Someone explain to me why I can bow to and serve a graven image

[2towers]

I have to agree. This understanding, or more accurately misunderstanding is fully Protestant in nature.

OP, though your question shows that you are still very early in the catechizes process, and may be shocking to some, it is still none the less good that you asked it, not only for yourself and the hopeful continuation of your conversion, but for others who might not grasp what veneration really is.

Though you are obviously still in the early stages in your Catholic or Orthodox education, surely you might have had some inkling that this question, and the way you worded it, might have been offensive to your Catholic and Orthodox brothers and sisters. The great commandments include loving your loving your neighbors, brothers, and sisters as yourself. This question, phrased as it is, flies in the face of that commandment.

In the future, until you are better grounded in the Faith, Roman or Eastern, I suggest you run questions you sense might be highly controversial or hurtful, past your spiritual director or RCIA or adult education director before posting it here.

Pax Christie

 

[guanophore]

I’ve just bowed to and served a graven image.

Curious. What service did you perform for the image?

Someone explain to me why I can bow to and serve a graven image

I think the title question is even more salient. It seems to me if you are bowing “to” an image or stature, then you have committed idolatry. Frankly I am at a loss as to how it is even possible to “serve a graven image”. I have to side with Paul, who writes:

2 You know that when you were heathen, you were led astray to dumb idols I Cor. 8

4 Hence, as to the eating of food offered to idols, we know that “an idol has no real existence,” and that “there is no God but one.” 5 For although there may be so-called gods in heaven or on earth—as indeed there are many “gods” and many “lords”— 6 yet for us there is one God, the Father, from whom are all things and for whom we exist, and one Lord, Jesus Christ, through whom are all things and through whom we exist. 1 Cor. 8

It seems to me that, if “an idol has no real existence” it would be possible to give any “service”?

 

[GodSoughtMe]

If you don’t like art, if you don’t get why you should be respectful and affectionate of the images of people you love, if you cannot get your head around how bowing to the royal mace used in commonwealth countries honors the king (and could hardly detract from his honor), if you don’t want to read the article which was the first reply after you explained your question, if you don’t get why God commanded that we keep his 10 commandments in an honored box with graven images on it -

Then don’t use them. You don’t have to.

 

[guanophore]

Is it all right to venerate, salute, bow down and show affection towards a golden calf which represents a source of food and a symbol of life and good health.

I think you have misunderstood the whole point of the story. None of these things are what the calf was meant to represent.

It is an animal which does not take much from the earth, as all it ever eats is water and grass, but it gives back much more to humans

This seems to be something you created in your imagination, and projected into the text.

What is worship? Is it merely bowing?

Oh, dear! Sensei is going to be very upset…

 

[Pup7]

My dad used to tell me, when I was little and asked him about all this, that a statue or Mary or whomever was like having a picture of someone you missed a lot and wished you could see. And he reminded me of the stained glass windows in churches - sort of the same thing for a little kid. Or the pictures I had of his dad, who died when I was even smaller. I remembered him as well as a little kid can, and I missed him.

Praying to the saints or even to Mary (remember, I was a little kid at the time) was just asking your friends for help. Praying to the dead…well, I used to hear my maternal grandmother (a lifelong Baptist) talk to my dead grandfather, and ironically enough she always asked him to pray for her. A Baptist. Same thing, right? Sort of? And she was as anti-Catholic as they came (although she never treated my dad any differently, I knew it by the time I was a teen). When I was old enough to figure that out I thought that was quite interesting.

None of this ever seemed odd to me, so I guess I just accepted it as “what Dad does”.

So to do it myself seems just fine to me, even without all the actual Scriptural or CCC references and teachings.

 

[steve-b]

I’m joining this Easter. I’ve independently come into agreement about everything the Church teaches doctrinally except when it comes to icons and intercessory prayer. Even Marian dogmas like the assumption make sense to me and I’d probably still believe it if I stayed Protestant, but I can’t stand what feels like idolatry to me. Veneration of icons just seems so wrong. I don’t understand it.

Here’s some history and explanation. The main thing,
veneration ≠ idolatry or worship

 

[rose321]

How can you serve a graven image, anyways? What can you do for them? i guess you can polish and dust them.

Respectfully opinion only, still an issue today being disussed . Pondering on His Spoken Word.

Leviticus 19:4 " Do not turn to idols or make cast images for yourselves: I am the Lord your God" We find the word >>do not make<< cast images (of him?) speaking about Himself, what offends Him, displeases him and before this verse, our Creator begins with >>do not make>> is repeated throughout the teaching of the Ten Commandments was it not till Jesus time even recorded in Scripture?

