Saints Preserve Us
Do Catholics Worship the Saints?
By Anthony E. Clark
taken from http://www.catholic.com/thisrock/2006/0610fea3.asp
Indeed, one of the difficulties encountered today in Catholic/Protestant dialogue is a problem of definition of terms: It is often the case that Catholics and Protestants use a similar term but mean different things by it. For example, before England became a Protestant country and made its universities also Protestant, the word pray meant "to ask" or "to entreat." As early as 900 the Latin word precari, from which the English word prayer derives, was used to mean "an earnest request." The French word prier carries the same meaning—"to beseech."
Two brief examples will illustrate this point. In Shakespeare’s King Henry IV, Part I (2.1) we find Gadshill saying, "I pray thee lend me thy lantern, to see my gelding in the stable." Or in Much Ado about Nothing (5.2), Benedick says to Margaret, "Pray thee, sweet Mistress Margaret, deserve well at my hands by helping me to the speech of Beatrice." Clearly, Gadshill is not rendering worship in order to get his lantern, nor is Benedick worshiping Margaret to procure her aid.
But beginning in Shakespeare’s time and accelerating through the rise of the Puritans, the English language shifted significantly to reflect the theological and ideological bent of new Protestant England. As the English monarchy systematically stamped out Catholicism, the new religious authorities disparaged "papist" practices such as praying to saints. The word prayer began to connote worship—the type of worship reserved for God alone. This is not the Catholic understanding, so "A Husband’s Prayer to St. Joseph," "A Student’s Prayer to St. Aquinas," and the "Prayer to St. Anthony for Lost Things" are not forms of worship to a god but simple requests for intercessory prayer. Protestant Christians ask their friends on earth to pray for them, but Catholic, Armenian, Copt, and Orthodox Christians also ask their friends in heaven, the saints, to pray to God on their behalf.
There is a similar problem with the word worship. Over time, its meaning has shifted significantly. The word worship is a contraction of "worth-ship" (worth = "worthy" and ship = "state of"), or the state of being worthy. It derives from the Old English word worðscip and the West Saxon word weorðscipe, both of which mean "condition of being worthy, honored, or renowned." Simply stated, to worship meant to honor someone who is worthy of honor.
This sense of the term is preserved in the title "Your Worship," an honorific still in use primarily in Britain for certain dignitaries such as mayors, justices of the peace, and magistrates. Today, though, especially in the United States, worship is understood as that which belongs to God alone. For the honor that is due to the saints, we use the word venerate.
Here is where the Catholic Church’s tradition of using Latin as its official language is most helpful. Whereas English usage is often inexact in theological disquisition, Latin remains more precise. In response to the early iconoclasm heresy in the Eastern Church, St. John of Damascus’s eighth-century treatise Apologia against those Who Decry Holy Images distinguishes the type of worship Christians reserve for God alone, arguing:
Another charge against Catholics is that because they kneel before images of saints, they worship them. But, like many men, when I proposed to my wife and later made wedding vows, I did so on my knees. When I asked for her hand and married her I was not rendering to her the adoration due only to God. As a Catholic woman, she would have been scandalized if she thought I was. In fact, kneeling means different things to different cultures. In Eastern Christian rites, kneeling is largely reserved for Lent, as it is a sign of penance. In the Western Church, kneeling is encouraged as a form of worship and penance. Gestures, along with words, must be understood in context. Just as prayer does not mean only the worship due to God alone, so kneeling to propose does not suggest worship at any level.
Efforts to point out the "error" of Catholic prayer to the saints are usually based upon biblical exegesis (explanation/criticism of a text) and are, as a rule, somewhat creative. The most commonly cited reason that Catholics should not appeal to saints in heaven is that they are "dead." Croly, in his acrid sermon against the Church, asserts that "to whatever being beyond the grave man offers worship, that being is, to the worshiper, a god." This claim makes little sense in light of Scripture. First, we must consider what our idea of death is, for Scripture reveals that those who dwell with God in heaven are not really "dead" in the sense that Croly implies.
I shall finally respond here to the objection that Catholic practice regarding saints is a later accretion to authentic Christianity, a distortion of what the early Church believed. We should bear in mind that the Church does not wish to discard its ancient beliefs, nor does it desire to cling only to the practices of the early Christians. To reject the teachings of the Fathers would be to reject the orthodox foundations of the faith, and to maintain only the practices of the early Church would be to deny its organic growth. We might remember, for example, that the Nicene Creed was not formulated until the fourth century. While on the one hand we see St. John of Damascus warning that it is not "a thing of no matter to give up the ancient tradition of the Church held by our forefathers, whose conduct we should observe, and whose faith we should imitate," we also see Pope Pius XII in his beautiful encyclical Mediator Dei reprimanding those "who are bent on the restoration of all the ancient rites and ceremonies indiscriminately" (MD 61). Catholic belief holds that the foundation of the early Fathers is the seminary from which the Church grows, maturing through time. For Catholics, there is no rupture in Church teaching and tradition from the death of Christ to today, and this includes prayer to saints.
Beside the scriptural precedents for praying to the saints in heaven, several early Church Fathers wrote of the need to seek their intercession. The third-century bishop and martyr St. Cyprian of Carthage wrote:
In this way is he [the true Christian] always pure for prayer. He also prays in the society of angels, as being already of angelic rank, and he is never out of their holy keeping; and though he pray alone, he has the choir of the saints standing with him [in prayer]. (Miscellanies 7:12 [A.D. 208]).
