What is the role of art?

[Cecilianus]

Right - a picture of my loved one isn’t my loved one. If someone lets ants crawl on my Mom’s picture it doesn’t offend me or my Mom. It isn’t her, it’s just a picture. I can print as many as I like. I don’t love and care for the picture, I love and care for my mother.

That’s not the way we view icons and sacred images, however. To smash an icon is an assault against Christ; to venerate and icon is to adore Christ or honor His Mother.

 

[jonfawkes]

That’s not the way we view icons and sacred images, however. To smash an icon is an assault against Christ; to venerate and icon is to adore Christ or honor His Mother.

The CCC says differently -

1. Is it right to show respect to the statues and pictures of Christ and of the saints?

It is right to show respect to the statues and pictures of Christ and of the saints, just as it is right to show respect to the images of those whom we honor or love on earth.

 

[Cecilianus]

The CCC says differently -

How is that any different from what I said?

 

[jonfawkes]

To smash an icon is an assault against Christ; to venerate and icon is to adore Christ or honor His Mother.

This isn’t what the CCC says. Venerate connotes devotion. I don’t have devotion to pictures nor adore them. The CCC says respect. I respect all my worldly possessions but don’t adore them.

 

[Cecilianus]

This isn’t what the CCC says. Venerate connotes devotion. I don’t have devotion to pictures nor adore them. The CCC says respect. I respect all my worldly possessions but don’t adore them.

The Church insists that we do venerate icons; I don’t see how you could have respect for them if you refuse to venerate them. Every time you walk into church the first thing you do is venerate (kiss) the icon on the tetrapod, if you are a Byzantine Catholic; the clergy kiss the icons of Christ and the Theotokos on the iconostas before starting the Liturgy if they omit Orthros or Third Hour. And everybody is invited to kiss the cross after Liturgy, something you even do in the Roman Church on Great Friday.

It’s no so different from kissing a photograph of a loved one, except here the loved one is Almighty God and His mother.

 

[3DOCTORS]

I could tell that from your posts, ma’am,

I’d need a smiley of me chewing on a pen or pencil, while pondering the right word or music, for my message.

And, I wish you, 3DOCTORS, and all the others on this thread, and all of your loved ones, a blessed and Merry Christmas from now to the Epiphany.

God loves all of you,
Don

Thanks Don, and a Blessed Christmas and Christmas Season to you, too. :christmastree1:

Here’s a Christmas present from me - one smiley that’s close to what you described, just without the pencil:

(It was the best I could do - beats beef jerky, Cornnuts, and a can of WD-40 from the local Quik Trip as a last-minute present, no? )

 

[OrdinaryMelkite]

This MIGHT be considered OT to the Discussion or it might not-----

But reading this discussion regarding what may or may not be considered “Beautiful” in Art, I could not help but be reminded of the Old Country Song------

Everything is Beautiful-----IN ITS OWN WAY." :thumbsup:

Take of that what one will. Anyway----

Happy Savior’s Birth, Fellow Catholics and Christians!!!

 

[JDaniel]

I could tell that from your posts, ma’am,

I’d need a smiley of me chewing on a pen or pencil, while pondering the right word or music, for my message.

And, I wish you, 3DOCTORS, and all the others on this thread, and all of your loved ones, a blessed and Merry Christmas from now to the Epiphany.

God loves all of you,
Don

Thank you, Don! I’ll just take my little piece of that and enjoy the day, while remembering what the day is for!

God bless,
jd

 

[jonfawkes]

The Church insists that we do venerate icons; I don’t see how you could have respect for them if you refuse to venerate them.

The same way I respect my car. I take care of it, Give it proper maintenance etc but I don’t worship my car. I know it is just a “thing”.

 

[Cecilianus]

The same way I respect my car. I take care of it, Give it proper maintenance etc but I don’t worship my car. I know it is just a “thing”.

I venerate an icon. I do not venerate my car. BIG difference.

 

[Cecilianus]

The same way I respect my car. I take care of it, Give it proper maintenance etc but I don’t worship my car. I know it is just a “thing”.

What you are suggesting is a repetition of the iconoclast heresy condemned by the Second Council of Nicea. The iconoclasts also “respected” icons; they just insisted that the faithful not venerate them.

I quote from the Synodikon of Holy Orthodoxy, promulgated by Nicea II and sung on the Sunday of the Triumph of Holy Orthodoxy (first Sunday of Great Lent) in all Byzantine Catholic churches

(found at sites.google.com/site/thetaboriclight/synodikon:

To those who hear the Lord Who said that “If ye believed in Moses, ye would have believed in me” and who understand the saying of Moses, “The Lord our God will raise up for you a prophet like unto me,” but who, on the one hand, say that they accept the Prophet, yet on the other hand, do not permit the depiction in icons of the grace of the Prophet and our universal salvation such as, He was seen, as He mingled with mankind, and worked many healings of passions and diseases, and such as He was crucified, was buried, and arose, in short, all that He both suffered and wrought for us; to those, therefore, who cannot endure to gaze upon these universal and saving deeds in icons, neither honor nor worship them,

Let Them Be Anathema (repeated three times)

To those who persist in the heresy of denying icons, or rather the apostasy of denying Christ, and are not counseled by the Mosaic law to be led to their salvation, nor are they convinced to return to piety by the apostolic teachings, nor are they induced by patristic exhortations and explanations to abandon their deception, nor are they persuaded by the agreement of the Churches of God throughout the whole world, but once for all have joined themselves to the portion of the Jews and Greeks; for those things wherewith the latter directly blaspheme the prototype, the former likewise have not blushed to insult in His icon Him that is depicted therein; therefore, to those who are incorrigibly possessed by this deception, and have their ears covered towards every Divine word and spiritual teaching, as already being putrefied members, and having cut themselves off from the common body of the Church,

