? on images

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ScottishColleen said:
Frances, I want to thank you! Your post was possibly the most CLEAR in understanding why a Catholic believes images of Christ are acceptable. That has helped me greatly in understanding others. šŸ‘

(The Reformed do take the Incarnation of Christ very seriouslyā€¦not just a means to an endā€¦but I do understand, due to others, how that can be presumed)
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Iā€™m so glad you found it helpful, Colleen. šŸ™‚

:blessyou:
 
adrift said:
Question answered. Since the OP does not wish to discuss it no one else should try to force her. Thread should be closed.
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I agree. The question has been answered. There doesnā€™t seem to be any need for the thread to remain open.
 
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Linnyo:
Please stop Ani Ibi, you are not being pleasant. If RC people are offended by the church title bein abbreviated they will say so but they will say with love and patience.
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Linyo I am Catholic, not RC. It is against the forum rules to abbreviate names. I am offended by being called RC. This should have ended with my first request.
 
Hmm, your profile does not say Roman Catholic so I assumed you werenā€™t. Apologies.
However, in my defence, the way in which you asked was not with love and patience. I would say that a majority of people accept this abbreviation and probably even use it in the forums. Perhaps if I can work out how to do a pole we will find out.
Ani_Ibi said:
Linyo I am Catholic, not RC. It is against the forum rules to abbreviate names. I am offended by being called RC. This should have ended with my first request.
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Linnyo said:
Hmm, your profile does not say Roman Catholic so I assumed you werenā€™t. Apologies.
However, in my defence, the way in which you asked was not with love and patience. I would say that a majority of people accept this abbreviation and probably even use it in the forums. Perhaps if I can work out how to do a pole we will find out.
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There are many threads on this including this poll:

Catholics: Catholic Church or Roman Catholic?
 
Ahh, the iconoclasm controversy again!

One of the great blessings of the Catholic Church is how visual an experience it is.

The stained glass, the Stations of the Cross, the statues of Mary and other saints, Christ on his cross (how odd it is to see a cross without Christ since becoming Catholic, as though we worship the wood and not the Man and God who died upon it!). Our parish even has a bust of John Paul the Great.

It is possible to walk into a Catholic Church in a foreign land where you donā€™t speak a word of the language and still know whatā€™s going on.

In a Catholic Church, Christ is not just an abstract concept, but a tangible reality, present in the Eucharist, represented on the crucifix and in statuary, paintings, and glass. He is with us at Mass, not looking down over us.

Throughout much of Church history, these visual representations have been an important source of catechesis since most Catholics (as most humans) were illiterate. How wonderful it must have been to hear the Gospel and see Jesus and Mary while hearing it!

Should we tear down the Sistine Chapel, with its glorious depiction of God reaching out to Man? Should we burn the illuminated manuscripts which were the glory of the Middle Ages? Should we shatter the statues which were a signal act of love and faith on the part of the scupltors who labored weeks and months to fashion them?

Is that how far we ought to take the commandment against false idols?

What shall we replace them with?
 
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Teflon93:
One of the great blessings of the Catholic Church is how visual an experience it is.
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Sometimes I I bring in the Book of Kells and get the kids making their initials with beautiful embellishments of their own. Smiles all around. And then we talk about where the Book of Kells came from. We are so fortunate to know about the lost years and how those years werenā€™t lost at all thanks to Catholic monks.

Sometimes the kids get excited and tell me about Jesus and Easter. And I am quite happy to listen.

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In principio erat verbum
 
Please remain on topic and allow the moderator (me) to attend to any rules issues via the BPR system. http://forums.catholic-questions.org/images/buttons_cab/report.gif

The OP has broken no rules, and I am inclined to let this thread remain open for her information and perhaps for people who may find it of similar interest.

I believe some of you can do better than this for Christian charity as well as discussion.
MF
 
Pope Gregory:
ā€¦St. Gregory the Greatā€¦ writes to an Iconoclast bishop, Serenus of Marseilles, who had destroyed the images in his diocese: "Not without reason has antiquity allowed the stories of saints to be painted in holy places. And we indeed entirely praise thee for not allowing them to be adored, but we blame thee for breaking them.

