Latest / The Uncensored Catholic / Show 33: No, Catholics do not worship Statues Either

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Show 33: No, Catholics do not worship Statues Either · The Uncensored Catholic

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Yeah, welcome to today's show. I knew it was going to happen soon,
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and yesterday I got a nasty little note from a Protestant replying to the
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title of yesterday's podcasts that, of course, no, Catholics do not worship
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saints and angels. She said, well, they sure have an awful lot
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of idols in their church. Okay, that is obviously a very ignorant statement,
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but it's a very widespread belief among well Protestants specifically, but probably other
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non Catholics, you know, even people of other religions, so to speak.
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But it is definitely a tenant of anti Catholic bigotry. Now, I
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have no way of knowing this person's heart. I'm not accusing her of anti
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Catholic bigotry. In fact, I invited her to listen to my shows.
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Said, she's obviously just responding to the title. So I said, you
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know, if you were to listen to my podcast, you might learn a
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lot about what Catholics actually believe and about how we actually practice our religion.
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No response as of yet. Maybe there will be. Who knows, Maybe
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it's a person of good faith. Very rarely, if ever, do I
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encounter a real. You know, anti Catholic bigot who is willing to listen
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to my podcast had one all last week. There's chewing me out. And
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I said, did you listen to the podcast? No? I read the
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title. That's good enough. But you don't know what I've said, did
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you? You don't know why I said what I did. I'm not so
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stupid to take the word of anything on the internet. Okay, So I
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guess he gets to remain in ignorance because I give sources for everything I say.
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He could look out the verses that validate the Catholic position. He could
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look for what the Catholic Church actually believes in the Catechism. He could read
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the Early Church Fathers, whether he wants to go to a physical library or
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to read them online. But as of yet, I have not encountered in
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the last ten years of a very occasionally getting into what you might wish would
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be a debate with a Protestant anti Catholic Protestant, where they have ever been
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willing to look at what a Catholic actually believes in the Catechism, or what
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the Early Church fathers wrote, or oftentimes a different version of the Bible than
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the King James, which is a very flawed version of the Bible. If
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people close their mind to new information and only believe what they were told growing
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up or what they've read in some book somewhere, you're not getting very far
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with them. It's hard, it's a difficult thing. But while I'm trying
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to build up the Body of Christ by spreading Christian unity and understanding among both
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Catholics and Protestants, never wants insisting that they convert to Catholicism, but they
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come to understand what Catholics believe and to help my Catholic listeners do the same.
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They're doing their best to tear it apart. They are doing their best
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to divide the Body of Christ, which says Saint Paul said, is crucifying
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our Lord again. And they're sowing division and confusion, which is not the
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work of God. It's the work of the devil. But let's address this
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very very common criticism. And as I said, yes, it is a
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criticism entirely based out of ignorance, people not understanding what they're seeing. If
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they ever even once walked into a Catholic church, they don't understand why we
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have statues of saints. They probably have not walked into a Catholic church.
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They've seen something on Tell Vision, or they've heard Jimmy Swagger give a railing,
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bigoted anti Catholic sermon or Bob Jones. Bob Jones was really bad for
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that. Yeah, I don't have a lot of goods to say about Bob
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Jones University. But anyway, yesterday and yesterday's show we mentioned how Saint Luke
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was likely one of the very first Christians. Well obviously he was as being
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one of the apostles of Christ to paint an image of the Blessed Virgin Mary
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in one of the oldest Christian churches on earth, and it has been venerated
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or respected. It's what that word means for around two thousand years. As
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I've explained in now three shows totally about Oh I didn't even know two three
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hours. I mean at least an hour and a half. Catholics do not
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worship saints and angels. We venerate them, which means showing respect, and
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we pray to them. Pray comes from the Latin word pracada, meaning to
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ask. We ask them to pray for us, just as we ask our
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living here on earth. Friends, family, people go Church with us to
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pray for us, because the Bible instructed us to do that, and the
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Bible says that God is not the God of the dead, but of the
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living. And just as we know Jesus spoke with Moses and Elijah on the
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top of Mount Tabor, living saints more alive in heaven than on earth,
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interacting with him in his earthly life. And as you know, the Bible
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also says, we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses. We
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are all part of the living body of Christ. And as it says,
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one member experiences, if one member hurts, the other member hurts. If
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one member experiences joy, the other member experiences joy. Our membership in the
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Body of Christ unites us inextricably with the angels and saints, and their job,
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as actually explained in the Book of Revelation, is to witness, is
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to pray for us. And as Jesus said when he warned people not to
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hurt children, he said, don't you know that each one of these has
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an angel that witnesses before the Father. We are inext inextricably joined, and
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we miss out on huge spiritual blessings and help if we don't make friends with
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those who are more alive in heaven than we are on earth. The Bible
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says God, here is the prayer of the righteous. Those who are in
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heaven are by definition righteous. So as we can see, the early Christians
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certainly did venerate images, They had statues, they had paintings. The earliest
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churches, the catacombs, the churches in the Caves of Turkey are absolutely filled
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with paintings and statues and images of angels and saints. Dad has been part
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of Christian tradition since the Apostles were alive. It's never been one time in
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Christianity where the angels and saints were not venerated, and that the images of
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those angels and saints were displayed to remind people of their holy lives, just
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as stained glass windows or in churches today that shows scenes from the Bible.
