IX Conclusion
Now we reach the end. Using a battery of Scripture texts, CRI concludes that “biblically, all prayer, glory, and devotion belong to God and to his Son, Jesus Christ [and not to Mary and other saints].”(Elliott Miller, “The Mary of Roman Catholicism,” Christian Research Journal, Fall 1990, 33. The first part of Miller’s article appeared in the Summer 1990 issue. In these notes the two parts are referred to as Part 1 and Part 2. The articles represent the position of the Christian Research Institute.) I list the objections here with CRI’s scriptural texts and with comments:
1. God commands that he alone be worshiped (Luke 4:8).
Both verbs in this text (latreuein and proskynein) refer to latria, the worship due to God alone. It says nothing about dulia and hyperdulia, which are given to saints and to our Lady. CRI’s objection is irrelevant. It begs the question.
2. The apostles refused reverential treatment reserved for God alone (Acts 10:25-26, 14:11-15).
Acts 14:11-15 shows a crowd of pagans attempting to offer an animal sacrifice to Paul and Barnabas, whom they took to be gods. The apostles rightly rejected the “honor,” which was idolatrous worship. But 10:25-26 shows a Roman soldier kneeling before Peter to do him homage (proskynein, an all-purpose verb, unlike the specific latreuein, which is not used here.) It would be difficult to prove anything more than fulsome praise on the part of the Roman soldier, which an embarrassed Peter declined out of humility. Neither passage has any bearing upon devotion to our Lady and the saints. In any case, Peter, Paul, and Barnabas were not then in heaven, so these two passages are also irrelevant to our present discussion.
3. Even angels refuse worship; all angels and men are on an equal footing before God (Rev. 22:8-9, 1 Cor. 1:29).
Notice the straw man CRI sets up: Angels refuse worship, hence men (including dead men in heaven) refuse worship, hence Catholics are wrong to worship the saints. Notice how “worship” is insinuated into the argument? The real issue, which CRI skirts, is whether God’s creatures can be honored, not whether they can be worshiped. Let’s look at the verses CRI cites.
The author of Revelation, John, reports that he had a kind of fainting spell and later made two prostrations (1:17, 19:10, 22:8-9). In 1:17, he fell at Jesus’ feet. Jesus showed favor and blessed him by touching him with his right hand. In the other two passages, John fell at the feet of an angel who rejects his gesture and tells him to worship God. What is the meaning of these events?
One of the author’s purposes in Revelation was to refute gnosticism, a dangerous heresy which taught that matter was hopelessly evil, so that men (partly material because of their bodies) could not hope to be in touch with God, the utterly pure. But between God and us, the gnostics taught, there are a host of demiurges, neither human nor divine, much less pure than God, but still greater than men. These were identified by “Christian” gnostics with the angels. We should worship these demiurges since it is impossible for us to be in contact with God. Christ was one of these demiurges, the gnostics saying that he was not God and that he had only a phantom body. He was neither man nor God.
John was interested in affirming the divinity of Christ. The fainting fit of 1:17 and the blessing and affirmation of 1:18, taken with the worship of the Lamb in 5:6-14, emphasize the divinity of Christ, denying the gnostic doctrine that Christ is a demiurge, neither God nor man. John is teaching us here that we can worship God in and through Christ.
John denied that we should worship demiurges instead of God, as the gnostics taught. The heresy that angels and Christ are demiurges and are to be worshiped as such is thus rejected. Rather, angels are angels and do not receive worship. Christ is both man and God, and does receive worship. The three texts do not deal with and have no bearing upon our love of and friendship with our Lady and the other saints and angels.
Out of Context, Again
The other verse used by CRI is 1 Corinthians 1:29 and is used to illustrate this statement: “Even angels emphatically refuse worship, insisting that all angels and men are on an equal footing of humility before God.”(Ibid.) But the text has nothing to say about angels at all nor about anybody’s “equal footing.” Verse 29 needs to be read in its context (1:26-31), as all Scripture does.
The passage is about our calling, by which God “called [us] out of darkness into his wonderful light” (1 Pet. 2:9). This calling does not depend upon any natural endowments of ours, upon worldly wisdom or prestige or nobility of birth. Quite the contrary–God has called the foolish and the weak and the lowly. Why? So that it may be evident that our being in Christ is entirely God’s doing. As a result, Christ is free to endow us with his own “wisdom from God, as well as righteousness, sanctification, and redemption” (1Cor. 1:30). Although no flesh (no mere human being prior to his calling in Christ) may boast before God (v. 29) because of purely human (v. 26, “fleshly” in Greek) endowments, we must boast in (what we have received from) the Lord (v. 31).
The saints in heaven must boast in the Lord more than any of us, because they are the people of the ten golden coins, who have worked to gain ten more (Luke 19:16-17). They have proved themselves good soil, which from the sowing of the Word produces a hundredfold harvest (Mark 4:8, 20). 1 Corinthians 1:2~31 is, in fact, a foundation text which validates our special regard (duliaand hyperdulia) for the saints and Mary, God’s special friends and his Mother.
4. God “makes it clear that no created being will glory before him–he will share his glory with no one” (Is. 42:8).(Ibid.)
The text from Isaiah reads: “I am the Lord, this is my name; my glory I give to no other, nor my praise to idols.” God will not tolerate competition–he is the only God. Isaiah 42:8 is a rejection of polytheism, which would make the God of Israel only one figure in a vast pantheon.
