In the fourteenth century Europe, disturbed by the scourge of war, was
miraculously restored to peace after solemn processions. The same saint
tells us that the blessed Mother of God appeared to a peasant and told him
that her Son was very angry with the world because of its crimes. In her
merciful compassion for sinners she revealed to him this means as the best
manner of appeasing the wrath of God.
If we desire that processions may be efficacious with God, let
us bring to them the dispositions of which we have spoken. Let us regard
ourselves as strangers here below; nothing is ours, all belongs to God.
As travelers, we are but passing over the earth; as pilgrims, the end of
our journey is heaven. And when, overcome by the heat and fatigue at the
end of the procession, we find again the holy place of rest and
refreshment, let us think how sweet it will be, after the labors of this
life are over, to rest in eternal peace beneath the shadow of God.
Under the pontificate of Pelagius, in 589, the swollen waters
of the Tiber rose to the summit of the temple of Nero. In subsiding they
left such an infectious deposit that there resulted a violent plague. To
turn away the divine wrath the Pope ordered a general procession.
Pelagius himself, however, was taken away by the contagion, in the very
procession, with seventy other persons. St. Gregory the Great, his
successor, ordered a second procession, at the head of which was carried
the picture of the Blessed Virgin painted by St. Luke. Before this
venerated relic the plague disappeared. When they had come to the castle
of Adrian (now the castle of San Angelo) St. Gregory saw an angel
sheathing a sword wet with blood. It was the signal of pardon. As a
thanksgiving the Church renews this procession each year. It was on this
occasion that the Regina Coeli was said by the angels.
According to several authors, the pagans had a procession on
the 25th of April to call down the blessings of the gods on the fruits of
the earth. They carried a statue of Ceres, the goddess of the harvest.
The Church probably chose this day for the procession in order to interest
the pagans themselves in the prescribed prayers for the cessation of the
plague and win them from their own idolatrous practices to the worship of
the true God.
The Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday before the Ascension are
observed as days of solemn supplication, and are called Rogation Days,
from the Latin word “rogatio,” meaning Litany, because the Litany of the
Saints is chanted on those days in the processions which take place.
The Rogation days originated in France. In the year 469 the
city of Vienna, in France, suffered from earthquakes, failure of crops,
wild beasts and other calamities. The pious Bishop Mamertus, who was
afterwards canonized ordered prayers, or rogations, sanctified by
fasting and accompanied by a solemn procession. Copying those of the
Ninivites, they were three days in duration, and the three days
immediately preceding the feast of the Ascension were chosen. Is it not
the Gospel of the last Sunday after Easter which says: “Ask and you shall
receive”? St. Memertus remembered this, and put under the protection of
this solemn promise his celebrated institution, which the entire Church
soon adopted. “It seemed,” says Bossuet, “that the Church wished to lay
upon Jesus Christ ascending into heaven all her desires, as the true
Mediator for man with God.”
In the procession of the rogation days, as in that of St.
Mark, the Church prays for the fruits of the earth.
The following processions form part of the ritual of the
Church everywhere:
THE PROCESSION ON THE FEAST OF THE PURIFICATION.─ Lighted
tapers are carried round the church, because on that day the aged Simeon
declared the Child Jesus to be “a light to the revelation of the Gentiles”
(Luke ii. 32). The wax tapers are emblematic of Christ, the Light of the
world. The wax betokens His manhood, the flame His Godhead. As the light
shines forth from the taper, so the divinity of Christ shines forth from
His sacred humanity by His teaching and His miracles, and as the taper is
consumed while illuminating all around, so the human nature of Our Lord
was sacrificed for the sake of enlightening mankind. Christ is in very
truth the Light of the world, since by His teaching he dispels the
darkness of ignorance and error.
THE PROCESSION ON PALM SUNDAY.─ Blessed palms are carried
round the church in memory of the day of Our Lord’s triumphal entry into
Jerusalem. The palm branches borne by the Jews were symbols of
victory─the victory that Christ was to gain by His death over the devil,
the prince of this world. Our procession is significant of the
Christian’s triumphal entry into heaven. The priest knocks three times at
the door of the church with the processional cross, then it is opened, to
show that only through trials and tribulation can we enter the gate of
heaven and be admitted to the realms of bliss.
THE PROCESSION ON HOLY SATURDAY ─ The Blessed Sacrament is
solemnly taken from the place where it was deposited, and borne by the
priest, attended by the assisting clergy, back to the high altar. This
procession is significant of our future resurrection. The ceremony ought
really to take place at daybreak on Easter Day, but as few could then be
present it is anticipated on the eve of the feast.
