A Sign of Predilection or Idolatry?
That kind of thinking not only denies reality, of course, but is absurd; yet millions follow and pay mucho $$$ to support it.
The same is true of protest-ant admonitions against icons.
As we stated, there are many major differences when the Lord ended the Old Covenant and brought in the New.
In the Old Covenant, there was a definite prohibition against making any Images of God.
At the same time, it is anti-Scriptural for any protest-ant to tell us this prohibition included ANY icons as the Ark of the Covenant — designed under the Lord’s personal instructions — contains images of Angels! The key issue for the Lord was false images of false idols or gods, such as the “golden calf” that the Israelites made that so angered our Lord and through Him, Moses. (Let’s also remember in regard to images, that later, the Lord will allow images of bulls, etc., to be carved on Temple vessels.)
Why did the Lord allow for the image of Angels but not of Himself in the Old Covenant?
There was a real simple reason why the Lord did not permit it.
NO ONE KNEW WHAT HE LOOKED LIKE!
Even Moses, David and the great prophets never saw God.
Moses was granted the great gift of hearing and attending to God from the Burning Bush. But the great giver of the Law to the Israelites was only bathed in the Countenance of our Lord and, in the intensity of Holiness streaming from God, the face of Moses shown so brightly that he had to cover himself with a veil!
All that changed with the New Covenant.
The immediate moment that the Virgin brought forth the Child, the Face of our Lord was known to mankind!
In His Holiness, the Holy Child must have spent quite a bit of energy keeping a “low” profile so that not everyone (outside of Mary and Joseph) could see His signature halo of light because they were within His Presence!
The Image, Face and knowledge of what God looks like would never be taken away from mankind again. Even today — whether believer or unbeliever — anyone can recognize an Image of Jesus!
We’ll never forget the time we were giving a Shroud presentation and, as we normally do, showed a Byzantine icon from the 6th Century, asking who the Image represented. A 3-year-old held by their mother cried out, “That’s Jesus, mommy!”
How can this be?
How is it that mankind, even as a toddler, recognizes our Savior?
Let’s play the old protest-ant fallacy game and look for the answer in Scripture — because if it’s “not in the Bible” one should not believe in anything, as they claim, right?
So, what does the Gospel of John tell us about what our Lord looked like? Or for that matter, any of the Gospels, or any Scripture verse?
Does the Beloved Disciple tell us that Jesus had a beard, moustache, long hair, big eyes, or broad shoulders?
The answer is simply that the Gospels tell us NOTHING of what Jesus looks like.
How then do we know?
The answer comes from the enigmatic cloth we call today, the Shroud of Turin!
It has been proven scientifically that icon Images of Jesus from the Byzantine era match the Face on the cloth that came to rest in Italy in 1578.
But the cloth wasn’t always in Torino.
It began its journey at the site of the Crucifixion in Jerusalem, then was taken to northern Turkey by a Saint named Jude Thaddeus (a cousin who lived with our Lord and His Mother in Nazareth and became known as one of the “brothers” of Jesus)!
While early Christians knew what Jesus looked like and painted His Image in the Catacombs of Rome, once the Church was legalized and the underground places abandoned, people forgot how the Lord appeared. They began to make Images of Christ without a beard, no long hair, almost like apollo, the sun god!
But when the Byzantines rediscovered the Shroud in Edessa, Turkey (now known as Urfa and a moslem stronghold), the monks, basing their icons on the cloth’s Image, solidified our knowledge of the Face of Christ.
The rest, as they say, is history.
We know what Jesus looks like not from the Gospels, but from the Holy Face on the Shroud!
God had changed the Covenant.
(This is a point we see continually that most protest-ants just don’t get or, for some strange reason, seem to ignore! Maybe they think God should have consulted with them or sought their approval before He dared make such radical changes?!)
By specifically leaving the Image of His Holy Face at the moment of His Resurrection on His burial cloth, Jesus signaled the end of the prohibition against icons! For icons are nothing more than an Image.
And now, through the Lord’s Shroud, we would know and have the right Image to make icons depicting our Creator and God!
The creation now and forevermore knows what God looks like! (“Philip, he that seeth Me seeth the Father also” John 14:9.)
It would also give us, as believers, our best defense against “scientists” who depict us as beasts evolving from lower animals, such as apes and chimpanzees. We can be confident that we are made in the Image of God because Jesus proved it by taking on the countenance of His own creation!
When an “evolutionist” dies and leaves his face on his burial cloth that cannot be explained or duplicated by any scientific measures because this nerd has, as Jesus miraculously did, removed all the water and oxygen from certain minute parts of the linen that create an image while that person is dead and proves it by having their photo-like countenance conform to the correct anatomy of a body in rigor mortis in which this stiffened state of death disappears within 36 hours (which is less than 3 days!), we will then reconsider our position!