No, It Is not “Clear”
But is it “clear,” as CRI asserts, that God will share his glory with no one? To be sure, there is a divine glory which is the very essence of God, which is himself, that he can share with no created being. Nobody but God can be God. But, in a limited way, God does share his glory by sharing his nature with his adopted children, the brothers and sisters of his firstborn Son (Rom. 8:29). This is the teaching of 2 Peter 1:3-4: “His divine power has bestowed on us everything that makes for life and devotion, through the knowledge of him who called us by his own glory and power. Through these he has bestowed on us the precious and very great promises, so that through them you may come to share in the divine nature.” This sharing in God’s nature makes us a new creation (2 Cor. 5:17).
Scripture teaches that God bestows this glory of his on his children: “For a sun and a shield is the Lord God; grace and glory he bestows” (Ps.84:12); “Then Jerusalem shall be my joy, my praise, my glory” (Jer. 33:9); “I will put my salvation within Zion, and give my glory to Israel.” (Is. 46:13), Christ’s Church, therefore, receives his salvation and glory, because the Church is the new Jerusalem, the new Israel (Gal. 6:16; Rev. 21:2, 21:12, 3:12).
We are now in glory, and we are destined for glory. The texts which witness to this are so numerous, I shall list only some in a footnote,(Romans 2:6-7, 10, 8:18; 1 Cor. 2:7; 2 Cor. 3:18, 4:17; Col. 1:27, 3:1-4;, 2 Thess. 1:11-12;, 2 Thess. 2:14; 2 Tim. 2:10; Heb. 2:9-10; 1 Pet. 1:7, 5:4.) so as not to delay the reader here. But I would say to anyone who thinks that God is not going to share his glory with us, his children, his saints, well, as Eliza Doolittle sings, “Just you wite!” God’s whole plan of salvation involves his sharing his glory with his redeemed and adopted children.
We praise and venerate the saints in heaven, praying to them, praying with them to the Father through Christ in the Spirit, thanking God who prepares us to share in the inheritance of the saints in light (Col. 1:12). Our devotion to Mary, God’s Mother and ours, and to our brothers and sisters, the saints, is all the more solid, humble, and grateful because we know that even the holiest and most fervent Christians on earth cannot possibly honor them as much as God has already honored them.
Diminishing Christ?
CRI finally returns to the charge that devotion to Mary and the other saints somehow diminishes Christ. Neither the Bible nor twenty centuries of Christian experience uphold that accusation. Not only do Mary and the saints receive all they have from Christ, but Christ is no miser. Whatever we see him doing, we see him associating his members in his work.
He is our unique judge (John 5:22, 27, 2 Tim. 4:1, Jas. 4:12, 1 Pet. 4:5), but Scripture teaches that Christ’s disciples will share his work of judgment (Matt. 19:28, 1 Cor. 6:2-3). He is the Church’s one foundation (1 Cor. 3:11), but Christ shares this dignity with Peter (Matt. 16:18) and with the apostles and prophets (Eph. 2:19-20, Rev. 21:14). Christ is our King (Dan. 7:13-14), but his disciples will rule with him (7:27). He does not diminish his kingly power by sharing it; rather, he manifests it to God’s glory. Christ is our High Priest, offering himself, the Lamb of God, as the one perfect sacrifice for sins (Heb. 2:17, 3:1, 4:14f., 5:8-10, 7:26f., 8:1, 9:11-28). Yet we share his priesthood, offering spiritual sacrifices in union with him (Rom. 12:1, 15:16; Heb. 13:15-16; l Pet. 2:5-9; Rev. 1:6, 5:10, 20:6). Our sharing in his priesthood does not diminish him. Indeed, we have become his partners (Heb. 3:14).
“What a Beautiful Saint!”
We are taught that every member of Christ’s Body needs every other member (1 Cor. 12:12-26). The pity is that for the past five hundred years, some Christians have been saying to Mary and the other saints in heaven, “We don’t need you, and we don’t want you.” Any way you slice that, it is unbiblical and it is wrong.
A Mexican-American girl, a senior at the university where I work, last year traveled around Europe by train. She kept in her backpack a copy of The Story of a Soul, the autobiography of Therese of Lisieux, given her by one of her boyfriends. In her journal of the trip she wrote these words about the effect the saint had on her:
“What a beautiful saint! I love her. Sometimes in reading about her relationship with God, I could really relate. I know that I love God more than fear him, because I know he loves me. When Therese said that sometimes she felt like a little child who just wanted to hide her face in the embrace of Jesus, my soul leaped. I feel like that so often, especially now that I’m traveling on my own. But Therese has given me strength in knowing that God will always guide me and protect me because he loves me as his own little girl–much more than my parents could ever love me–and that’s so much that I can’t even conceive it. It makes me so happy to think about it, though, that I just feel my chest getting heavy and my eyes fill with tears of joy. I love God.”
This young woman, just one generation away from Mexico, knows what many millions of Catholics everywhere have known for twenty centuries: Our Lady and the saints bring us more powerfully and more surely to God and to Jesus our Savior than we could come without their aid. That is their divine calling in heaven. God works through them, and most of all through Mary. We are never left on our own. They are members with us of Christ’s Body, the Church, ready to help us, whether we know them or not but especially ready when we are aware of them and call on them for help. “Therefore, since we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses, let us rid ourselves of every burden and sin that clings to us, and persevere in running the race that lies before us while keeping our eyes fixed on Jesus, the leader and perfecter of faith” (Heb. 12:1-2).
I reassure anyone who cares: Devotion to Mary brings us closer to Christ and does the job more quickly than ignoring her does. As Luther once said (on another subject, but I love his style), “If you do not want to believe it, then don’t. The loss will be yours.”(Luther’s Works, 23:83.)