THE PROCESSION ON THE FEAST OF CORPUS CHRISTI ─ The Blessed
Sacrament is carried to one or more altars of repose, to testify publicly
our faith in the presence of Our Lord in the Adorable Sacrament of the
Altar. The festival of Corpus Christi (the body of Christ) is on
the Thursday following Trinity Sunday, consequently in the second week
after Pentecost, because soon after the descent of the Holy Ghost the
Apostles began to give holy communion to the faithful. This festival was
instituted some six centuries ago. It was first celebrated in Belgium, by
order of the Bishop of Liége, in consequence of a revelation made to a
nun, Blessed Juliana, and shortly afterward Pope Urban IV, decreed that it
should be kept throughout the whole Church. In this procession the Sacred
Host is carried in a monstrance beneath a canopy, flowers are strewn on
the way and censors swung. The altars of repose are beautifully decorated
with lights and flowers in honor of the Blessed Sacrament. In some places
four altars are erected, and a pause is made at each, and one of the
accounts of the institution of the Blessed Sacrament given by the four
Evangelists is read. The four altars signify the four quarters of the
world. After the reading of the Gospel, a prayer is added for protection
against lightning and tempest, and for a good harvest. This solemn
ceremony, which is generally terminated by the Te Deum in the
church, cannot fail to impress every beholder, and lead the non-Catholic
to inquire what it is toward which are displayed such profound reverence
and veneration.
Pilgrimages
A PILGRIM is one who travels from his own land or town to visit some holy
place or shrine from religious motives. The visits of the Jewish people
to Jerusalem three times a year were of the nature of pilgrimages. The
old Greeks had many holy places sacred to their gods, notably to Eleusis,
the celebrated town in ancient Attica where the Eleusinean mysteries were
celebrated annually on the festival of Ceres. Pilgrimages to the tombs of
their founders are essential parts of the Hindu and of the Mohammedan
religious systems.
The early Christians regarded certain places with special
religious interest; above all, the scenes of the Passion of Our Lord at
Jerusalem. St. Jerome refers the practice of visiting Jerusalem to the
discovery of the holy cross by St. Helena (A.D. 326), the mother of the
Emperor Constantine the Great, whose miraculous conversion (A.D. 312) put
an end to the persecutions which had harassed the early Christians under
various Roman Emperors. St. Jerome himself was a zealous pilgrim.
Throughout the fourth, fifth, and sixth centuries pilgrims habitually
undertook the long and perilous journey to the Holy Land from almost every
part of the West. The tombs of the Apostles Peter and Paul and of the
martyrs of the catacombs at Rome, are also so described as objects of the
same visits of religious veneration by St. Jerome. St. Basil speaks of
the tomb of the Forty Martyrs, and the historian Theodoret tells not only
of visiting such sanctuaries, but of hanging up therein, as offerings,
gold and silver ornaments, and even models of hands, feet, eyes, etc., in
commemoration of the cures of diseases miraculously obtained as the fruit
of these pious visits. The pilgrimage, however, pre-eminently so-called,
was that to the Holy Land; and even after Jerusalem had been occupied by
the Saracens, the liberty of pilgrimage, on payment of a tax, was formally
secured by treaty. The well-known religious military Orders, such as the
Templars and the Teutonic Knights, were founded to protect and help
pilgrims to the Holy Land. The Crusades may be regarded as pilgrimages on
a heroic plan, the direct object being to secure for the Latin Christians
freedom of pilgrimage. On the other hand, the final abandonment of the
Crusades led to a great extension of what may be called domestic
pilgrimages, and drew into religious notice and veneration many shrines in
Europe.
The principal places of pilgrimage in the Holy Land are: The
scene of the crucifixion and the holy sepulcher on Calvary at Jerusalem;
the place where Christ was born in Bethlehem, and the place of the
Annunciation at Nazareth.
The Church of the Holy Sepulcher is situated on Mount
Calvary. It consists of three churches, called, respectively, the Church
of the Crucifixion, the Church of the Ascension, and that of the Invention
of the True Cross. All are under one roof. The early Christians
journeyed thither in great numbers. In order to deter them from doing
this, the Emperor Hadrian erected a heathen temple in the holy places
about one hundred years after Our Lord’s death. About the year 325 the
Empress Helena, mother of Constantine the Great, discovered the cross of
Christ. This gave a fresh impetus to the pilgrimages. The Emperor
Charlemagne erected a hospice close to the Holy Sepulcher for the
accommodation of pilgrims to Jerusalem. In the ninth century the Saracens
conquered the Holy Land.