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You look at that and you remember that story, you remember that person,
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you remember that holy person, and they inspire you. The Catholic just goes
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one step further and says, Saint Joseph or Saint James or whomever, please
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pray for me. That's it. Pray for my family, pray for us,
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which is again exactly what the Bible instructs us to do. But the
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obvious charge you're going to make is Catholics worship statues, and the Bible says,
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make no graven image. Well, certainly, Catholics do not worship statues
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anymore than we worship the saints and the angels they represent. I mean,
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that's really kind of dumb if we're not worshiping an angel or a saint,
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but we're praying to them, and that statue is merely a representation of that
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angel and saint. In no way could it be considered a so called graven
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image or an idol. Okay, we're going to get into really the meaning
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of a grave and image here in a minute. But that's sort of a
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a slur that's run around which you can pick apart really easily. But when
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a Catholic, for instance, walks into a church and there's a statue of
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the Blessed Virgin Mary, right, they may kneel in front of the statue
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and say a prayer. That's merely a sign of respect for the saint,
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not worshiping that statue. The statue is a reminder. But the same,
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you know, is also true of the cross. The US as a physical
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reminder of the cross on which Jesus died. The cross that is in every
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Baptist church is in no way different than any statue that's in any Catholic church
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when you walk into When a Baptist walks into a Baptist church and kneels before
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the altar like the altar call and confesses their sins, they're not worshiping the
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altar. They're worshiping God whom they represented to them through the Cross and the
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altar. The same is really even true of the Bible, which is the
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physical representation of the Word of God. I don't know of any Protestant that
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mistakes the book that contains the Word of God to be God himself. I
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don't know of any Protestant that makes an idol out of a Bible or a
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cross. Catholics no more worship statues than Protestants worship the Bible. We venerate
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religious icons and the Bible at the beginning of every Mass. The Bible is
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presented, the priest kisses the Bible, the Gospels are read. The Bible
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is, after all, a Catholic book composed, written, published by the
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Catholic Church. Without the Catholic church, there is no Bible, and the
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Bible is venerated in every single Catholic church with more respect than most of the
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any of the religious statues. Its perhaps the Crucifix itself, where we see
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Jesus hanging on the cross, and we would that visual representation of God is
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given as much reverence as the visual representation of the Word of God by some,
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perhaps not by all. But in no way are either of them made
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into an idol any more than they would be made into an idol in a
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Protestant church. But you know, I can hear the angry chries already.
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They're grave in images. Well, isn't everything I mean is a statue any
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more a grave in image than a painting or a stained glass window cross?
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The wooden cross hanging in your Baptist or Methodist church was carved by someone's hands.
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The root word for grave and is the same as in grave. So
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even the wooden word of God in the Bible would actually be a graven image.
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And the stone tablets which the Ten Commandments were written were ingraved. So
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the Ten Commandments are actually a graven image, if you want to be ridiculously
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specific. But even so, we have to understand, it's not the image
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itself that's wrong, it's the purpose of it. God told us people not
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to worship idols as if they were God's. He never said, don't make
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things, don't write things down, which is, if you would take the
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literal interpretation, they would not have been able to make any representation of anything.
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Right. But right after giving the Ten Commandments to Moses, when there
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was a rebellion among the Hebrew people, God instructed Moses to make a bronze
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serpent and raise it up on the pole. Now, if we were going
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to take this literally, God just instructed Moses to sin and violate one of
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the first couple of the ten commandments. Obviously God could not do that because
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God does not make people sin, and God cannot sin. And if God
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does anything sin for in in this case, he would be telling someone else
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to sin. He can't be God. So there's obviously, I mean,
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it's not a logical leap to see that the same God who said make no
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graven image and worship it as an idol also told Moses to make a graven
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image that was a serpent and raise it up in the view of all the
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people and those who looked at it would be saved. Now have you not
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read this in your Bible? Maybe you haven't open up numbers twenty one,
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five through nine. They spoke against God and against Moses. Why did you
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bring us out of Egypt to die in the desert? For there is neither
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food nor water here. We are sick of this meager diet. At this,
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God sent fiery serpents among the people. Their bite brought death to many
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in Israel. The people came and said to Moses, we have sinned by
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speaking against Yahwah and against you. Intercede for us with Yahwah to save us
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from these serpents. Moses interceded for the people in Yawe replied, make a
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fiery serpent and raise it up as a standard. Anyone who has bitten and
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looks at it will survive. Then Moses made a serpent out of bronze and
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raised it as a standard, And anyone who was bitten by a serpent looked
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at the bronze serpent and survived. Now, can God will or someone do
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something evil? Absolutely not, As I said, no one knows what the
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serpent represented. Okay, that's sort of a mystery of the Bible. Many
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people have speculated many things. Some say it may have been an image of
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one of the tribes of Israel, and other writings it said that the shape
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of the serpent on this standard looked like the cross. You know. They
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could have many meanings, and no one knows for sure. We won't know
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that till we get to Heaven and can ask him. But it could have
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even represented sin and death itself, you know. But we certainly recognize the
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symbolism and graven images that God commanded on the design of the Ark of the
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Covenant and the Holy Temple. Think about it, the Cherubim and the various
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one of the bulls, and the sea, and I mean go back to
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read the instructions of the building of the Temple and the Ark of the Covenant.
