Images

Well here's a good conversation. My strangerfriend at Aduladi&Co. offers a great commentary to make you go hmmmmm on her blog post from yesterday. Is it okay to look at images of Christ in the new covenant even though the old testament covenant still applies. But by the blood of the lamb we have a new promise so how far do you press it? As a Catholic woman I find myself really thinking on this because we are loaded with images in the Catholic church. And I honestly love them. I'm visual so that part of me is fed well with so much to look at. So my take on this is that as long as I'm not making an image INTO God, then having a picture of Jesus should be okay. If we get all legalistic about it then we should probably not wear crosses either. And I really don't want to give up my cross jewellery. I love it, but its not a god to me and none of it has power. And too, watching The Passion Of The Christ, really puts into perspective what he suffered. Until that movie I never really 'got' it. So as a tool to deepen my faith, seeing that movie helped. So then, gazing on the face of Christ, weather in my minds eye or through the eye of someone else, if in a desire to grow in faith, has to be okay. Am I justifying too much? I pray for the mind of Christ because scripture tells me to do so. Is that cheating? I don't think so. I love how St. Thomas Aquinas says 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.[St. Thomas Aquinas, STh II-II, 81, 3 ad 3.]. Regarding idols we find this...2113. Idolatry not only refers to false pagan worship. It remains a constant temptation to faith. Idolatry consists in divinizing what is not God. Man commits idolatry whenever he honors and reveres a creature in place of God, whether this be gods or demons (for example, satanism), power, pleasure, race, ancestors, the state, money, etc. Jesus says, 'You cannot serve God and mammon.'[Mt 6:24 .] Many martyrs died for not adoring 'the Beast'[Cf. Rev 13-14.] refusing even to simulate such worship. Idolatry rejects the unique Lordship of God; it is therefore incompatible with communion with God.[Cf. Gal 5:20 ; Eph 5:5 . This site www.newadvent.org has a neat description of the issue too. But sadly as I poked around the web, there is alot of anti-catholic stuff out there. It's a hard subject to tackle and my friend Angel said it best, its not a salvation issue. Its more about living in Victory. Trying as best we know how to live a life for Christ, that he would be blessed by and that would show who he is by how we live.