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.

Genuflection

Another sign used by Catholics is genuflection, which consists of touching the right knee to the floor while bending the left knee. The sign of the cross is made during genuflection. Catholics only do this in the presense of the Holy Eucharist. Catholics believe the Eucharist is the actual body and blood of Christ, so they show the ultimate form of respect by genuflecting or kneeling before him. The Holy Eucharist is usually kept in a large metal container known as a tabernacle. Sometimes, it may be displayed behind glass in a gold container known as a monstrance.

The Sign of the Cross

The most common gesture used by Catholics is the sign of the cross. Latin (Western) Catholics make the sign by using their right hand to touch the forehead, the breast, and then the left and right shoulders. As they do this, they say "In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, Amen." This one, long gesture makes a cross with the intersection of the vertical line from forehead to chest and the horizontal line between shoulders.

Byzantine Catholics make a similar sign, but they go from right to left on the shoulders. Byzantine Catholics are former Eastern Orthodox Christians who split from the Church in 1054, but returned into communion in the 17th century when they accepted the authority of the Bishop of Rome as Pope. This group includes: Ruthenian, Ukranian, and Greek Catholics, along with the Melkite, Romanian, and Italo-Albanian Byzantine Churches. Eastern Catholics also include Maronite, Coptic, and Chaldean Catholic Churches, also in communion with Rome.

More importantly, the sign of the cross symbolically reminds Catholics of two essential Christian doctrines: the Holy Trinity (Father, Son, and Holy Spirit) and humankind's salvation through Christ's death.

Sunday Off-Topic: Avoiding Extremes

Every Introduction course always has its off-topic tangents, and Catholicism 101 is no different. On Sundays, we'll delve into some aspects of Catholicism that we might not otherwise get to. These areas are kind of up to my whim, but they will usually focus on unusual parts of Catholicism.

The Catholic Church tries to avoid two extremes when it comes to Jesus's life. The first is seeing Jesus as merely the greatest human who ever lived. Catholicism teaches that Jesus wasn't adopted by God because of his actions, but was always (and always will be) the Son of God. Christians are "adopted" by their baptism. Catholics believe they are born as humans, then adopted by God through Baptism. However, they believe Jesus was always divine and always the Son of God. His human side has a beginning, just like ours, at the Annunciation (when Gabriel announced to Mary that she would have a son), but his divine nature is eternal.

The other extreme is seeing Jesus as some sort of hero. Some scholars try to make Jesus out as the hero of humankind. Heroes are those who go first so others can follow. For example, Sir Isaac Newton discovered the laws of gravity, but he didn't have to be. Someone else could have come along later and done the same thing. Catholicism teaches that no one else could ever repeat what Jesus did (save the human race through his sacrifice). Only Jesus, the God-Man could pull it off, since he's the only person to have been both human and divine.

In the eyes of the Church, overemphasizing Jesus's humanity to the detriment of his divinity is just as bad as downplaying his humanity to exalt his divinity.

Worshipping

The most noticeable aspect of Catholicism and yet its most mysterious is the method of worship, which is filled with ancient rituals and rites. Catholic Mass is centered around the idea that humankind is situated between the material and spiritual world. In other words, humans interact in the material world with their body, and in the spiritual world through divine grace in their soul. The way that Catholics worship (burning incense, using symbols, standing, etc.,)centers on this dynamic relationship between material and spiritual worlds.

Christians believe that a human being consists of a body and a soul; both are created by God and are therefore good. In addition to this, the connection between the two is absolutely necessary, since Jesus had a human body and soul united to his divine nature. Catholic worship expounds on this relationship between body and soul- the material and spiritual world. That's why the entire person is engaged in Mass ritual.

Rites are the necessary words, actions, and gestures of a religious ceremony. For example, the Rites of Baptism and the Rite of Christian Marriage are the exact words spoken and actions performed for these two sacraments.

Rituals are the established forms for rites. They detail the order and means for proper celebration of the rites. An example of this is the Roman Ritual, which is the book used by priests and deacons when they celebrate the rites. It instructs on the necessary materials, the sequence of events, and states what the words and actions should be. The Ritual used to be only one volume, but now consists of individual editions for each sacrament (one for marriages, another for baptisms, and so on).

During the Mass, words are spoken, heard, or read. Bodies stand, sit and kneel. Physical symbols, such as baptismal water or annointing oil, are used for the senses. These outward symbols are used to remind the faithful of the invisible action of divine grace entering their souls.