The Faith of Our Fathers Part 18

But while the exalted privileges of Mary render her worthy of our veneration, while her saintly influence renders her worthy of our invocation, her personal life is constantly held up to us as a pattern worthy of our imitation. If she occupies so prominent a place in our pulpits, this prominence is less due to her prerogatives as a mother, or to her intercession as a patroness, than to her example as a Saint.

After our Lord Jesus Christ, no one has ever exercised so salutary and so dominant an influence as the Blessed Virgin on society, on the family and on the individual.

The Mother of Jesus exercises throughout the Christian commonwealth that hallowing influence which a good mother wields over the Christian family.

What temple or chapel, how rude soever it may be, is not adorned with a painting or a statue of the Madonna? What house is not embellished with an image of Mary? What Catholic child is a stranger to her familiar face?

The priest and the layman, the scholar and the illiterate, the prince and the peasant, the mother and the maid, acknowledge her benign sway.

And if Christianity is so fruitful in comparison with Paganism, in conjugal fidelity, in female purity and in the respect paid to womanhood, these blessings are in no small measure due to the force of Mary's all-pervading influence and example. Ever since the Son of G.o.d chose a woman to be His mother man looks up to woman with a homage akin to veneration.

The poet Longfellow pays the following tribute to Mary's sanctifying influence:

"This is indeed the blessed Mary's land, Virgin and mother of our dear Redeemer!

All hearts are touched and softened at her name Alike the bandit with the b.l.o.o.d.y hand, The priest, the prince, the scholar and the peasant The man of deeds, the visionary dreamer Pay homage to her as one ever present!

And if our faith had given us nothing more Than this example of all womanhood, So mild, so merciful, so strong, so good, So patient, peaceful, loyal, loving, pure, This were enough to prove it higher and truer Than all the creeds the world had known before."(270)

St. Ambrose gives us the following beautiful picture of Mary's life before her espousals: "Let the life," he says, "of the Blessed Mary be ever present to you in which, as in a mirror, the beauty of chast.i.ty and the form of virtue s.h.i.+ne forth. She was a virgin not only in body, but in mind, who never sullied the pure affection of her heart by unworthy feelings. She was humble of heart, serious in her conversation, fonder of reading than of speaking. She placed her confidence rather in the prayer of the poor than in the uncertain riches of this world. She was ever intent on her occupation, ... and accustomed to make G.o.d rather than man the witness of her thoughts. She injured no one, wished well to all, reverenced age, yielded not to envy, avoided all boasting, followed the dictates of reason and loved virtue. When did she sadden her parents even by a look?... There was nothing forward in her looks, bold in her words or unbecoming in her actions. Her carriage was not abrupt, her gait not indolent, her voice not petulant, so that her very appearance was the picture of her mind and the figure of piety."

Her life as a spouse and as a mother was a counterpart of her earlier years. The Gospel relates one little circ.u.mstance which amply suffices to demonstrate Mary's super-eminent holiness of life, and to exhibit her as a beautiful pattern to those who are called to rule a household. The Evangelist tells us that Jesus "was subject to them"(271)-that is, to Mary and Joseph. He obeyed all her commands, fulfilled her behests, complied with her smallest injunctions; in a word, He discharged toward her all the filial observances which a dutiful son exercises toward a prudent mother.

These relations continued from His childhood to His public life, nor did they cease even then.

Now Jesus being the Son of G.o.d, "the brightness of His glory and the figure of His substance,"(272) could not sin. He was incapable of fulfilling an unrighteous precept. The obvious conclusion to be drawn from these facts is, that Mary never sinned by commanding, as Jesus could not sin by obeying; that all her precepts and counsels were stamped with the seal of Divine approbation, and that the Son never fulfilled any injunction of His earthly Mother which was not ratified by His Eternal Father in heaven.

Such is the beautiful portrait which the Church holds up to the contemplation of her children, that studying it they may admire the original, admiring they may love, loving they may imitate, and thus become more dear to G.o.d by being made "conformable to the image of His Son,"(273) of whom Mary is the most perfect mirror.

Chapter XV.

SACRED IMAGES.

The veneration of the images of Christ and His Saints is a cherished devotion in the Catholic Church, and this practice will be vindicated in the following lines.

It is true, indeed, that the making of holy images was not so general among the Jews as it is among us, because the Hebrews themselves were p.r.o.ne to idolatry, and because they were surrounded by idolatrous people, who might misconstrue the purpose for which the images were intended. For the same prudential reasons the primitive Christians were very cautious in making images, and very circ.u.mspect in exposing them to the gaze of the heathen among whom they lived, lest Christian images should be confounded with Pagan idols.

