The art of statues

It is an often repeated answer that no Catholic worships a statue or image. Many Catholics do however use these images as visual aids to help them meditate and pray, granted that in any situation, there are always those who ignore the teachings of the Church in favour of superstition.

There is nothing wrong with having images or statues in Church, or representations of biblical scenes if their purpose is to glorify God and draw souls closer to Him. Man is after all a physical creature with dimensions and senses. In addition to a soul, we have a body. In as much as we strive for heaven, we still continue to live on earth, and in many ways, still need to experience the invisible in concrete ways.

That is why the medium of art flourishes where words and ideas often don't seem enough, or in the case of the illiterate masses of the past, completely inacessible. Statues, stained glass and paintings then became the bridge of communication for those whose hearts could recognise eternal truths but whose minds lacked the sophistication for heavy doctrine.

The real question is: Do we really worship these images or merely use them as visual props to mental prayer?

The concern for many Protestants is not so much the artistic and architectural expression of a Catholic Church (although most of our separated brethren would accuse us of complicating a simple faith with all kinds of paraphernalia) but rather the biblical evidence that such images are abhorrent to God.

To be fair, scripture does mention the worship of graven images as an abomination to God. The most quoted passage in support of this must surely be God's instructions to Moses, “You shall have no other gods before me. You shall not make for yourself a graven image, or any likeness of anything that is in heaven above, or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth; you shall not bow down to them or serve them” (Exodus 20:3-5).

Deuteronomy 27:15 also says, “Cursed be the man who makes a graven or molten image, an abomination to the LORD, a thing made by the hands of a craftsman, and sets it up in secret' And all the people shall answer and say, ‘Amen.’”

Most Christians are familiar with these passages as well as others throughout scripture that condemn the idolatry of images. But these passages must be understood in the context of their meaning. Indeed, there is nothing in scripture that explicitly condemns the use of images in liturgical worship. What God forbids is the actual worship or idolatry of the image itself; as if it was a living, breathing person.

If not, how do we account for conflicting passages like Exodus 25:1, 18-20, 22; cf. 26:1, in which God commands the same Moses to "make two cherubim of gold; of hammered work shall you make them, on the two ends of the mercy seat. Make one cherub on the one end, and one cherub on the other end; of one piece with the mercy seat shall you make the cherubim on its two ends. The cherubim shall spread out their wings above, overshadowing the mercy seat with their wings, their faces one to another; toward the mercy seat shall the faces of the cherubim be. . . . There I will meet with you, and from above the mercy seat, from between the two cherubim that are upon the ark of the testimony, I will speak with you of all that I will give you in commandment for the people of Israel”

Sheesh, talk about being wishy-washy.

If Moses had not understood God's real intent in forbidding idolatry instead of images per se, he would've thought that the Most High was schizophrenic. But because Moses recognised that the two commands were not contradictory in nature, he was able to obey the Lord in good conscience.

This is important because later on, God would command him to once again make an image; this time of a bronze serpent that would cure those who had been poisoned by snakebites. (Numbers 21:8-9)

Obviously God had no problem with images or statues, but when the people began worshipping the bronze snake, it was then that the statue was destroyed because the Israelites had begun perverting their use of it.

Now, no Catholic man who kneels before a statue of Jesus believes that the plaster artifact is truly the Son of God in the flesh. No Catholic woman who places flowers at the feet of a granite Mary thinks that she is doing so before the Mother of Christ herself, just as no husband believes he is actually kissing his wife when he pulls out her photograph and plants a loving peck on it. He knows it's just a representation of the woman he loves, no more.

And yet the photograph, despite being only a glossy image of the wife he adores, is able to excite his love and affections more eloquently than if he had nothing concrete to cast his eyes upon in the first place, particularly if he suffers from a chronic lack of imagination.

It's one thing to visualise the suffering passion of our Lord, it's another to watch Mel Gibson's The Passion and then meditate on those images on screen. No one will deny that the latter is most helpful in fleshing out the details.

But for a Protestant Christian to darken the hallways of a Catholic Church, the rising horror of beholding so many statues and graphic images can be bewildering as well as frightening at first.

Some of these statues of course are fashioned with better taste and artistic finesse than others.

Nevertheless, the shadow of idolatry can give the unfamiliar visitor a case of extreme scruples, especially since I've heard Protestant fundamentalists refer to the statues in Catholic Churches as being inhabited by evil spirits that masquerade as saints.

Imagine the amount of prejudice to overcome.