You victorious martyrs who endured torments gladly for the sake of the God and Savior, you who have boldness of speech toward the Lord himself, you saints, intercede for us who are timid and sinful men, full of sloth, that the grace of Christ may come upon us and enlighten the hearts of all of us so that we may love him. (Commentary on Mark [A.D. 370]).
A Christian people celebrates together in religious solemnity the memorials of the martyrs, both to encourage their being imitated and so that it can share in their merits and be aided by their prayers. (Against Faustus the Manichean [A.D. 400]).
Consider how honor is given. We regularly give it to public officials. In the United States it is customary to address a judge as "Your Honor." In the marriage ceremony it used to be said that the wife would "love, honor, and obey" her husband. Letters to legislators are addressed to "The Honorable So-and-So." And just about anyone, living or dead, who bears an exalted rank is said to be worthy of honor, and this is particularly true of historical figures, as when children are (or at least used to be) instructed to honor the Founding Fathers of America.
These practices are entirely Biblical. We are explicitly commanded at numerous points in the Bible to honor certain people. One of the most important commands on this subject is the command to honor one’s parents: "Honor your father and your mother, that your days may be long in the land which the Lord your God gives you" (Ex. 20:12). God considered this command so important that he repeated it multiple times in the Bible (for example, Lev. 19:3, Deut. 5:16, Matt. 15:4, Luke 18:20, and Eph. 6:2–3). It was also important to give honor to one’s elders in general: "You shall rise up before the hoary head, and honor the face of an old man, and you shall fear your God: I am the Lord" (Lev. 19:32). It was also important to specially honor religious leaders: "Make sacred garments for your brother Aaron [the high priest], to give him dignity and honor" (Ex. 28:2).
The New Testament stresses the importance of honoring others no less than the Old Testament. The apostle Paul commanded: "Pay all of them their dues, taxes to whom taxes are due, revenue to whom revenue is due, respect to whom respect is due, honor to whom honor is due" (Rom. 13:7). He also stated this as a principle regarding one’s employers: "Slaves, be obedient to those who are your earthly masters, with fear and trembling, in singleness of heart, as to Christ" (Eph. 6:5). "Let all who are under the yoke of slavery regard their masters as worthy of all honor, so that the name of God and the teaching may not be defamed" (1 Tim. 6:1). Perhaps the broadest command to honor others is found in 1 Peter: "Honor all men. Love the brotherhood. Fear God. Honor the emperor" (1 Pet. 2:17).
The New Testament also stresses the importance of honoring religious figures. Paul spoke of the need to give them special honor in 1 Timothy: "Let the presbyters [priests] who rule well be considered worthy of double honor, especially those who labor in preaching and teaching" (1 Tim. 5:17). Christ himself promised special blessings to those who honor religious figures: "He who receives a prophet because he is a prophet shall receive a prophet’s reward, and he who receives a righteous man [saint] because he is a righteous man shall receive a righteous man’s reward" (Matt. 10:41).
So, if there can be nothing wrong with honoring the living, who still have an opportunity to ruin their lives through sin, there certainly can be no argument against giving honor to saints whose lives are done and who ended them in sanctity. If people should be honored in general, God’s special friends certainly should be honored.
People who do not know better sometimes say that Catholics worship statues. Not only is this untrue, it is even untrue that Catholics honor statues. After all, a statue is nothing but a carved block of marble or a chunk of plaster, and no one gives honor to marble yet unquarried or to plaster still in the mixing bowl.
The fact that someone kneels before a statue to pray does not mean that he is praying to the statue, just as the fact that someone kneels with a Bible in his hands to pray does not mean that he is worshiping the Bible. Statues or paintings or other artistic devices are used to recall to the mind the person or thing depicted. Just as it is easier to remember one’s mother by looking at her photograph, so it is easier to recall the lives of the saints by looking at representations of them.
The use of statues and icons for liturgical purposes (as opposed to idols) also had a place in the Old Testament. In Exodus 25:18–20, God commanded: "And you shall 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."
In Numbers 21:8–9, he told Moses: "‘Make a fiery serpent, and set it on a pole; and every one who is bitten, when he sees it, shall live.’ So Moses made a bronze serpent, and set it on a pole; and if a serpent bit any man, he would look at the bronze serpent and live." This shows the actual ceremonial use of a statue (looking to it) in order to receive a blessing from God (healing from snakebite). In John 3:14, Jesus tells us that he himself is what the bronze serpent represented, so it was a symbolic representation of Jesus. There was no problem with this statue—God had commanded it to be made—so long as people did not worship it. When they did, the righteous king Hezekiah had it destroyed (2 Kgs. 18:4). This clearly shows the difference between the proper religious use of statues and idolatry.
When the time came to build the Temple in Jerusalem, God inspired David’s plans for it, which included "his plan for the golden chariot of the cherubim that spread their wings and covered the ark of the covenant of the Lord. All this he made clear by the writing from the hand of the Lord concerning it, all the work to be done according to the plan" (1 Chr. 28:18–19).
In obedience to this divinely inspired plan, Solomon built two gigantic, golden statues of cherubim: "In the most holy place he made two cherubim of wood and overlaid them with gold. The wings of the cherubim together extended twenty cubits: one wing of the one, of five cubits, touched the wall of the house, and its other wing, of five cubits, touched the wing of the other cherub; and of this cherub, one wing, of five cubits, touched the wall of the house, and the other wing, also of five cubits, was joined to the wing of the first cherub. The wings of these cherubim extended twenty cubits; the cherubim stood on their feet, facing the nave. And he made the veil of blue and purple and crimson fabrics and fine linen, and worked cherubim on it" (2 Chr. 3:10–14).