The catacombs of Rome, to which the faithful alone were admitted, abounded, however, in sacred emblems and pious representations, which are preserved even to this day and attest the practice of the early Christian Church. We see there painted on the walls or on vases of gla.s.s the Dove, the emblem of the Holy Ghost, Christ carrying His cross, or bearing on His shoulders the lost sheep. We meet also the Lamb, an anchor and a s.h.i.+p-appropriate types of our Lord, of hope and of the Church.

The first crusade against images was waged in the eighth century by Leo the Isaurian, Emperor of Constantinople. He commanded the paintings of our Lord and His Saints to be torn down from the church walls and burned. He even invaded the sanctuary of home, and s.n.a.t.c.hed thence the sacred emblems which adorned private residences. He caused statues of bronze, silver and gold to be melted down and conveniently converted them into coins, upon which his own image was stamped. Like Henry VIII. and Cromwell, this royal Iconoclast affected to be moved by a zeal for purity of wors.h.i.+p, while avarice was the real motive of his action.

The Emperor commanded the learned librarians of his imperial library to give public approbation to his decrees against images, and when those conscientious men refused to endorse his course they were all confined in the imperial library, the building was set on fire and thirty thousand volumes, the splendid basilica which contained them, innumerable paintings and the librarians themselves were involved in one common destruction.

Constantine Cop.r.o.nymus prosecuted the vandalism of Leo, his predecessor.

Stephen, an intrepid monk, presented to the Emperor a coin bearing that tyrant's effigy, with these words: "Sire, whose image is this?" "It is mine," replied the Emperor. The monk then threw down the piece of money and trampled it. He was instantly seized by the imperial attendants and soon after put to a painful death. "Alas!" cried the holy man to the Emperor, "if I am punished for dishonoring the image of a mortal monarch, what punishment do they deserve who burn the image of Jesus Christ?"

The demolition of images was revived by the Reformers of the sixteenth century. Paintings and statues were ruthlessly destroyed, chiefly in the British Isles, Germany and Holland, under the pretext that the making of them was idolatrous. But as the Iconoclasts of the eighth century had no scruple about appropriating to their own use the gold and silver of the statues which they melted, neither had the Iconoclasts of the sixteenth century any hesitation in confiscating and wors.h.i.+ping in the idolatrous churches whose statues and paintings they broke and disfigured.

A stranger who visits some of the desecrated Catholic churches of Great Britain and the Continent which are now used as Protestant temples cannot fail to notice the mutilated statues of the Saints still standing in their niches.

This barbaric warfare against religious memorials was not only a grievous sacrilege, but an outrage against the fine arts; and had the destroying angels extended their ravages over Europe the immortal works of Michael Angelo and Raphael would be lost to us today.

The doctrine of the Catholic Church regarding the use of sacred images is clearly and fully expressed by the General Council of Trent in the following words: "The images of Christ, and of His Virgin Mother, and of other Saints, are to be had and retained, especially in churches; and a due honor and veneration is to be given to them; not that any divinity or virtue is believed to be in them for which they are to be honored, or that any prayer is to be made to them, or that any confidence is to be placed in them, as was formerly done by the heathens, who placed their hopes in idols; but because the honor which is given them is referred to the originals which they represent, so that by the images which we kiss, and before which we uncover our heads or kneel, we adore Christ and venerate His Saints, whose likeness they represent."(274)

Every Catholic child clearly comprehends the essential difference which exists between a Pagan idol and a Christian image. The Pagans looked upon an idol as a G.o.d endowed with intelligence and the other attributes of the Deity. They were therefore idolaters, or _image wors.h.i.+pers_. Catholic Christians know that a holy image has no intelligence or power to hear and help them. They pay it a relative respect-that is, their reverence for the copy is proportioned to the veneration which they entertain for the heavenly original to which it is also referred.