Would it surprise them to know that Solomon's temple was much the same? According to 1 Kings 6:23-35, 7:25, 36, this magnificent temple was resplendent with statues and images of angels, trees, flowers and animals.

Instead of cursing Solomon for erecting this menagerie of worship, “the LORD said unto him, I have heard thy prayer and thy supplication that thou hast made before me: I have hallowed this house, which thou hast built, to put my name there for ever; and mine eyes and mine heart shall be there perpetually” (1 Kings 9:3).

Does this sound like the warnings of a God who was displeased with such images in His holy temple?

In fact, the Lord even blessed the temple of Solomon and promised to reside there forever.

Who has crossed the threshold of Notre Dame Cathedral in Paris or St Peter's Basilica in Rome, and not be transported to heavenly realms by the sheer beauty of their religious art? Such beauties are crafted to raise our minds toward God and lift our souls to heaven, as befits the house of God. As Mother Angelica of EWTN famously quipped, "If you worship in a church made like a garage, you come out feeling like you've been in a garage. We need to see beauty or we don't know what beauty is. Did you even get inspired by a warehouse?"

To persevere in a fundamentalist interpretation of "graven images" would oblige us to systematically rid ourselves of every family portrait at home, every cute and cuddly soft toy, every monumental statue in public parks, every hobby collectible and perhaps even our money since minted coins have graven images on them as well.

That would be rather extreme to say the least.

But then again, so is accusing Catholics of idolatrous worship just because they sometimes pray before statues in their Churches, the same way some Portestants kneel before a barren cross or pray with a bible in their hands. And yet in the latter case, no one questions a pious Protestant who devotedly hangs a symbolic reproduction of the worst kind of Roman execution on their bedroom wall.

But it's the cross you say; it represents our faith and redemption. Well it's still a faithful reproduction of something that used to exist as an instrument of torture, so what's the difference? Even though it may not be the image of a person or creature, nevertheless why do you bow to it or cover it with kisses, or keep it in your wallets or hang it around your necks?

In truth, we are sacramental beings by our very nature. And in order for love to remain love, it cannot be kept in the silence of our hearts. Instinctively, we would seek to give it form and expression.

It is not enough for us to know and feel, we need to express these intangible emotions in a concrete way, in order that what passes through our minds and hearts may materialize in a touch, a gesture, a hug or a physical expression. Which husband would not want to manifest his love for his wife with hugs, roses and kisses instead of just words?

The biggest example of how divine love became extraordinarily close to us was when the Word of God became man, when the eternal Son took on our human nature to give a face and a smile to the invisible God, so that no longer do we just know Him in spirit, we could actually love Him in the flesh.

Jesus walked upon the earth so that we wouldn't know God just theologically, but corporally as well.

Two milleniums ago if a man wanted to, he could hug his God, listen to His voice, eat with Him, walk with Him, look into His eyes and if he chose to betray His love, he could even crucify Him.

The moment Christ assumed our human nature, He elevated our physical bodies to a dignity and purpose far beyond the material. From then on, we would be sacraments of His love to each other; physical expressions of God's love in the internal dwelling of our souls. We would show forth in a tangible way through our lives and actions the invisible movements of grace in our hearts.

Finally, it might interest some people to discover that contrary to popular fiction, Protestants were not the first people to question the proper use of statues and images in the life of the Church. Eight centuries before Protestant kings like Henry VIII began tearing down Catholic images in their realms, the Catholic Church had to intervene twice to suppress the heresy of Iconoclasm in the Byzantine East.

Begun by a Nestorian Bishop, Xenaeas of Hierapolis, who believed that such images were abhorrent to true worship, a movement began to seek and destroy all images and icons, an effort which later found support in the person of the eastern Emperor, Leo III himself, (716-41) who ordered his troops to support this endeavour with a violent show of arms.

Unable to distinguish between the spiritual reality represented by the image and the image itself, the Iconoclasts (or image breakers as they were called) embarked on a crusade to smash every statue and image they could find.

Eventually, the 2nd Council of Nicaea put an end to this madness by refuting these errors and affirming the legitimate use of holy images in the life of the Church.

This little episode in Christian history reminds us that most heresies are hardly ever original.

The condemnations of some Christians regarding the use of statues and images are merely echoes of former errors already disproved by the majority of Christians in former times. For as we have seen, the Bible not only does not forbid the use of statues and images in liturgical worship, but in many places actually commands it.

It remains only for us to open our eyes to God's wisdom, and ask Him for the grace and clarity to see the forest as well as the tree, so that in beholding a Christian heritage older than ourselves, we may appreciate the truths beyond the image.