The most important form of honoring the saints, to which all the other forms are related, is the imitation of them in their relationship with God. Paul wrote extensively about the importance of spiritual imitation. He stated: "I urge you, then, be imitators of me. Therefore I sent to you Timothy, my beloved and faithful child in the Lord, to remind you of my ways in Christ, as I teach them everywhere in every church" (1 Cor. 4:16–17). Later he told the same group: "Be imitators of me, as I am of Christ. I commend you because you remember me in everything and maintain the traditions even as I have delivered them to you" (1 Cor. 11:1–2). The author of the book of Hebrews also stresses the importance of imitating true spiritual leaders: "Remember your leaders, those who spoke to you the word of God; consider the outcome of their life, and imitate their faith" (Heb. 13:7).
One of the most important passages on imitation is found in Hebrews. Chapter 11 of that book, the Bible’s well-known "hall of fame" chapter, presents numerous examples of the Old Testament saints for our imitation. It concludes with the famous exhortation: "Therefore, since we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses, let us also lay aside every weight, and sin which clings so closely, and let us run with perseverance the race that is set before us" (12:1)—the race that the saints have run before us.
The mistaken notion that Catholics worship saints remains one of the most common complaints of our Protestant brothers and sisters. Indeed, most Protestant Christians visiting European Catholic churches might recoil at the first sight of a statue of St. Anthony bedecked with thank-you notes and placards of gratitude. I once saw such a statue with several hundred notes placed at its base by faithful who had received the saint’s help.
There are some.aspects of Catholicism that seem difficult to explain to Protestant friends. Let us take, for example, the curious tradition of burying a statue of St. Joseph upside down in the front yard to solicit his intercession in selling a house. Most Catholic supply stores include a section with such items as the "St. Joseph the Worker Home Sales Kit" or the book by Stephen J. Binz called St. Joseph, My Real Estate Agent. The kit includes a small statue of St. Joseph, a prayer card, and instructions on how to ask for St. Joseph’s help in selling your home; the book is a more exhaustive account of St. Joseph’s special powers as the divine "real estate agent."
While practices like this can border on superstition, praying to St. Joseph to hasten the sale of a house is quite legitimate in the realm of Catholic belief.
A sermon given by Rev. George Croly, a nineteenth-century Protestant, is a classic example of the Protestant objections to praying to saints. In a more impassioned than logical diatribe against the Church as a whole, Croly addresses the topic of "saint worship." He accuses Catholics of (1) praying to the dead, who are for them gods, (2) employing the use of images of saints in church architecture and liturgy as a form of false god worship, and (3) departing from the Christian practices of the early Church and from Scripture in its beliefs about the saints. Croly’s objections are still marshaled by Protestants today, although each of them is a misinterpretation of what Scripture and the Catholic Church really teach.
First, we must clarify who the saints are. The "communion of saints" is the spiritual unity that brings together three groups of faithful: those on earth, those in purgatory, and those in heaven. All three groups exist in sodality as the one mystical body under the headship of Christ (1 Cor. 1:2; 12:12–31; Eph. 4:4–13). Shortly after his election, Pope Benedict XVI said:
There are some.aspects of Catholicism that seem difficult to explain to Protestant friends. Let us take, for example, the curious tradition of burying a statue of St. Joseph upside down in the front yard to solicit his intercession in selling a house. Most Catholic supply stores include a section with such items as the "St. Joseph the Worker Home Sales Kit" or the book by Stephen J. Binz called St. Joseph, My Real Estate Agent. The kit includes a small statue of St. Joseph, a prayer card, and instructions on how to ask for St. Joseph’s help in selling your home; the book is a more exhaustive account of St. Joseph’s special powers as the divine "real estate agent."
While practices like this can border on superstition, praying to St. Joseph to hasten the sale of a house is quite legitimate in the realm of Catholic belief.
A sermon given by Rev. George Croly, a nineteenth-century Protestant, is a classic example of the Protestant objections to praying to saints. In a more impassioned than logical diatribe against the Church as a whole, Croly addresses the topic of "saint worship." He accuses Catholics of (1) praying to the dead, who are for them gods, (2) employing the use of images of saints in church architecture and liturgy as a form of false god worship, and (3) departing from the Christian practices of the early Church and from Scripture in its beliefs about the saints. Croly’s objections are still marshaled by Protestants today, although each of them is a misinterpretation of what Scripture and the Catholic Church really teach.
First, we must clarify who the saints are. The "communion of saints" is the spiritual unity that brings together three groups of faithful: those on earth, those in purgatory, and those in heaven. All three groups exist in sodality as the one mystical body under the headship of Christ (1 Cor. 1:2; 12:12–31; Eph. 4:4–13). Shortly after his election, Pope Benedict XVI said:
Indeed, the communion of saints consists not only of the great men and women who went before us and whose names we know. All of us belong to the communion of saints, we who have been baptized in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit, we who draw life from the gift of Christ’s body and blood, through which he transforms us and makes us like himself. (Inaugural Mass homily, April 24, 2005)
While all who believe and are baptized are counted among the communion of saints, alive and deceased, it is the saints who now dwell in the presence of God who concern us here. So, why do Protestants object when other Christians pray to and venerate the saints? This, we shall see, has much to do with the interpretation of terms and Holy Scripture.
