Sensing God Through Sight: Depicting God

The Catholic worship combines all of the five senses: sight, touch, smell, hearing, and taste. Catholics believe that divine grace entering the soul cannot be detected by our human senses. Since this is the case, the Church uses external symbols for the human body to detect, while the soul actually receives the grace.

Most people rely on sight more than any other sense. From the words you read, to the images you examine, the ability to see visually is important for human knowledge. Catholicism teaches that God (the Father) has no human body. He is a pure spirit, meaning that He is totally inivisible. But since sight is such an important human trait, people have felt the need to represent God somehow, to create a visible symbol for an invisible being. One problem is that the First Commandment forbids the use of graven images, which are objects of worship, or idols.

Pagans, such as the ancient Babylonians, Egyptians, and Romans, had multiple gods and goddesses, which were represented in stone or metal and worshipped. The Hebrews were one of the few ancient cultures to have a monotheistic religion, meaning they worshipped only one deity. Although their pagan counterparts had numerous temples and idols for worship, the Jews were forbidden from making an image of God. From Abraham to Moses, no one even knew the name "God." He was referred to as "the nameless One." This invisible, imageless, and nameless deity was different than other cultures'. Invoking the name or possessing an image of a god gave the believer some sort of influence over the deity. However, the one true God had no name and could not be depicted by any imagery.

Once paganism died out and the Roman Empire embraced Christianity, the danger of distorting God disappeared. Once God took on the human nature of Jesus (the theory goes), he possessed a real body and had a real name. The fear of using graven imagery thus disappeared in Christian culture. God, Jesus, and the Holy Spirit are usually represented in a consistent manner.

God the Father: Usually depicted as an old man with a long beard, which can be traced to early European Christians. In modern art, however, God is also portrayed as an Asian, or an African. Since He is a spirit, the reasoning goes, why should he only be portrayed as a Caucasian?

Jesus: Had a face, but there are no contemporary images that artists can use. Artists have used their own creativity in drawing Christ.

God the Holy Spirit: Usually portrayed as a dove, because the Bible speaks of a dove descending on Jesus at his Baptism.

Today, you can see God portrayed in paintings, as well as on stained glass. Michelangelo's Creation of Adam is probably the most famous portrayal of God.

Holy Water

Holy water is a sacramental, a religuous object created by the Catholic Church as opposed to those instituted by Jesus himself. Helpful but optional, sacramentals are viewed as inferior to the seven sacraments, which are seen as necessary in order to receive grace from God. Sacraments give the recipient a special grace necessary to fulfill the corresponding sacrament, but sacramentals offer a different sort of grace, depending on the recipient's demeanor. In other words, sacraments give grace regardless of the spiritual state of the recipient. For example, a groom who is in the state of mortal sin can still be legitimately married. However, a groom with mortal sin on his soul will not receive any grace from the blessing given by the priest to the newlyweds. As an analogy, think of sacraments as food for the soul and sacramentals as supplemental vitamins.

Holy water (water blessed by a member of the clergy) is the most widely-used sacramental. Holy water is often depicted in pop culture as being used to drive out demons, and it can be used for that purpose by the Church on rare occasions. Usually, however, it's used as a symbolic reminder of Baptism. Whenever they enter or leave a church, Catholics will dip their right hands (usually two fingers) into a font, which is a bowl of holy water that's near the door to the church. They will then make the sign of the cross with that hand, touching their forehead, chest, and shoulders. This is a visible reminder that the person is entering the House of God.

Holy water is also occasionally sprinkled on the congregation whenever a priest chooses to do so instead of performing the Penitential Rite, which would otherwise occur at that point. Individual Catholics also take small quantities of water to fill their own fonts at home. They will bless themselves whenever they leave their house.

Anytime a priest blesses a religious article (such as a rosary), he will sprinkle holy water onto the object after saying a prayer of blessing. The holy water reminds the owner that the object is now reserved only for sacred use and cannot be used for any profane (nonreligious) purposes. In case you were wondering, holy water is blessed when Baptisms are celebrated in the Church, particularly during the Easter vigil, which takes place the Saturday night before Easter Sunday. However, it can be blessed any time of year when the quantity runs out.

Crucifix

The crucifix is a cross bearing an image of Jesus being crucified. Protestants usually use a cross with no corpus (Latin for body) of Jesus attached. The graphic nature of the crucifix appeared in the Western Church to remind Christians that Jesus was true man as well as true God, and that his suffering and death were very real and extremely painful. The crucifix serves as a reminder of the high price paid for humankind's sins and is meant to inspire believers to repent their sins and be grateful for their salvation, which was made possible by Jesus's death on the cross.