For it is one thing to adore an image, it is quite another thing to learn from the appearance of a picture what we must adore. What books are to those who can read, that is a picture to the ignorant who look at it; in a picture even the unlearned may see what example they should follow; in a picture they who know no letters may yet read. link
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LETTER OF HIS HOLINESS
POPE JOHN PAUL II
TO ARTISTS
1999
What is the difference between ā€œcreatorā€ and ā€œcraftsmanā€? The one who creates bestows being itself, he brings something out of nothingā€”ex nihilo sui et subiecti, as the Latin puts itā€”and this, in the strict sense, is a mode of operation which belongs to the Almighty alone. The craftsman, by contrast, uses something that already exists, to which he gives form and meaningā€¦

That is why artists, the more conscious they are of their ā€œgiftā€, are led all the more to see themselves and the whole of creation with eyes able to contemplate and give thanks, and to raise to God a hymn of praise. This is the only way for them to come to a full understanding of themselves, their vocation and their missionā€¦

It is one thing for human beings to be the authors of their own acts, with responsibility for their moral value; it is another to be an artist, able, that is, to respond to the demands of art and faithfully to accept artā€™s specific dictatesā€¦

Every genuine artistic intuition goes beyond what the senses perceive and, reaching beneath realityā€™s surface, strives to interpret its hidden mysteryā€¦ If the intimate reality of things is always ā€œbeyondā€ the powers of human perception, how much more so is God in the depths of his unfathomable mystery!.. The icon is venerated not for its own sake, but points beyond to the subject which it representsā€¦

Beauty is a key to the mystery and a call to transcendence. It is an invitation to savour life and to dream of the future. That is why the beauty of created things can never fully satisfy. It stirs that hidden nostalgia for God which a lover of beauty like Saint Augustine could express in incomparable terms: ā€œLate have I loved you, beauty so old and so new: late have I loved you!ā€
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The TrĆØs Riches Heures, as we know it, consists of 206 bound sheets of extremely well-prepared, fine vellumā€¦ The exquisite little self-contained scenes and portraits within the initial capital letters constitute an important part of the manuscriptā€™s illustrationā€¦

Small miniatures were inserted in the textā€¦ larger miniatures occupied an entire pageā€¦ Furthermore, the TrĆØs Riches Heuresincludes several large paintingsā€¦ Anatomical Manā€¦ the Garden of Edenā€¦ the Fall of the Rebel Angelsā€¦ the Adoration of the Magiā€¦ and Hellā€¦

The colors used by the miniaturists were prepared in their workshop, ground with a muller on a slab of marble and then moistened with water thickened with either arabic or tragacanth gumā€¦ Besides black and white, there were approximately ten shades of blue, green, red, yellow, and violet, obtained from minerals, plants, or chemicalsā€¦

Of the two blues, the most beautiful, called azur dā€™outremer was [a transparent] ultramarine made from costly Oriental lapis-lazuliā€¦ The second blue, azur dā€™Allemagneā€¦ was made from Saxony cobalt ore and was less transparent than the ultramarineā€¦
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Iā€™m not going to post any of the beautifully coloured images here because they load slowly. But you can take a look.

Saint Matthew
The Martyrdom of Saint Mark
Saint Luke
Saint John on Patmos

It was hard enough learning the craft of painting back then, but you also had to go out and collect your own minerals and plants, grind them down, mix them up before you could even start work. The colours, therefore, need to be understood in part as a particular expression; particular to the time and location in which the raw materials originated.
 
Is Da Vinciā€™s ā€œLast Supperā€ forbidden since it depicts Christ?
 
Proletarian said:
Personally (as a cCatholic) Iā€™ve never been comfortable with images of God the Father.
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That is why in most iconography you will not see ā€˜God the Fatherā€™, rather you will see a hand at the top with three fingers or rays of light. In some of the Russian, Romainian, and a few others you will see Him, but not usually.
 
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