Evolution of Language
Indeed, one of the difficulties encountered today in Catholic/Protestant dialogue is a problem of definition of terms: It is often the case that Catholics and Protestants use a similar term but mean different things by it. For example, before England became a Protestant country and made its universities also Protestant, the word pray meant "to ask" or "to entreat." As early as 900 the Latin word precari, from which the English word prayer derives, was used to mean "an earnest request." The French word prier carries the same meaning—"to beseech."
Two brief examples will illustrate this point. In Shakespeare’s King Henry IV, Part I (2.1) we find Gadshill saying, "I pray thee lend me thy lantern, to see my gelding in the stable." Or in Much Ado about Nothing (5.2), Benedick says to Margaret, "Pray thee, sweet Mistress Margaret, deserve well at my hands by helping me to the speech of Beatrice." Clearly, Gadshill is not rendering worship in order to get his lantern, nor is Benedick worshiping Margaret to procure her aid.
But beginning in Shakespeare’s time and accelerating through the rise of the Puritans, the English language shifted significantly to reflect the theological and ideological bent of new Protestant England. As the English monarchy systematically stamped out Catholicism, the new religious authorities disparaged "papist" practices such as praying to saints. The word prayer began to connote worship—the type of worship reserved for God alone. This is not the Catholic understanding, so "A Husband’s Prayer to St. Joseph," "A Student’s Prayer to St. Aquinas," and the "Prayer to St. Anthony for Lost Things" are not forms of worship to a god but simple requests for intercessory prayer. Protestant Christians ask their friends on earth to pray for them, but Catholic, Armenian, Copt, and Orthodox Christians also ask their friends in heaven, the saints, to pray to God on their behalf.
Worthy of Honor
There is a similar problem with the word worship. Over time, its meaning has shifted significantly. The word worship is a contraction of "worth-ship" (worth = "worthy" and ship = "state of"), or the state of being worthy. It derives from the Old English word worðscip and the West Saxon word weorðscipe, both of which mean "condition of being worthy, honored, or renowned." Simply stated, to worship meant to honor someone who is worthy of honor.
This sense of the term is preserved in the title "Your Worship," an honorific still in use primarily in Britain for certain dignitaries such as mayors, justices of the peace, and magistrates. Today, though, especially in the United States, worship is understood as that which belongs to God alone. For the honor that is due to the saints, we use the word venerate.
Here is where the Catholic Church’s tradition of using Latin as its official language is most helpful. Whereas English usage is often inexact in theological disquisition, Latin remains more precise. In response to the early iconoclasm heresy in the Eastern Church, St. John of Damascus’s eighth-century treatise Apologia against those Who Decry Holy Images distinguishes the type of worship Christians reserve for God alone, arguing:
I believe in one supersubstantial being, one divine Godhead in three entities, the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost, and I adore him alone with the worship of latria. (Part I)
The key term in this statement is the word latria. Generally, the most precise English translation of the word latria is "adoration," which is reserved for God alone. Catholics adore (latria), which is expressed in the sacrificial reverence appropriate to only the Triune God.
The Latin term for the honor properly rendered to the angels and saints in heaven is dulia, and the term for the honor properly rendered to Mary is hyperdulia. While the terms latria, dulia, and hyperdulia were used in the writings of the early Christian Fathers such as Sts. Augustine and Jerome, the clearest discussion of their differences appears in St. Thomas Aquinas’s thirteenth-century Summa Theologiae. He writes:
The Latin term for the honor properly rendered to the angels and saints in heaven is dulia, and the term for the honor properly rendered to Mary is hyperdulia. While the terms latria, dulia, and hyperdulia were used in the writings of the early Christian Fathers such as Sts. Augustine and Jerome, the clearest discussion of their differences appears in St. Thomas Aquinas’s thirteenth-century Summa Theologiae. He writes:
Reverence is due to God on account of his excellence, which is communicated to certain creatures not in equal measure but according to a measure of proportion; and so the reverence that we pay to God, and that belongs to latria, differs from the reverence that we pay to certain excellent creatures; this belongs to dulia. (ST II-II.103.3)
Thus, according to Aquinas, reverence is rendered to creatures according to the "measure of proportion" of God’s excellence they have received, and only God receives our latria. On the other hand, dulia is given to "excellent creatures," such as the saints. Hyperdulia is a level of reverence reserved for the Blessed Mother of God (but this is properly the topic of another article). The point must be made: God alone receives adoration (latria), whereas the saints are given veneration (dulia).
Bending the Knee
Another charge against Catholics is that because they kneel before images of saints, they worship them. But, like many men, when I proposed to my wife and later made wedding vows, I did so on my knees. When I asked for her hand and married her I was not rendering to her the adoration due only to God. As a Catholic woman, she would have been scandalized if she thought I was. In fact, kneeling means different things to different cultures. In Eastern Christian rites, kneeling is largely reserved for Lent, as it is a sign of penance. In the Western Church, kneeling is encouraged as a form of worship and penance. Gestures, along with words, must be understood in context. Just as prayer does not mean only the worship due to God alone, so kneeling to propose does not suggest worship at any level.
Exegetical Acrobatics: A Response to Scriptural Criticisms
Efforts to point out the "error" of Catholic prayer to the saints are usually based upon biblical exegesis (explanation/criticism of a text) and are, as a rule, somewhat creative. The most commonly cited reason that Catholics should not appeal to saints in heaven is that they are "dead." Croly, in his acrid sermon against the Church, asserts that "to whatever being beyond the grave man offers worship, that being is, to the worshiper, a god." This claim makes little sense in light of Scripture. First, we must consider what our idea of death is, for Scripture reveals that those who dwell with God in heaven are not really "dead" in the sense that Croly implies.