The first crusade (1096-1099), or pilgrimage, for its recovery
was then preached by Peter the Hermit and sent out by Pope Urban II. On
July 15, 1099, the crusaders took Jerusalem and proclaimed Godfrey de
Bouillon king. St. Bernard of Clairvaux moved Louis VII of France and
Conrad III of Germany to undertake the second crusade (1147-1149).
Altogether there were six crusades. The last was led by St. Louis. In
this crusade he was made prisoner. He undertook a seventh crusade twenty
years later, in 1269, but only reached Tours, where his troops were swept
away by a plague, to which he himself fell a victim in 1270.
The badge of the Crusaders was a Red Cross on the sleeve, on
their breasts and on their banners. We have a trace of this badge left in
the Red Cross of our ambulance and health service and in the sign of the
Red Cross Society.
In the fifteenth century pilgrimages to the Holy Land again
became frequent, but in Luther’s time the number of those whose piety
prompted them to undertake what was then a long and toilsome journey
greatly diminished.
The costume of the pilgrim consisted of a black or gray
gabardine, girt with a cincture, from which a shell and scrip were
suspended; a broad hat ornamented with scallop shells, and a long staff.
The principal places of pilgrimage in honor of the holy
Apostles are: The tomb of the princes of the Apostles in Rome, and the
tomb of St. James at Compostella in Spain. The remains of St. Peter rest
in the Church of St. Peter in Rome, the largest church in Christendom, of
world-wide renown. It was finished in 1626. The remains of St. Paul are
laid in the church dedicated to him outside the walls of the city.
There are many other holy places, too numerous indeed even to
be indicated, that draw pilgrims to Rome. In addition to Rome and the
shrine of St. James at Compostella just mentioned, the Western Church has
had and still has many famous shrines. There was Canterbury in England,
of which Chaucer tells in his “Canterbury Tales,” and many other lesser
places. There were holy places, notably holy wells, all over Ireland and
Scotland. In Italy, Loretto, Genazzano, and Assisi have long been
venerated; in Spain, Guadalupe and Montserrat; in France, Fourvière, Puy,
St. Denis; in Germany, Altöting, Cologne, Tirer; in Switzerland,
Einsiedeln; MariaZell in Hungary.
In late years, however, pilgrims have resorted in large
numbers, not only to the ancient sanctuaries, but also to La Salette,
Lourdes, Paray-le-Monial, and Pontigny.
Loretto in Ancona has, since 1295, possessed the holy house of
Nazareth, where our blessed Lady lived. This lowly house was seen in the
year 1252 by St. Louis in Nazareth. Forty years later it was translated
first to Dalmatia, then to Italy.
An altar which was miraculous conveyed at the same time is
supposed to be that upon which St. Peter offered the holy sacrifice. The
statue of Our Lady which stands on that altar, carved in cedarwood, three
feet in height, is said to be the work of St. Luke. A spacious church has
been erected over the holy house; copies of the latter have been made and
are seen in several places.
The place of pilgrimage known as Maria-Zell owes its origin to
the Benedictine monks. About the commencement of the thirteenth century
attention was attracted to it by the miracles wrought there. King Louis
I, of Hungary built a large church at Maria-Zell in thanksgiving for the
victory he gained over the Turks in 1363, with an army immensely inferior
in numbers, which he attributed to the intercession of Our Lady.
Einsiedeln was originally the humble dwelling of the hermit St. Meinrad, a
priest and Benedictine, a scion of the house of Hohenzollern. In 861 he
was slain in his forest solitude by robbers. Later on a church was built
on the site of his hermitage, in which an ancient and venerated image of
Our Lady was preserved. While the bishop who came to consecrate the
church was watching, he beheld Our Lord Himself perform the ceremony,
attended by saints and angels, amid the chanting of celestial choirs. In
consequence of this vision both he and his successors in the see, with the
papal sanction, desisted from any attempt to consecrate the church. This
circumstance, together with the canonization of Meinrad, whose remains
were interred at Einsiedlen, and the numerous miracles which were wrought
there, brought the spot into great repute as a pilgrimage. During the
French Revolution the church was burned down, the miraculous image alone
escaping injury. The shrine at Altöting dates from a somewhat earlier
period, the church having been built by St. Rupert, the apostle of
Bavaria, in 700. A Benedictine monastery was afterwards erected there.
Thousands of pilgrims visit the shrine. That of Kevelaer on the Rhine was
built in 1642 by a citizen of Geldern, a humble peddler, who heard a voice
commanding him to raise a sanctuary in honor of Our Lady. The number of
pilgrims, principally from the adjacent country, who annually visit
Kevelaer is also very great.