Leviticus 19:1-2-3 " The Lord spoke to Moses, saying, Speak to all the congregation of the people of Israel and say to them " You shall be holy, for I the Lord your God am holy." What is the the Eternal Infinite Spiritual Being Image of God in whom no one has seen? The Image of Holiness, its Image cannot be seen on the outside can it? >

You shall be holy>>, His message given in Leviticus is His Desire and Will for all of us to become the Spiritual Image of Holiness within us, maybe?

Is He trying to teach us , it was never about our outward image is not important, nor defines who we truly are? God teaching us All > our true self image of who we are>comes from within, not found outwardly?

Knowing Him and our true Image and character of who we are is found within us?

Human Beings, making a outward stone cast Image , of our Creator, who is a>> Infinite> Eternal> Spiritual Being, Creator who never dies, is not the True Image or Character of who God is, is it?

It is His Spoken Word that defines His Image and who He is? How he wants us to come and Know Him and who He is, maybe?

I know sorry confused on this issue also, Peace

 

[JamalChristophr]

It’s not a matter of opinion. It’s a matter of fact. The Catholic Church worships God alone. Non-Catholics get confused on this, but the the Catholic respondents above have answered the question.

What you have written above really is a bit difficult to follow.

 

[CampionTheChampion]

You’re right…I actually feel pretty bad now seeing the reaction. I’m sorry for offending with this post.

Should I modifiy the OP to be less offensive?

 

[jlhargus]

I walk into an eastern rite chapel, bow before an icon of the Theotokos and kiss it. I’ve just bowed to and served a graven image. How have I not broken the 1st commandment?

It depends, if you believe the icon of itself has divine powers apart from the one true God, then you have broken the commandment having other gods? As far as kneeling (bowing down) being an act of worship due God alone:

[Jos7:6 And Joshua rent his clothes, and fell to the earth upon his face before the ark of the Lord until the eventide, he and the elders of israel, and put dust upon their heads. 7 And Joshua said, alas, O Lord God, wherefore hast thou at all brought this people over Jordan, to deliver us into the hand of the Amorites, to destroy us? would to God we had been content, and dwelt on the other side Jordan!]

What would outsiders think seeing Joshua and the elders falling on their face before a golden box with images of angels on top and saying, O Lord God. Going by appearances they would have thought they were worshiping that box as their god.

Is it worshiping a king when a person bows down and kisses his hand? Do the Israelites today worship the Wailing Wall when they show reverence standing and praying before it. Some even backing away so not to turn their back to the wall?

Num 21:8 the LORD said to Moses Make a fiery serpent set it upon a pole…every one bitten when he looks on it shall live 9 Moses made a serpent of brass and put it upon a pole…if a serpent had bitten any when he beheld the serpent of brass he lived. [This again is an image commanded by the Lord for healing. It is an image a foreshadowing of Christ. The serpent is Christ on the Cross taking on himself all the sins of the world and healing of sin, the venom of the serpent, all who look upon him. ]

Ex 25:17 you shall make a mercy seat of pure gold…18 you shall make two cherubims of gold of beaten work …19 make one cherub on one end and the other cherub on the other…20 the cherubims shall stretch forth their wings on high covering the mercy seat…their faces shall look one to another toward the mercy seat…21…put the mercy seat above on the ark… 22 there I will meet with you and I will commune with you from above the mercy seat between the two cherubims… …

Here the Lord is commanding the making of images of things in heaven and earth to be used in the most Holy or Holies where he will commune with his people. Would the Lord forbid images with a command and then command them to be made even though it was idolatry. Early Christians first imaged Christ by a fish, and is still used today, the Holy Spirit is imaged as fire. The High Priest would have entered once a year with the blood of the sacrifice to be sprinkled on mercy seat. That is my understanding.

 

[anon64350612]

Council of Trent Session 25:
Moreover, that the images of Christ, of the Virgin Mother of God, and of the other saints are to be placed and retained especially in the churches, and that due honor and veneration is to be given them; not, however, that any divinity or virtue is believed to be in them by reason of which they are to be venerated, or that something is to be asked of them, or that trust is to be placed in images, as was done of old by the Gentiles who placed their hope in idols;[9] but because the honor which is shown them is referred to the prototypes which they represent, so that by means of the images which we kiss and before which we uncover the head and prostrate ourselves, we adore Christ and venerate the saints whose likeness they bear. That is what was defined by the decrees of the councils, especially of the Second Council of Nicaea,[10] against the opponents of images

 

[CampionTheChampion]

A very good passage to mention! Thank you!

 

[guanophore]

You’re right…I actually feel pretty bad now seeing the reaction. I’m sorry for offending with this post.

Should I modifiy the OP to be less offensive?

Hopefully others who have the same issue can locate the thread. You are not the first person to raise it, and I doubt you will be the last!