Jesus says:
And as for the dead being raised, have you not read in the book of Moses, in the passage about the bush, how God said to him, "I am the God of Abraham, and the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob"? He is not God of the dead, but of the living; you are quite wrong. (Mark 12:26–27)
A careful exegesis makes it clear that there indeed are saints who dwell in God’s presence and render their prayers to him. St. John writes:
And another angel came and stood at the altar with a golden censer; and he was given much incense to mingle with the prayers of all saints upon the golden altar before the throne; and the smoke of the incense rose with the prayers of the saints from the hand of the angel before God. (Rev. 8:3–4)
Two points emerge from these passages: First, the saints who dwell in God’s presence are not really "dead," and they are, as the angels, able to render their prayers to him.
Second, honoring the deceased is a tradition that Christians inherited from the Jews.
Second, honoring the deceased is a tradition that Christians inherited from the Jews.
Roy H. Schoeman, a Jewish convert to Catholicism, writes:
The burial site of the three patriarchs Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob has been venerated continually by Jews since their deaths about four thousand years ago. As Catholics make pilgrimages to the tombs of "dead" saints (sometimes enclosed in churches) to pray, so do Jews, both in biblical times and still today. . . . Other tombs of Old Testament saints to which Jews go to pray include those of Joseph, Rachel, King David, and the prophets Haggai, Malachi, and Samuel, all of which have been venerated for millennia. ("Catholic Devotion to the Saints, in the light of Jewish Scripture and Tradition," available at www.salvationisfromthejews.com)
While Scripture indeed includes firm injunctions against necromancy (the conjuring of the dead), there are no restrictions against praying to angels or deceased saints. In fact, it is God’s desire that we include the saints in our prayers and honor them.
The Fathers Know Best
I shall finally respond here to the objection that Catholic practice regarding saints is a later accretion to authentic Christianity, a distortion of what the early Church believed. We should bear in mind that the Church does not wish to discard its ancient beliefs, nor does it desire to cling only to the practices of the early Christians. To reject the teachings of the Fathers would be to reject the orthodox foundations of the faith, and to maintain only the practices of the early Church would be to deny its organic growth. We might remember, for example, that the Nicene Creed was not formulated until the fourth century. While on the one hand we see St. John of Damascus warning that it is not "a thing of no matter to give up the ancient tradition of the Church held by our forefathers, whose conduct we should observe, and whose faith we should imitate," we also see Pope Pius XII in his beautiful encyclical Mediator Dei reprimanding those "who are bent on the restoration of all the ancient rites and ceremonies indiscriminately" (MD 61). Catholic belief holds that the foundation of the early Fathers is the seminary from which the Church grows, maturing through time. For Catholics, there is no rupture in Church teaching and tradition from the death of Christ to today, and this includes prayer to saints.
Beside the scriptural precedents for praying to the saints in heaven, several early Church Fathers wrote of the need to seek their intercession. The third-century bishop and martyr St. Cyprian of Carthage wrote:
Let us remember one another in concord and unanimity. Let us on both sides [of life and death] always pray for one another. Let us relieve burdens and afflictions by mutual love, that if one of us, by the swiftness of divine condescension, shall go hence first, our love may continue in the presence of the Lord and our prayers for our brethren and sisters not cease in the presence of the Father’s mercy. (Letters 56[60]:5)
And St. Clement of Alexandria, also from the third century, said:
In this way is he [the true Christian] always pure for prayer. He also prays in the society of angels, as being already of angelic rank, and he is never out of their holy keeping; and though he pray alone, he has the choir of the saints standing with him [in prayer]. (Miscellanies 7:12)
Besides Cyprian and Clement of Alexandria, other early Fathers noted the importance of praying to the saints—Augustine of Hippo, Origen, Methodius, Cyril of Jerusalem, Hilary of Poitiers, and so forth. It is simply unhistorical to claim that prayer to the saints is a later Catholic invention; historical evidence suggests that it was not until the Reformation that this practice was abandoned by Protestants.
Is it acceptable, then, to pray to St. Joseph for help selling your house? Absolutely. Do some Catholics stray into the realm of superstition in their devotion to the saints? Yes. How do we know the difference? The final question confronting any Christian—Catholic or otherwise—is whether the Triune God is the height and center of his prayer and worship. He should be. But let us also remember the saints in heaven who have been perfected by God’s radiance and whose love for us makes them powerful advocates of our causes here on earth.
Is it acceptable, then, to pray to St. Joseph for help selling your house? Absolutely. Do some Catholics stray into the realm of superstition in their devotion to the saints? Yes. How do we know the difference? The final question confronting any Christian—Catholic or otherwise—is whether the Triune God is the height and center of his prayer and worship. He should be. But let us also remember the saints in heaven who have been perfected by God’s radiance and whose love for us makes them powerful advocates of our causes here on earth.
As the Second Vatican Council says:
Being more closely united to Christ, those who dwell in heaven fix the whole Church more firmly in holiness. . . . They do not cease to intercede with the Father for us, as they proffer the merits that they acquired on earth through the one mediator between God and men, Christ Jesus. . . . So by their fraternal concern is our weakness greatly helped. (Lumen Gentium 49)
Anyone who has received the aid of a saint smiles knowingly as he passes such a statue as the one of St. Anthony decorated with notes of gratitude. And, yes, St. Joseph may, in the end, be our best real estate agent. All you holy saints in heaven, ora pro nobis!