For the sake of my Protestant readers I may here quote their own great Leibnitz on the reverence paid to sacred images. He says, in his _Systema Theologic.u.m_, p. 142: "Though we speak of the honor paid to images, yet this is only a manner of speaking, which really means that we honor not the senseless thing which is incapable of understanding such honor, but the prototype, which receives honor through its representation, according to the teaching of the Council of Trent. It is in this sense, I take it, that scholastic writers have spoken of the same wors.h.i.+p being paid to images of Christ as to Christ our Lord Himself; for the act which is called the wors.h.i.+p of an image is really the wors.h.i.+p of Christ Himself, through and in the presence of the image and by occasion of it; by the inclination of the body toward it as to Christ Himself, as rendering Him more manifestly present, and raising the mind more actively to the contemplation of Him. Certainly, no sane man thinks, under such circ.u.mstances, of praying in this wise: 'Give me, O image, what I ask; to thee, O marble or wood, I give thanks;' but 'Thee, O Lord, I adore; to Thee I give thanks and sing songs of praise.' Given, then, that there is no other veneration of images than that which means veneration of their prototype, there is surely no more idolatry in it than there is in the respect shown in the utterance of the Most Holy Names of G.o.d and Christ; for, after all, names are but signs or symbols, and even as such inferior to images, for they represent much less vividly. So that when there is question of honoring images, this is to be understood in the same way as when it is said that at the name of Jesus every knee shall bend, or that the name of the Lord is blessed, or that glory be given to His Name. Thus, the bowing before an image outside of us is no more to be reprehended than the wors.h.i.+ping before an external image in our own minds; for the external image does but serve the purpose of expressing visibly that which is internal."

In the Book of Exodus we read: "Thou shalt not make to thyself a graven thing, nor the likeness of anything that is in heaven above, or in the earth beneath, nor of those things that are in the waters under the earth.

Thou shalt not adore them nor serve them."(275) Protestants contend that these words contain an absolute prohibition against the making of images, while the Catholic Church insists that the commandment referred to merely prohibits us from wors.h.i.+ping them as G.o.ds.

The text cannot mean the absolute prohibition of making images; for in that case G.o.d would contradict Himself by commanding in one part of Scripture what He condemns in another. In Exodus (xxv. 18), for instance, He commands two cherubim of beaten gold to be made and placed on each side of the oracle; and in Numbers (xxi. 8) He commands Moses to make a brazen serpent, and to set it up for a sign, that "whosoever being struck by the fiery serpents shall look upon it, shall live." Are not cherubim and serpents the likenesses of creatures in heaven above, in the earth beneath and in the waters under the earth? for cherubim dwell in heaven and serpents are found on land and sea.

We should all, without exception, break the commandment were we to take it in the Protestant sense. Have you not at home the portraits of living and departed relatives? And are not these the likenesses of persons in heaven above and on the earth beneath?

Westminster Abbey, though once a Catholic Cathedral, is now a Protestant house of wors.h.i.+p. It is filled with the statues of ill.u.s.trious men; yet no one will accuse the English church of idolatry in allowing those statues to remain there. But you will say: The wors.h.i.+pers in Westminster have no intention of adoring these statues. Neither have we any intention of wors.h.i.+ping the statues of the Saints. An English parson once remarked to a Catholic friend: "Tom, don't you pray to images?" "We pray before them,"

replied Tom; "but we have no intention of praying to them." "Who cares for your intention," retorted the parson. "Don't you pray at night?" observed Tom. "Yes," said the parson; "I pray at my bed." "Yes; you pray to the bed-post." "Oh, no!" said the reverend gentleman; "I have no intention of doing that." "Who cares," replied Tom, "for your intention."

The moral rect.i.tude or depravity of our actions cannot be determined without taking into account the intention.

There are many persons who have been taught in the nursery tales, that Catholics wors.h.i.+p idols. These persons, if they visit Europe and see an old man praying before an image of our Lord or a Madonna which is placed along the wayside, are at once confirmed in their prejudices. Their zeal against idols takes fire and they write home, adding one more proof of idolatry against the benighted Romanists. If these superficial travelers had only the patience to question the old man he would tell them, with simplicity of faith, that the statue had no life to hear or help him, but that its contemplation inspired him with greater reverence for the original.

As I am writing for the information of Protestants, I quote with pleasure the following pa.s.sage, written by one of their own theologians, in the _Encyclopedie_ (Edit. d'Yverdun, tom. 1, art. _Adorer_):