So what does all this have to do with the question we posed in the headline of this article?
Obviously, if the Lord Jesus Himself has left us His Image for us to contemplate and worship on His burial cloth, then icons of this Face and Body cannot constitute idolatry! For an “idolater” is one “who worships idols,” and an “idol” is a “false god.” Therefore, if one were to call a Catholic an “idolater” for kneeling down before an Image of Jesus, that person is then, in effect calling Jesus a “false god”!
We keep hammering on this web site that we truly are — in the most subtle ways around us — in a spiritual battle that is fought mostly in signs, symbols and words! And the misinterpretation of words, especially in neglect to their original or actual meaning, is leading many a soul on the wrong path!
People today do not stop to think anymore what the consequences are of what someone is saying to them or teaching. Like sheep who have gone astray, they accept the false and slanderous charge that icons — a Sacred Tradition of the Church since the Catacombs! — is idolatry! The biblical idiots who teach this nonsense then tell us how the Church was corrupted early on because they have no choice other than to make these wild statements! Yet, not one of these “biblical experts” has ever faced the martyrdom of the Christians who drew the Image of Christ on the walls of the Catacombs! (The earliest known Image of Christ drawn on the walls in the Catacombs that conforms to the Face we see on the Shroud today is from 92 A.D.!)
At the same time, the world accepts images of other “idols,” feeding them for large sums of $$$ to our children. Many of these images, as we all know, are full of evil, whether in the movies, music or, most especially, in video games. Yet, the cry does not go out to remove these idolatrous images from our society; but, instead, the world (guess who’s behind this!) seeks to remove the ones that depict God, His Mother and His friends!
Worse yet, we have those within our own Church, such as Los Angeles Cardinal Roger Mahony, who recently took great pride that his cathedral has been granted a nameplate among others in St. Peter’s — not because of its beauty, but because of its size! Yet, the image he presents to the world of Mary, as one reader of our web site described it an e-mail to us, makes our Queen look “gay”! For us, that is the opposite of an icon; something we would call a “blasphemicon” (or, perhaps, just a “con” job as the “teflon” cardinal is so well known for)!
In fact, the Los Angeles Times, in describing this statue said in a bold headline that this “statue” of Mary was “made in our image”! In other words, not in Mary’s Image, but in the image of the common person — not the Immaculata! This is just why we believe the Lord did NOT permit icons in the Old Covenant. For the Image of our God and Mother was unknown and He did not want mankind to make false representations of the King and Queen of Heaven and Earth. For the evil one was constantly deceiving mankind through the pagan gods and goddesses that were nothing more than a substitute for the one true God and His Holy Mother!
And today, what do we have? A “prince” of the Church not presenting the known Image of Mary as a Queen to the world, but an image which represents anyone (or one that even offends the sensibilities of many a Catholic)!
And that brings us to the other part of our headline question. If true icons of Jesus and Mary do not constitute idolatry when they are properly used by believers, are they then a sign of predilection?
To answer this, it is interesting to note the root meanings of this word.
In Latin, this word stems from “diligere,” which translates to “esteem” and “love” something. From it, we also get the world “diligent,” which, of course, means to give “persistent application to one’s work” and “careful attention.” This is marked by “painstaking efforts,” especially to “persevere.”
When we speak of “predilection,” one is stating, according to the dictionary, an “emotional response” that is in “favor of something.”
Thus, we have a great predilection for the Holy Face on the Shroud of Turin.
We have an “esteem” and “love” for the Countenance of our Lord’s Passion in this miraculous Image.
In our “persistent application” of our work — which is to pray, pray and pray some more in worship, thanksgiving and pleading for souls — we give “careful attention” in what are our “painstaking efforts” since the hardest job on this planet is to PRAY THE ROSARY! We do not say that irreverently, but in honesty! How many people truly want to get on their knees, contemplate the Holy Face of Jesus and say the Rosary?!
Wouldn’t it be more fun to be in front of the TV, going out to dinner or shopping?
But that is NOT our work.
In fact, that is NOT the work of ANY human being. That is simply pleasure.
In fact, it is the JOB of every human being to contemplate the Holy Face of Christ and pray the Rosary! The work of every soul that truly wishes to be in Heaven.
And our rewards or punishments will be based on how best we did that job while we were alive on Earth when we meet the Master who gave us our talents. Did we multiply them for Him? Or did we hide them in the ground knowing He is a stern Taskmaster? (see Matthew 25:14-30.)
This brings us to our most critical observation on Images of Jesus and Mary, for surely now we can hear the rabble of protest-ants doing what they do best: which is to protest. As the predictable protest-ors that they are, we can imagine that their retort to our comments would go along the lines that we may have been able to justify Images of Christ, but surely there is no justification for Images of His Mother and the bowing down Catholics ritually do before Her.