Some quotes from the Fathers of the Church
Clement of Alexandria
In this way is he [the true Christian] always pure for prayer. He also prays in the society of angels, as being already of angelic rank, and he is never out of their holy keeping; and though he pray alone, he has the choir of the saints standing with him [in prayer]. (Miscellanies 7:12 [A.D. 208]).
Ephraim the Syrian
You victorious martyrs who endured torments gladly for the sake of the God and Savior, you who have boldness of speech toward the Lord himself, you saints, intercede for us who are timid and sinful men, full of sloth, that the grace of Christ may come upon us and enlighten the hearts of all of us so that we may love him. (Commentary on Mark [A.D. 370]).
Augustine
A Christian people celebrates together in religious solemnity the memorials of the martyrs, both to encourage their being imitated and so that it can share in their merits and be aided by their prayers. (Against Faustus the Manichean [A.D. 400]).
Saint Worship?
The word "worship" has undergone a change in meaning in English. It comes from the Old English weorthscipe, which means the condition of being worthy of honor, respect, or dignity. To worship in the older, larger sense is to ascribe honor, worth, or excellence to someone, whether a sage, a magistrate, or God.
For many centuries, the term worship simply meant showing respect or honor, and an example of this usage survives in contemporary English. British subjects refer to their magistrates as "Your Worship," although Americans would say "Your Honor." This doesn’t mean that British subjects worship their magistrates as gods (in fact, they may even despise a particular magistrate they are addressing). It means they are giving them the honor appropriate to their office, not the honor appropriate to God.
Outside of this example, however, the English term "worship" has been narrowed in scope to indicate only that supreme form of honor, reverence, and respect that is due to God. This change in usage is quite recent. In fact, one can still find books that use "worship" in the older, broader sense. This can lead to a significant degree of confusion, when people who are familiar only with the use of words in their own day and their own circles encounter material written in other times and other places.
In Scripture, the term "worship" was similarly broad in meaning, but in the early Christian centuries, theologians began to differentiate between different types of honor in order to make more clear which is due to God and which is not.
As the terminology of Christian theology developed, the Greek term latria came to be used to refer to the honor that is due to God alone, and the term dulia came to refer to the honor that is due to human beings, especially those who lived and died in God’s friendship—in other words, the saints. Scripture indicates that honor is due to these individuals (Matt. 10:41b). A special term was coined to refer to the special honor given to the Virgin Mary, who bore Jesus—God in the flesh—in her womb. This term, hyperdulia (huper [more than]+ dulia = "beyond dulia"), indicates that the honor due to her as Christ’s own Mother is more than the dulia given to other saints. It is greater in degree, but still of the same kind. However, since Mary is a finite creature, the honor she is due is fundamentally different in kind from the latria owed to the infinite Creator.
All of these terms—latria, dulia, hyperdulia—used to be lumped under the one English word "worship." Sometimes when one reads old books discussing the subject of how particular persons are to be honored, they will qualify the word "worship" by referring to "the worship of latria" or "the worship of dulia." To contemporaries and to those not familiar with the history of these terms, however, this is too confusing.
Another attempt to make clear the difference between the honor due to God and that due to humans has been to use the words adore and adoration to describe the total, consuming reverence due to God and the terms venerate, veneration, and honor to refer to the respect due humans. Thus, Catholics sometimes say, "We adore God but we honor his saints."
Unfortunately, many non-Catholics have been so schooled in hostility toward the Church that they appear unable or unwilling to recognize these distinctions. They confidently (often arrogantly) assert that Catholics "worship" Mary and the saints, and, in so doing, commit idolatry. This is patently false, of course, but the education in anti-Catholic prejudice is so strong that one must patiently explain that Catholics do not worship anyone but God—at least given the contemporary use of the term. The Church is very strict about the fact that latria, adoration—what contemporary English speakers call "worship"—is to be given only to God.
Though one should know it from one’s own background, it often may be best to simply point out that Catholics do not worship anyone but God and omit discussing the history of the term. Many non-Catholics might be more perplexed than enlightened by hearing the history of the word. Familiar only with their group’s use of the term "worship," they may misperceive a history lesson as rationalization and end up even more adamant in their declarations that the term is applicable only to God. They may even go further. Wanting to attack the veneration of the saints, they may declare that only God should be honored.
Both of these declarations are in direct contradiction to the language and precepts of the Bible. The term "worship" was used in the same way in the Bible that it used to be used in English. It could cover both the adoration given to God alone and the honor that is to be shown to certain human beings. In Hebrew, the term for worship is shakhah. It is appropriately used for humans in a large number of passages.
For example, in Genesis 37:7–9 Joseph relates two dreams that God gave him concerning how his family would honor him in coming years. Translated literally the passage states: "‘[B]ehold, we were binding sheaves in the field, and lo, my sheaf arose and stood upright; and behold, your sheaves gathered round it, and worshiped [shakhah] my sheaf.’ . . . Then he dreamed another dream, and told it to his brothers, and said, ‘Behold, I have dreamed another dream; and behold, the sun, the moon, and eleven stars were worshiping [shakhah] me.’"
In Genesis 49:2-27, Jacob pronounced a prophetic blessing on his sons, and concerning Judah he stated: "Judah, your brothers shall praise you; your hand shall be on the neck of your enemies; your father’s sons shall worship [shakhah] you (49:8)." And in Exodus 18:7, Moses honored his father-in-law, Jethro: "Moses went out to meet his father-in-law, and worshiped [shakhah] him and kissed him; and they asked each other of their welfare, and went into the tent."