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I mean put it simply, God's temple was full of graven images.
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So how can we make sense of that? Well, honestly, it's fairly
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simple if one lays beside the biases and employees logic and considers the Bible in
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contexts. No one in the among the ebrews was worshiping the cherubim on top
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of the altar, But God instructed that these graven images be made. The
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commandments against graven images are specifically tied to idolatry. God commanded that men not
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make inanimate objects and worship them as gods. From the closing of the Garden
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of Eden to the coming of Christ, no man could see God. The
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Bible states that no one could look upon the face of God and live.
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Any representation of God in physical form then was false, and whatever was imagined
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in that form was a false God. When Jesus came, man could see
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God. Jesus sanctified and made wholly the physical. He transformed an instrument of
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execution and torture into the Holy Cross that we all Catholic and Protestant venerate.
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He brought us a new covenant and a new law. He taught us about
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the Father, He described heaven. He promised to raise their decayed corpses from
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the dead. He even used clay and spit to heal the eyes of a
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blind man. He turned physical bread and wine into a spiritual body and blood.
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Truly, by his very existence in physical form, he sanctified the physical,
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and to this day preserves the bodies of certain saints from corruption. Maybe
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I'll don't know this, Maybe a lot of Protestants don't know this. Many
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of the saints who died, and one recently whose name escapes me, their
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bodies have been perfectly preserved from corruption. They haven't wrought it. They haven't
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them been mummified, They haven't anything like that. And you can go to
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the cathedrals of Europe and in many many places and see a saint who has
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been dead for five hundred years, and they smell of roses, because God
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sanctified their physical existence and did not let corruption come to his holy ones.
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As it says in the Bible. If God would not allow what was made
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in his image of dust and clay to suffer corruption, and left such saints
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for all Christians to witness and venerate, how can we condemn his work?
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If the church he founded and guaranteed against fearer encourages religious icons to inspire holiness,
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and the faithful who has the authority to question it? No, my
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Protestant friends, Catholics do not worship statues any more than a Protestant worships the
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picture of his parents. A picture of a saint is a picture of one
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of our family members through the family of God. Those graven images, which
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would include the Photographs of your parents sitting on your dresser, or your spouse
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hanging on the wall are also graven images. And when you look at them,
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you remember that person, and you're filled with love for that person.
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You remember their life, you remember the good things they did. You're inspired
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to live better, if for nothing more the hope that we diago to heaven
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and be with them again. So when you look at a picture of your
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family, you carry one around of your kids in your wallet, and you
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look at them and it fills you with love. You're not worshiping them,
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You're holding a graven image in your hand, and you're not violating the law
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of God in any way, shape or form. You're doing exactly what a
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Catholic does. When a Catholic looks at a picture of a saint, or
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stands or kneels before a crucifix with Jesus hanging on the cross, or to
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a lesser extent, a statue of the Blessed Virgin Mary or any other saint,
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any other important figure in Christian history, and just has a quiet moment
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and thinks about that person's life and what it means to them, showing honor
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to that person, which is what Veneration means ever worshiping the physical, never
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worshiping the statue or the person it represents. You're not worshiping that person.
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You're just honoring a holy person who lived a holy life, a friend of
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Jesus. And then you say a quiet prayer to someone who's more alive in
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heaven than we are, unearthed can and knows how our thoughts and seize our
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deeds, surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses, and you say,
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Saint, so and so, please pray for me, never once worshiping the
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statue, never once worshiping the Saint, never once worshiping the Angel, worshiping
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God alone in the way that he designed through his apostles, that it be
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done and was universally done for you know, well over a thousand years,
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almost fifteen hundred years, until you know Martin Luther began his heresies. So
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no, Catholics do not worship statues anymore than you're worshiping a picture of your
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child and your wallet, or a picture of your spouse on your desk,
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or a picture of your parent on the wall. You're just paying them veneration.
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And it's no more a graven image than a picture of your family,
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because we're all family. So y'all, in the words of Saint Padre Pia,
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pray, hope and don't worry and I will talk to you tomorrow