"When Lot prostrates himself before the two angels it is an act of courtesy towards honored guests; when Jacob bows down before Esau it is an act of deference from a younger to an elder brother; when Solomon bows low before Bethsabee it is the honor which a son pays to his mother; when Nathan, coming in before David, 'had wors.h.i.+ped, bowing down to the ground,' it is the homage of a subject to his prince. But when a man prostrates himself in prayer to G.o.d it is the creature adoring the Creator. And if these various actions are expressed-sometimes by the word _adore_, sometimes by _wors.h.i.+p_ or _prostration_-it is not the bare meaning of the word which has guided interpreters in rendering it, but the nature of the case. When an Israelite prostrated himself before the king no one thought of charging him with idolatry. If he had done the same thing in the presence of an idol, the very same bodily act would have been called idolatry. And why? Because all men would have judged by his action that he regarded the idol as a real Divinity and that he would express, in respect to it, the sentiments manifested by adoration in the limited sense which we give to the word. What shall we think, then, of what Catholics do to show honor to Saints, to relics, to the wood of the cross? They will not deny that their acts of reverence, in such cases, are very much like those by which they pay outward honor to G.o.d. But have they the same ideas about the Saints, the relics and the cross as they have about G.o.d? I believe that we cannot fairly accuse them of it."

A gentleman who was present at the unveiling of Clay's statue in the city of Richmond informed me that as soon as the curtain was uplifted, and the n.o.ble form of the Kentucky statesman appeared in full view, the immense concourse of spectators instinctively uncovered their heads. "Why do you take off your hat?" playfully remarked my friend to an acquaintance who stood by. "In honor, of course, of Henry Clay," he replied. "But Henry is not there in the flesh. You see nothing but _clay_." "But my intention, sir," he continued, "is to do honor to the original." He answered correctly. And yet how many of the same people would be shocked if they saw a man take off his hat in the presence of a statue of St. Peter! It is not, therefore, the making of the image, but its wors.h.i.+p, that is condemned by the Decalogue.

Having seen the lawfulness of sacred images, let us now consider the advantages to be derived from their use.

First-_Religious paintings embellish the house of G.o.d._ What is more becoming than to adorn the church, which is the shadow of the heavenly Jerusalem, so beautifully described by St. John?(276) Solomon decorated the temple of G.o.d with images of cherubim and other representations. "And he overlaid the cherubim with gold. And all the walls of the temple round about he carved with divers figures and carvings."(277) If it was meet and proper to adorn Solomon's temple, which contained only the Ark of the Lord, how much more fitting is it to decorate our churches, which contain the Lord of the Ark? When I see a church tastefully ornamented it is a sure sign that the Master is at home, and that His devoted subjects pay homage to Him in His court.

What beauty, what variety, what charming pictures are presented to our view in this temple of nature which we inhabit! Look at the canopy of heaven. Look at the exquisite pictures painted by the Hand of the Divine Artist on this earth. "Consider the lilies of the field.... I say to you that not even Solomon in all his glory was arrayed as one of these." If the temple of nature is so richly adorned, should not our temples made with hands bear some resemblance to it?

How many professing Christians must, like David, reproach themselves for "dwelling in a house of cedar, while the ark of G.o.d is lodged with skins."(278) How many are there whose private apartments are adorned with exquisite paintings, who affect to be scandalized at the sight of a single pious emblem in their house of wors.h.i.+p? On the occasion of the celebration of Henry W. Beecher's silver wedding several wealthy members of his congregation adorned the walls of Plymouth church with their private paintings. Their object, of course, in doing so was not to honor G.o.d, but their pastor. But if the portraits of men were no desecration to that church, how can the portraits of Saints desecrate ours?(279) And what can be more appropriate than to surround the Sanctuary of Jesus Christ with the portraits of the Saints, especially of Mary and of the Apostles, who, in their life, ministered to His sacred person? And is it not natural for children to adorn their homes with the likenesses of their Fathers in the faith?

Second-_Religious paintings are the catechism of the ignorant_. In spite of all the efforts of Church and State in the cause of education a great proportion of the human race will be found illiterate. Descriptive pictures will teach those what books make known to the learned.

How many thousands would have died ignorant of the Christian faith if they had not been enlightened by paintings! When Augustine, the Apostle of England, first appeared before King Ethelbert to announce to him the Gospel, a silver crucifix and a painting of our Savior were borne before the preacher, and these images spoke more tenderly to the eyes than his words to the ears of his audience.

By means of religious emblems St. Francis Xavier effected many conversions in India; and by the same means Father De Smet made known the Gospel to the savages of the Rocky Mountains.

Third-By exhibiting religious paintings in our rooms _we make a silent, though eloquent, profession of our faith_. I once called on a gentleman in a distant city, some time during our late war, and, on entering his library, I noticed two portraits, one of a distinguished General, the other of an Archbishop. These portraits at once proclaimed to me the religious and patriotic sentiments of the proprietor of the house.