Yet none of these passages were discussing the worship of adoration, the kind of worship given to God.
For many centuries, the term worship simply meant showing respect or honor, and an example of this usage survives in contemporary English. British subjects refer to their magistrates as "Your Worship," although Americans would say "Your Honor." This doesn’t mean that British subjects worship their magistrates as gods (in fact, they may even despise a particular magistrate they are addressing). It means they are giving them the honor appropriate to their office, not the honor appropriate to God.
Outside of this example, however, the English term "worship" has been narrowed in scope to indicate only that supreme form of honor, reverence, and respect that is due to God. This change in usage is quite recent. In fact, one can still find books that use "worship" in the older, broader sense. This can lead to a significant degree of confusion, when people who are familiar only with the use of words in their own day and their own circles encounter material written in other times and other places.
In Scripture, the term "worship" was similarly broad in meaning, but in the early Christian centuries, theologians began to differentiate between different types of honor in order to make more clear which is due to God and which is not.
As the terminology of Christian theology developed, the Greek term latria came to be used to refer to the honor that is due to God alone, and the term dulia came to refer to the honor that is due to human beings, especially those who lived and died in God’s friendship—in other words, the saints. Scripture indicates that honor is due to these individuals (Matt. 10:41b). A special term was coined to refer to the special honor given to the Virgin Mary, who bore Jesus—God in the flesh—in her womb. This term, hyperdulia (huper [more than]+ dulia = "beyond dulia"), indicates that the honor due to her as Christ’s own Mother is more than the dulia given to other saints. It is greater in degree, but still of the same kind. However, since Mary is a finite creature, the honor she is due is fundamentally different in kind from the latria owed to the infinite Creator.
All of these terms—latria, dulia, hyperdulia—used to be lumped under the one English word "worship." Sometimes when one reads old books discussing the subject of how particular persons are to be honored, they will qualify the word "worship" by referring to "the worship of latria" or "the worship of dulia." To contemporaries and to those not familiar with the history of these terms, however, this is too confusing.
Another attempt to make clear the difference between the honor due to God and that due to humans has been to use the words adore and adoration to describe the total, consuming reverence due to God and the terms venerate, veneration, and honor to refer to the respect due humans. Thus, Catholics sometimes say, "We adore God but we honor his saints."
Unfortunately, many non-Catholics have been so schooled in hostility toward the Church that they appear unable or unwilling to recognize these distinctions. They confidently (often arrogantly) assert that Catholics "worship" Mary and the saints, and, in so doing, commit idolatry. This is patently false, of course, but the education in anti-Catholic prejudice is so strong that one must patiently explain that Catholics do not worship anyone but God—at least given the contemporary use of the term. The Church is very strict about the fact that latria, adoration—what contemporary English speakers call "worship"—is to be given only to God.
Though one should know it from one’s own background, it often may be best to simply point out that Catholics do not worship anyone but God and omit discussing the history of the term. Many non-Catholics might be more perplexed than enlightened by hearing the history of the word. Familiar only with their group’s use of the term "worship," they may misperceive a history lesson as rationalization and end up even more adamant in their declarations that the term is applicable only to God. They may even go further. Wanting to attack the veneration of the saints, they may declare that only God should be honored.
Both of these declarations are in direct contradiction to the language and precepts of the Bible. The term "worship" was used in the same way in the Bible that it used to be used in English. It could cover both the adoration given to God alone and the honor that is to be shown to certain human beings. In Hebrew, the term for worship is shakhah. It is appropriately used for humans in a large number of passages.
For example, in Genesis 37:7–9 Joseph relates two dreams that God gave him concerning how his family would honor him in coming years. Translated literally the passage states: "‘[B]ehold, we were binding sheaves in the field, and lo, my sheaf arose and stood upright; and behold, your sheaves gathered round it, and worshiped [shakhah] my sheaf.’ . . . Then he dreamed another dream, and told it to his brothers, and said, ‘Behold, I have dreamed another dream; and behold, the sun, the moon, and eleven stars were worshiping [shakhah] me.’"
In Genesis 49:2-27, Jacob pronounced a prophetic blessing on his sons, and concerning Judah he stated: "Judah, your brothers shall praise you; your hand shall be on the neck of your enemies; your father’s sons shall worship [shakhah] you (49:8)." And in Exodus 18:7, Moses honored his father-in-law, Jethro: "Moses went out to meet his father-in-law, and worshiped [shakhah] him and kissed him; and they asked each other of their welfare, and went into the tent."
Yet none of these passages were discussing the worship of adoration, the kind of worship given to God.
Honoring Saints
Consider how honor is given. We regularly give it to public officials. In the United States it is customary to address a judge as "Your Honor." In the marriage ceremony it used to be said that the wife would "love, honor, and obey" her husband. Letters to legislators are addressed to "The Honorable So-and-So." And just about anyone, living or dead, who bears an exalted rank is said to be worthy of honor, and this is particularly true of historical figures, as when children are (or at least used to be) instructed to honor the Founding Fathers of America.
These practices are entirely Biblical. We are explicitly commanded at numerous points in the Bible to honor certain people. One of the most important commands on this subject is the command to honor one’s parents: "Honor your father and your mother, that your days may be long in the land which the Lord your God gives you" (Ex. 20:12). God considered this command so important that he repeated it multiple times in the Bible (for example, Lev. 19:3, Deut. 5:16, Matt. 15:4, Luke 18:20, and Eph. 6:2–3). It was also important to give honor to one’s elders in general: "You shall rise up before the hoary head, and honor the face of an old man, and you shall fear your God: I am the Lord" (Lev. 19:32). It was also important to specially honor religious leaders: "Make sacred garments for your brother Aaron [the high priest], to give him dignity and honor" (Ex. 28:2).
