Catholics are often accused by Reformed Christians of
removing the commandment on creating graven images so we can worship and pray
to our statues and paintings. This misunderstanding stems from the different
ways the different faith traditions number the commandments. When the Catholic
Church compiled what is now the bible into a single book there wasn’t chapter
and verse. They were simply a collection of books and letters that were being
read at Mass in every church. The Church complied a canon or measure of
accepted books so that the same scripture readings were read in every church.
During the middle ages people were not literate for the most
part. Before the invention of the printing press books were expensive and hard
to come by. Bibles and Holy Scripture in written form was pretty much
restricted to churches and the rich. It wasn’t until the 13th
century that the bible was divided by chapter. We had to wait until the 16th
century to see it further broken down by verse. The Protestant Reformation
brought about different schools of theology and a differing set of
commandments. Different religious traditions number the commandment verses in
Exodus and the parallel verses in Deuteronomy differently. It is thought that
the number 10 was used as an aid to memorization and not as a theology. There
are eight different ways the Ten Commandments are numbered based upon the different
faith traditions.
The first big difference between the Catholic numbering and
the Reformed Christian numbering starts with the second commandment. The second
commandment for a Catholic is;
Thou shall not take the name of the Lord in
vain.
This is the third commandment for a Reformed Christian. The
second commandment for a Reformed Christian is,
Thou shall not make unto thee any graven
image.
For a Catholic this is part of the first commandment. The trouble
comes in because we have shortened all of the verses of scripture to make the
commandments easier to memorize. When you ask a Catholic what the first
commandment is they should respond with,
“I am the Lord your God. You shall not have
other gods before me.”
All faith traditions
do this to make it easier to teach children the Ten Commandments. Reformed
Christians falsely use this to make the claim that Catholics worship idols
because our churches are full of statues and paintings. If this were true, and
the Catholic Church removed this verse in Holy Scripture so we could worship
idols, you would not find it in a Catholic bible. Pick up any Catholic or
Protestant bible and you will find the following:
“You
shall not make for yourself an idol, or any likeness of what is in heaven above
or on the earth beneath or in the water under the earth. “You shall not worship
them or serve them; for I, the Lord your God, am a jealous God, visiting the
iniquity of the fathers on the children, on the third and the fourth
generations of those who hate Me, but showing lovingkindness to thousands, to
those who love Me and keep My commandments.” - Exodus 20, 4-6
“You
shall not make for yourself an idol, or
any likeness of what is in
heaven above or on the earth beneath or in the water under the earth. ‘You
shall not worship them or serve them; for I, the LORD your God, am
a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers on the children, and on the
third and the fourth generations
of those who hate Me, but showing lovingkindness to thousands, to those who
love Me and keep My commandments.” – Deuteronomy 5, 8-10
So what about the claim that Catholic’s worship idols? The
confusion here is with the words idol and icon. An idol is an object that an
action is directed to. An icon is an object an action is directed through. Do
Catholics worship idols? Absolutely not. Worship is reserved for God and God
alone. Do Catholics use icons (statues, paintings, pictures) to focus our
attention and direct our thoughts and prayers through to the person the icon
represents? Indeed we do.
Let’s take a statue of Mary as an example. Why do Catholics
kneel and pray before a statue of Mary? Are we worshiping the statue? Nope, not
at all. Contrary to popular anti-Catholic belief we do not worship Mary. We
venerate her because she is the mother of Jesus. Jesus loves and honors his
mother, just as the fourth commandment tells him to, and so should we. The
statute is an icon of the Holy Mother. We use it as a conduit to pass our
veneration and prayer through to Mary.
See, to a Catholic a Saint is not a dead person but one who
is alive and living with God. Saints include the angels. Just as I can ask you,
dear reader, to pray for me or to pray for someone else I can also ask any of
the Saints in heaven to pray for me as well. They are in direct contact with
Jesus and their intercession with him on our behalf is powerful. There is
nothing Jesus would deny his mother. Her intercession to her son is the
greatest intercession we can get.
God alone can hear (silent) prayers. No one in heaven can
hear our prayers directly. When we pray to Mary or one of the Saints God
receives that prayer. He then permits the person we are praying to, to hear
that prayer so they may also intercede on our behalf. We are all one big family
who loves and prays for each other. Love is a beautiful thing.
We use icons to focus our attention and to remind us of who
they represent. They are in essence the same thing as the pictures of my wife
and children I carry in my wallet. I do not worship a statue any more than I
worship a picture of my family. I have no doubt that those who accuse Catholics
of worshiping idols have pictures of loved ones in their wallets and on the
walls of their homes. Many put out nativity scenes at Christmas to remind them
of the birth of Jesus. They are not worshiping an idol when they do so and
Catholics do not worship idols by having statues in our churches.
Worship is reserved for God and God alone.
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