I suspect it is a statue of Our Lady of Guadalupe who is very vernerated in Mexico. What you are viewing is not idolotary but cultural differences-what you find as “crossing the line” Hispanics find as venerating the Patroness of the Americas.
You bow your head in front of carved fetishes or images that represent people and you do something called worship. Most people don’t even know the Catholic distinctions between dulia, hyperdulia, and latria; all they know is that it’s all worship to a variety of individuals. Personally, I do know the distinction between the three kinds of worship, but as far as I can tell, the only real difference is the directionality of the worship. I haven’t been able to figure out what, if anything, you are doing differently inside your head. Do you think you could contribute to my thread, by any chance?
I know our Lady of Guadalupe and this is not her. And in my opinion that is irrelevent. Kissing statues, putting roses at the feet of statues, embracing statues, regardless of skin color and which version of Mary the statue is, is crossing the line IMO. And many of these folks are not Mexican but Portuguese, Italian, and Irish in background, even though the race of someone doing these things is irrelevent. And to some folks this is idolatry. Putting sentiment and love into an inanimate object, regardless of what it represents, to many is idolatry.
How do you know it is idolotry to many of these people? Why is it so imprtant to you to impose your culture on theses people?
Ive been aorund a long time and been to lots of catholic Churches. Ive never seen a carved fetshis in a Catholic Church , more or less anyone worshipping it. You have not been ableoe to find a single Catholi whoc acknowledges they worhisp anone other than God yet you insist on lecturing us on what it is you claim we believe.
Impose my culture? Ridiculous, pure and simple. So you condone morals based on cultural adaptations of morality. Interesting. Define idolatry, bob. What is your definition? And why do you cry the race card instead of questioning the practice? At what point would you have the courage to decry idolatry? And while we’re at it, many cultures impose their cultural experiences on me when I might not necessarily want it. At my parish we have to endure the endless Portuguese festas and girls parading around half-naked in these pseudo-beauty pageants as most of them stay outside of the church building chatting on cell phones, flirting, eating on the lawns sprawled out on beach towels, all while we’re inside in worship? Why do the kids in our parish’s parochial school HAVE TO attend our Lady of Fatima carnival and all-day parade/celebration? Filipinos impose Our Lady of Pertetual Help, Mexicans have songs sung in Spanish and English mixed together during English Masses? A question I might ask you is why do I have to endure and have imposed upon ME the cultures and experiences of all these groups and yet not one Mass seems to cater to the Anglo side of things in my area? Our missalette and song book have the top title UNIDOS EN CRISTO and at the bottom, in tiny font is United in Christ I would cut the dramatics with me trying to impose myself. Trust me, it isn’t happening…
It appears that you problem is not so much with pereceived idolotry but with Hispanic sytle worship. I spend a lot of time in Mexico-they use morch more smybolism in their worship than we do-nothing wrong with that and it is most certainly not idolotry.
LOL, first of all, that website is a joke. There is another thread on here about that site.
Well all I know is when we have a tabernacle sitting there with the Body and Blood of Christ Jesus within, full of glory and power, love and forgiveness, the infinite God Himself, and on the other side of the church is an empty porceline statue with nothing inside but air, and it represents the mother of Christ, not Christ Himself, and there are perpetually three kneelers in front of it with people adoring and praying to the image, kissing it, touching it, and there is nothing going on at the feet (literally) of Jesus, I question that. Maybe you don’t. That’s fine. We have different priorities. I don’t care the race, the color, the language, or gender of the people choosing to pray to a statue rather than the Risen Lord. But that’s just me. I happen to love the BVM, but I don’t prefer to stare at a statue and speak to it and kiss it. I’d rather pray my rosary in silence and know that she hears me just fine.
If you thought the cotton, in and of itself, could hear and answer you then it was idolatry, but if the cotton was there to represent God or some aspect of God, or if it was simply part of the decoration of the Church, or the ribbons in your Bible, then no - there’s nothing wrong with it. I have never heard tell of Baptists kneeling, in any case.
I agree that it might easily look like that for others.
Hi Janet,
Right… I mean that’s the picture that is going out too…
I can tell you - the motive is evangelism and Catechesis. What happens is that during the week that the statue is in your house (called “A Visit from Mary”) the members of the Legion of Mary come to your house to install it for you, pray with you, teach you various prayers, and teach you various Catechism lessons, all by means of casual conversation. They then leave the family with a book of Family Prayers to use in the evenings at home with the statue. When they return to pick it up, there is a similar routine, where the family receives catechism, blessing, and prayer. The family keeps the prayer book, and the expectation is that they will continue to use it in the evenings.
Hi JM,I can tell you - the motive is evangelism and Catechesis. What happens is that during the week that the statue is in your house (called “A Visit from Mary”) the members of the Legion of Mary come to your house to install it for you, pray with you, teach you various prayers, and teach you various Catechism lessons, all by means of casual conversation. They then leave the family with a book of Family Prayers to use in the evenings at home with the statue. When they return to pick it up, there is a similar routine, where the family receives catechism, blessing, and prayer. The family keeps the prayer book, and the expectation is that they will continue to use it in the evenings.
I happen to think it’s a great way to re-introduce the custom of family evening prayers.
Well, they also had real visits from Mary. But do you really believe that they didn’t use images and environment as teaching aids? The Black Madonna is thought to have been painted by St. Luke. The Catacombs were lavishly decorated with Christian symbols and prayers. They look a lot more like Eastern Rite churches than like Protestant churches.