The New Testament stresses the importance of honoring others no less than the Old Testament. The apostle Paul commanded: "Pay all of them their dues, taxes to whom taxes are due, revenue to whom revenue is due, respect to whom respect is due, honor to whom honor is due" (Rom. 13:7). He also stated this as a principle regarding one’s employers: "Slaves, be obedient to those who are your earthly masters, with fear and trembling, in singleness of heart, as to Christ" (Eph. 6:5). "Let all who are under the yoke of slavery regard their masters as worthy of all honor, so that the name of God and the teaching may not be defamed" (1 Tim. 6:1). Perhaps the broadest command to honor others is found in 1 Peter: "Honor all men. Love the brotherhood. Fear God. Honor the emperor" (1 Pet. 2:17).
The New Testament also stresses the importance of honoring religious figures. Paul spoke of the need to give them special honor in 1 Timothy: "Let the presbyters [priests] who rule well be considered worthy of double honor, especially those who labor in preaching and teaching" (1 Tim. 5:17). Christ himself promised special blessings to those who honor religious figures: "He who receives a prophet because he is a prophet shall receive a prophet’s reward, and he who receives a righteous man [saint] because he is a righteous man shall receive a righteous man’s reward" (Matt. 10:41).
So, if there can be nothing wrong with honoring the living, who still have an opportunity to ruin their lives through sin, there certainly can be no argument against giving honor to saints whose lives are done and who ended them in sanctity. If people should be honored in general, God’s special friends certainly should be honored.
Statue Worship?
People who do not know better sometimes say that Catholics worship statues. Not only is this untrue, it is even untrue that Catholics honor statues. After all, a statue is nothing but a carved block of marble or a chunk of plaster, and no one gives honor to marble yet unquarried or to plaster still in the mixing bowl.
The fact that someone kneels before a statue to pray does not mean that he is praying to the statue, just as the fact that someone kneels with a Bible in his hands to pray does not mean that he is worshiping the Bible. Statues or paintings or other artistic devices are used to recall to the mind the person or thing depicted. Just as it is easier to remember one’s mother by looking at her photograph, so it is easier to recall the lives of the saints by looking at representations of them.
The use of statues and icons for liturgical purposes (as opposed to idols) also had a place in the Old Testament. In Exodus 25:18–20, God commanded: "And you shall 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."
In Numbers 21:8–9, he told Moses: "‘Make a fiery serpent, and set it on a pole; and every one who is bitten, when he sees it, shall live.’ So Moses made a bronze serpent, and set it on a pole; and if a serpent bit any man, he would look at the bronze serpent and live." This shows the actual ceremonial use of a statue (looking to it) in order to receive a blessing from God (healing from snakebite). In John 3:14, Jesus tells us that he himself is what the bronze serpent represented, so it was a symbolic representation of Jesus. There was no problem with this statue—God had commanded it to be made—so long as people did not worship it. When they did, the righteous king Hezekiah had it destroyed (2 Kgs. 18:4). This clearly shows the difference between the proper religious use of statues and idolatry.
When the time came to build the Temple in Jerusalem, God inspired David’s plans for it, which included "his plan for the golden chariot of the cherubim that spread their wings and covered the ark of the covenant of the Lord. All this he made clear by the writing from the hand of the Lord concerning it, all the work to be done according to the plan" (1 Chr. 28:18–19).
In obedience to this divinely inspired plan, Solomon built two gigantic, golden statues of cherubim: "In the most holy place he made two cherubim of wood and overlaid them with gold. The wings of the cherubim together extended twenty cubits: one wing of the one, of five cubits, touched the wall of the house, and its other wing, of five cubits, touched the wing of the other cherub; and of this cherub, one wing, of five cubits, touched the wall of the house, and the other wing, also of five cubits, was joined to the wing of the first cherub. The wings of these cherubim extended twenty cubits; the cherubim stood on their feet, facing the nave. And he made the veil of blue and purple and crimson fabrics and fine linen, and worked cherubim on it" (2 Chr. 3:10–14).
Imitation is the Biblical Form of Honor
The most important form of honoring the saints, to which all the other forms are related, is the imitation of them in their relationship with God. Paul wrote extensively about the importance of spiritual imitation. He stated: "I urge you, then, be imitators of me. Therefore I sent to you Timothy, my beloved and faithful child in the Lord, to remind you of my ways in Christ, as I teach them everywhere in every church" (1 Cor. 4:16–17). Later he told the same group: "Be imitators of me, as I am of Christ. I commend you because you remember me in everything and maintain the traditions even as I have delivered them to you" (1 Cor. 11:1–2). The author of the book of Hebrews also stresses the importance of imitating true spiritual leaders: "Remember your leaders, those who spoke to you the word of God; consider the outcome of their life, and imitate their faith" (Heb. 13:7).
One of the most important passages on imitation is found in Hebrews. Chapter 11 of that book, the Bible’s well-known "hall of fame" chapter, presents numerous examples of the Old Testament saints for our imitation. It concludes with the famous exhortation: "Therefore, since we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses, let us also lay aside every weight, and sin which clings so closely, and let us run with perseverance the race that is set before us" (12:1)—the race that the saints have run before us.
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