Heart of St. John Vianney - "Object of Worship"

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Image_of_God said:
I am Catholic! I misunderstood the word “worship” in this article, and I forgot that it could also mean to honor or venerate> I am sorry!
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Being a new Catholic, I still have that knee jerk reaction also, as it was not ever discussed or logically thought out in my previous circles that the word “worship” is a kind of composite word, with many levels. I came from Fundamentalism, then Evangelicalism, and this kind of article would have fueled enough sermons to last an entire week’s worth of revival meetings aimed at converting Catholics to Christianity! :rolleyes:

We would have brought every Catholic we knew, usually under false pretenses, ambush and overwhelm them with mounds erroneous anti-Catholic jargon, and get them to see the error of their ways. Unfortunately, so many Catholics are completely ignorant of their faith, they fell for it and left the Church. 😦

I, for one, forgive you for your momentary lapse of understanding!😃

God Bless.
 
CatQuilt said:
Did you get to go? I was there today in time for veneration and then the praying of the rosary. It was beautiful!

🙂
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No, unfortunately I wasn’t able to see it. I’m glad you were there. Thanks for sharing your experiences.
 
Saint_Michael said:
But it’s a human heart? It doesn’t seem the least bit odd that a human heart is encased and people are bowing down venerating it? How did they remove the heart? Shouldn’t it be with Saint John Vianney?

I do not want to knock it, but even when I was Catholic I avoided any type of this veneration. I just never understood it at all, I found it so bizarre.
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I’m not sure about the venerating of it myself, but if it helps, the taking out of the heart is not just some strange Catholic thing to do. It may be a strange European thing to do :confused:

On our honeymoon in Vienna Austria (full of spectacular churches!) my wife and I saw at the Augustinian church (I think) all of the hearts of the royal family. Their bodies were elsewhere. I was a bit grossed out.

On a related note - the great Composer Frederic Chopin (half french but the Polish claim him) was buried in France. There was a major movement by the polish people to have him reinterred in Poland. So anyway, his body is in Paris and heart is in Warsaw, Poland.

If I knew more about my own faith, perhaps I could speak more on the Catholic angle of relics and venerartion.
 
Actually when you think about it, the removal of organs of the dead has been a custom in a lot of cultures, going back as far as the Egyptians, and possibly further (I’m not an expert in ancient cultures 😉 ), and we even do it today in our own culture, we just transplant them into other humans. I think it was easier to preserve the entire body with the removal of the organs which would be stored/buried separately.

I guess what I’m trying to say is that it may seem bizarre to us now, but it was customary previous to our modern times and wouldn’t have been considered macabre to Christians of earlier or current cultures where it has never stopped being a burial practice.

:hmmm:
 
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