Let Them Be Anathema (repeated three times)

 

[jonfawkes]

From the Catholic encyclopedia -

As an example of contemporary Catholic teaching on this subject one could hardly quote anything better expressed than the “Catechism of Christian Doctrine” used in England by command of the Catholic bishops. In four points, this book sums up the whole Catholic position exactly:

* "It is forbidden to give divine honour or worship to the angels and saints for this belongs to God alone."
* "We should pay to the angels and saints an inferior honour or worship, for this is due to them as the servants and special friends of God."
* "We should give to relics, crucifixes and holy pictures a relative honour, as they relate to Christ and his saints and are memorials of them."
* "We do not pray to relics or images, for they can neither see nor hear nor help us."

 

[Cecilianus]

From the Catholic encyclopedia -

To “pray to” an icon is to pray to the reality it makes present.

Quoting a book published by a group of local bishops does not change the substance of the Faith defined by an Ecumenical Council, to which all Catholics must give the assent of faith.

 

[jonfawkes]

To “pray to” an icon is to pray to the reality it makes present.

Quoting a book published by a group of local bishops does not change the substance of the Faith defined by an Ecumenical Council, to which all Catholics must give the assent of faith.

How about the Catechism of the Catholic Church

2132 The Christian veneration of images is not contrary to the first commandment which proscribes idols. Indeed, “the honor rendered to an image passes to its prototype,” and "whoever venerates an image venerates the person portrayed in it."70 The honor paid to sacred images is a “respectful veneration,” not the adoration due to God alone:

Religious worship is not directed to images in themselves, **considered as mere things**, but under their distinctive aspect as images leading us on to God incarnate. The movement toward the image does not terminate in it as image, but tends toward that whose image it is.71

But it’s your boat, float it. If you want to think “things” are holy, by all means, do so.

 

[Cecilianus]

How about the Catechism of the Catholic Church

But it’s your boat, float it. If you want to think “things” are holy, by all means, do so.

The Catechism says exactly what I said. To venerate an icon of Christ is to adore Christ; the venerate an icon of the Theotokos is to give honor to the Theotokos.

“Things” CAN be holy - God sanctified matter by becoming incarnate in the flesh. Even in the West you have your holy water, blessed rosaries, and your altars which you incense. We incense our icons several times during the Liturgy. You don’t incense something unless it’s holy. As Catholics we have a sacramental view of the world as sanctified by Christ; we HAVE to reject the spiritualistic view of Protestants that prayer is purely “spiritual”. We pray with our bodies (by making the sign of the Cross and prostrations, etc.), and we pray with icons.

 

[jonfawkes]

I read it differently - “the honor rendered to an image passes to its prototype”

The thing is still a thing - you still worshiping God, not the image of God. The image is a just a crutch for those that need it.

Religious worship is not directed to images in themselves, considered as mere things, but under their distinctive aspect as images leading us on to God incarnate. The movement toward the image does not terminate in it as image, but tends toward that whose image it is.

The explanation comes from St.Thomas Aquinas, STh II-II,81,3 ad 3.

 

[Cecilianus]

I read it differently - “the honor rendered to an image passes to its prototype”

The thing is still a thing - you still worshiping God, not the image of God. The image is a just a crutch for those that need it.

The explanation comes from St.Thomas Aquinas, STh II-II,81,3 ad 3.

No disagreement between us here - except that we all (you included) need this “crutch”, which would be better spoken of us a window than a “crutch”. As finite beings composed of flesh and blood, we need material means to reach spiritual realities. The most example of this are the sacraments, the necessary physical means of grace for everyone. There is nobody so sufficiently “spiritual” that they can do without the sacraments and/or sacramentals - and to think so is both an error of grave magnitude and a pretty bad example of prelest (spiritual delusion wrought by hubris).

 

[donsnow]

The Second Council of Nicaea (A.D. 787) says otherwise.

catecheticsonline.com/SourcesofDogma4.php

catholicity.com/baltimore-catechism/lesson17.html (see question 221).

Thank you, SouthpawLink,

For these links. The reading of these are good for admonishing the heretic and misled, and to correct those misled by atheists and other heretics, and to prevent the rest of us from being so misled.

God loves you,
Don

 

[donsnow]

Thanks Don, and a Blessed Christmas and Christmas Season to you, too. :christmastree1:

Here’s a Christmas present from me - one smiley that’s close to what you described, just without the pencil:

(It was the best I could do - beats beef jerky, Cornnuts, and a can of WD-40 from the local Quik Trip as a last-minute present, no? )

Thank you, 3DOCTORS!,

I’ll accept the pondering smiley in the spirit in which it’s tendered . And, yes it beats all those other things.

God loves you and yours,
Don

 

[jonfawkes]

No disagreement between us here - except that we all (you included) need this “crutch”, which would be better spoken of us a window than a “crutch”. As finite beings composed of flesh and blood, we need material means to reach spiritual realities. The most example of this are the sacraments, the necessary physical means of grace for everyone. There is nobody so sufficiently “spiritual” that they can do without the sacraments and/or sacramentals - and to think so is both an error of grave magnitude and a pretty bad example of prelest (spiritual delusion wrought by hubris).

But the statues aren’t sacraments, meaning they aren’t required, only used by those that need them. So they are a crutch for those that need them. I don’t mean to belittle it, but you have to call a spade a spade.