We do not have the space here to go into the incredible symbolism and enigmas of the Image of Our Lady of Guadalupe, but suffice it to say that as the Lord has left us His Image on the Shroud, He has also left us Mary’s Image on the tilma of St. Juan Diego!
And, as any true believer knows, the first Images of Mary — which conform to the Image on the tilma — were painted by none other than the Gospel writer Luke. A man who personally knew Mary. Indeed, the Byzantines kept one of these paintings by the Apostle Paul’s friend in Hagia Sophia, the greatest Church built in the 1st Millennium! Known as Our Lady of Victory (Madonna Nicopeia in Greek), the Image of the Mother and Child was renowned throughout Christendom for the success which was granted to the armies of the Christian Roman emperor when the icon was brought to the battlefield.
Today, the icon can be found in St. Mark’s Basilica in Venice, Italy; stolen from the Byzantines during the sacking of Constantinople in 1204 A.D. — the same Crusade (the fourth) in which the knights of the West also stole and brought to Europe the cloth the Byzantines called the “Mandylion” — and which we call today the Shroud of Turin!
And therein lies an incredible lesson — not only the importance of icons in our spiritual growth as believers, but also in their blessedness to protect those who honor them!
For it was not until after the Greek and Latin Church split in 1054 — over a dispute involving the authority of the Bishop of Rome — that the Lord later permitted these two great treasures to be removed from His political capital and brought to the nation that was home to His spiritual capital.
Today, Constantinople in its glory no longer exists. It is known as Istanbul.
For those in our world of “ecumenism” that becomes more and more protest-ant as each year passes since Vatican II, there is one last important concept for us as believers to understand.
When one rejects Images of Jesus and Mary, one is not only rejecting the Image — whether under the false precept of “idolatry” or some other such nonsense — but one is also rejecting their immediate entrance into Heaven!
How so?
Easy.
WHAT DOES ANYONE THINK WE ARE GOING TO SEE WHEN (and if) WE GET TO HEAVEN?!
There is only one answer: we will see Jesus and Mary!
The Lord will be omnipresent!
If you don’t like looking at His Holy Face now, how can you expect to be able to do so when you get to Heaven?
If you think the Lord isn’t noticing that you are rejecting Images of Him — albeit they cannot come anywhere close to His true heavenly glory — how does anyone think Jesus is going to welcome you with open arms to His Home?!
If you think that to honor Mary in Her Images is “idolatry,” how are you going to be let into the “pearly gates” where even the Angels bow down and honor Mary in Her beauty and praise Her Immaculate Conception?!
If you think the Eternal Father is going to understand that you were concerned that the Corpus (Body for those Vatican II followers who object to Latin!) of Christ on a Cross amounts to “idolatry,” or doesn’t represent the “new” Catholic thinking of “standing” with the Risen Christ, you are going to be in for a big shock!
If you think the Holy Spirit is going to welcome you into the Kingdom where He loves to be One within the Heart of His Spouse, the Ever-Virgin Mary, who you refuse to acknowledge before Her icons on Earth, you are going to be rudely thrown into jail (Purgatory or worse)!
If you think when you see someone on Earth bowing down before icons of Jesus and Mary that they are “nuts,” you are proving to God what kind of attitude you will have in His House where EVERYONE bows down to the King and His Mother!
We don’t know about you, but quite frankly people don’t get into our house when they dishonor our spouse, our mother or make fun of or complain about images of our family.
It’s just that simple.
It’s just that realistic.
We must all comprehend that the Lord in His New Covenant has given us Images of Himself and His Mother as a TEST of our hearts and minds.
Those who reject these Images on Earth are not going to be well-received in Heaven.
They cannot.
For these people are showing they have no “predilection” for Jesus and Mary. No “esteem”; no “love,” no “persistent application” to their work, and they did not “persevere,” despite a 2,000-year legacy of Christianity.
And, again, please don’t just take our word for it.
Ask yourself this: which Saint in the 2,000-year history of the Church — both East AND West — was an iconoclast?
The answer, of course, is none.
Unlike today’s protest-ants and secularists, the Saints SURROUNDED themselves with Images of Jesus and Mary!
And if there is anything we can be assured of, there are NO iconoclasts in Heaven, no matter what religion they may espouse (not without, at the very least, if the Lord so chooses in His Mercy, a long jail time that culminates in no eternal reward)!
We don’t know about others, but after reviewing 2,000 years of evidence and the straightforward facts regarding the Images on the Shroud and Juan Diego’s tilma,
we’re sure the veneration and honor of icons depicting Images of Jesus and Mary are — like the Rosary and Divine Mercy chaplet — signs of predilection as to where a soul is headed for in Eternity!
© 2003 Agnus Dei Presents!
cannot be hidden from God
by the individual.
is from the middle of the
6th Century. Yet, scientific research proves this Image matches the Face we see today on the Shroud of Turin!