In Canada the most famous shrine is that of Sainte Anne de
Beaupré in Quebec. Auriesville, in the Mohawk Valley, New York, the scene
of the martyrdom of the great Jesuit missionary, Father Isaac Jogues, is
becoming noted as a place of pilgrimage.
In Mexico are Our Lady of Guadalupe, the Loretto of the New
World; Our Lady of Remey, at Montezuma; and Our Lady of the Lagos, in the
mountains of Zacatecas.
The Russian church has many shrines that are honored by the
pilgrimages of the people. The most notable place is Kiev, the Holy City
of the Russians.
When a Christian is about to go on a pilgrimage he must be
sure that he will neglect no duty, for the slightest duty takes precedence
of every pilgrimage, since the compliance with a duty is necessary for the
soul’s salvation. A pilgrimage, on the other hand, is purely voluntary.
Let each one ask himself, then, whether during his absence on a pilgrimage
any home duty is to be neglected. Thomas à Kempis says: “Those who go
much abroad seldom become saints.” He alludes to those persons who go on
pilgrimages as a mere matter of custom, and without the proper motives,
and who consequently derive very little benefit. A pilgrimage, moreover,
is a penitential journey, and therefore should be made on foot, as far as
circumstances permit, and amid some privation and fatigue. It is thus
that the pilgrim manifests a spirit of sacrifice in atonement for his
sins, and obtains the favor of God.
Relics and Invocation of the Saints
WE honor the relics of the saints as precious remains. They recall to our
minds noble lives, full of virtue and heroic deeds. They possess no
hidden power in themselves, but God often makes them the vehicle of His
favors. Far from being idolatrous, the honor which we pay to the relics
of the saints redounds upon God, whose servants they are. St. Jerome
argues with Vigilantius in this way: “Not only do we not adore the relics
of the martyrs, but we do not even adore the angels, the archangels, the
cherubim, and seraphim. Yet we honor the relics of the martyrs that we
may adore Him whose martyrs they are. We honor the servants, that the
honor bestowed on them may redound to their Master.” In the same meaning
St. Augustine wrote to Quintian: “I send you the relics of St. Stephen,
the martyr, which you will honor as it is proper.”
THAT God will us to bestow honor on the relics of His saints
we infer from the marvelous virtue with which it pleases Him sometimes to
honor their bones and other relics. A dead man who was placed in the tomb
of Eliseus was restored to life as soon as he touched the bones of the
prophet (4 Kings xiii. 21). The many miracles wrought at the tombs and by
the touch of the relics of the saints prove that the honor shown to them
is agreeable to God. The afflicted woman in the Gospel who, full of faith
and humility, trusted for her cure in the touch of the hem of the garment
of Our Lord (Matt. ix. 20), and those who had confidence in the “shadow”
of St Peter to cure their sick (Acts v. 15), and those who confided in the
“handkerchiefs” and “aprons” that had touched the body of St. Paul, and
brought them to the sick (Acts xix. 12), were not reproved by Our Lord nor
by the Apostles, but were rewarded by God, who, by these humble means,
cured them.
The great Cardinal Newman said about relics: “I think it is
impossible to withstand the evidence which is brought for the liquefaction
of the blood of St. Januarius at Naples. I see no reason t doubt the
material of the Lombard crown at Monza; and I do not see why the Holy Coat
at Treves may not have been what it professes to be. I firmly believe
that portions of the True Cross are at Rome, and the bodies of St. Peter
and St. Paul also. I firmly believe that the relics of the saints are
doing innumerable miracles and graces daily, and that it needs only for a
Catholic to show devotion to any saint in order to receive special
benefits from his intercession.”
By this invocation we are not in any way detracting from the
adoration, honor and glory due to Our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. He is
our only mediator of redemption, and also of intercession by His own
rights and merits. The Catholic Church ends all her prayers with the
words: “Through Jesus Christ Our Lord.” The saints in heaven are called
mediators and intercessors in an entirely different sense; they are such
only by the merits of Our Lord, by a special power from God. In the sense
of intercessor, through Jesus Christ, a saint, or any one even here on
earth who prays for his neighbor, may be considered and be called a
mediator, as Moses was, who could say of himself: “I was the mediator,
and stood between the Lord and you” (Deut. v. 5).
It had been the strong belief of the Jews of old that the
saints in heaven pray for their brethren on earth (2 Mach. Xv. 14), and
the Catholic Church, which has succeeded to the heritage of the synagogue,
has formulated her doctrine on this point in the following concise words:
“The saints who reign with Christ offer to God prayer for men; it is good
and useful to invoke them in an humble manner and to fly to them for aid
and assistance.” This teaching is no barren article of the Creed; it is
part and parcel of Catholic life and feeling; it is the golden link that
binds us to the invisible kingdom where we are to live and reign forever.
We love and honor the saints, the dear children of God, not independently
of Him, but because He honored them and surrounded them with glory.
St. James writes: “The continual prayer of the just man
availeth much” (v. 16). St. Paul asked the Christians of Rome to pray for
him (Rom. xv. 30). If we may ask the prayers of good people on earth, why
should we not invoke the assistance of the saints in heaven, who are so
near to God? Christ tells us that the just in heaven are like the angels
of God (Matt. xxii. 30), and the angels rejoice over the conversion of a
sinner (Luke xv. 7). The Scripture informs us that when Moses was on the
mountain, away from the people, God showed him how they had fallen into
the sin of idolatry and that He would destroy them on account of it. They
were spared at the prayer of Moses (Exodus xxxi).
In praying to the saints, we lift our hands and hearts to
those who have washed their robes and made them white in the blood of the
Lamb. They were of the same clay as we are. They were surrounded by the
same temptations ─
those of the world, the flesh, and the devil. They might have
lived wicked lives and died as reprobates; but they triumphed with the
grace of the Blessed Redeemer. They know how to sympathize with us; for
they know from experience how weak is human nature and how strong the
power of evil.
Reverence of
Religious Objects Generally
THE Catholic Church teaches that the images or representations of Jesus
Christ, of His Blessed Virgin Mother, and of the saints in general, are to
be honored with “due honor”; no, indeed, for what they are in themselves,
but for what they represent. This honor is called relative, because it
relates or refers to the person represented. Thus it is simply a token of
affection toward our parents to kiss the likeness of a dear father or
mother. In the English Parliament it is a customary mark of respect to
the King to bow before his chair of State, even though it be empty.
Again, men honor his Majesty by putting his portrait in a conspicuous
place and by bowing before it. It would be dishonoring the King himself
to treat his portrait with disrespect.
The reverence paid by Catholics to holy images does not offend
against the commandment of God. It is true that the latter part of the
first commandment declares: “Thou shalt not make to thyself a graven
thing,” but this is explained by the words that follow: “Thou shalt not
adore them nor serve them” (Exodus xx. 4, 5, and Deut. v. 9). The
meaning, therefore, clearly is: Thou shalt not make unto thyself a graven
thing for the purpose of adoring it as a false god or idol. The words
“bow down” in the Protestant version, instead of “adore,” are unhappily
calculated to mislead unreflecting persons. This commandment cannot be
taken to condemn the use of images which are intended to promote the honor
and worship of Our Lord Jesus Christ, the true living God, or the inferior
honor due to the holy angels and saints, as this is not worship of strange
gods, and, therefore, not idolatry.
It was thus understood by the Jews, who by the command of God
placed two graven images of the cherubim on the ark of the Covenant (3
Kings vi. 23), and other images of angels in the Temple of Solomon. (2
Par. iii. 10, 11). It is, in fact, thus practically understood also by
those Protestants who have no scruple in making graven images, and even in
setting them up in their places of worship.
An eminent Protestant ─ Archdeacon Paley, author of “The
Evidences of Christianity” ─ in a sermon on the Commandments, says: “The
prohibition of the Commandment is pointed against the particular offense
of idolatry and no other. The first and second Commandments (according to
the Protestant division) may be considred as one, inasmuch as they relate
to one subject, or nearly so. For many ages, and by many churches, they
were put together and considered as one commandment. The subject to which
they both relate is false worship, or the worship of false gods. This is
the single subject to which the prohibition of both Commandments relates ─
this single class of sins which is guarded against.
No true Christian certainly could find
it in his heart to treat the crucifix, that affecting image and appealing
likeness of our crucified Savior, as an idol, and trample it under his
foot. Christian feeling would prompt him to respect it as he respects and
reveres the precious word, the sound, the very letters, of the holy name
of Jesus.
It would be idolatry to worship a saint, or the image of a
saint as God, but it is not idolatry to honor the saints for what they
are, namely, the faithful servants of God, and to honor pictures of them
for what these pictures represent. If we may pay respect to the likeness
of a parent, child, or friend, living or departed, we may surely honor
pictures of the saints who are the special friends of God, and show our
reverence for those who, now glorious in heaven, are “the spirits of the
just made perfect” (Heb. xii. 23), who are “like to Him” (1 John III. 2),
and who behold Him “face to face” (1 Cor. xiii. 12). |