Pilgrimage...... please explain

martinedwards wrote: »

yet.

I guess it's the veneration of saints that's giving me the trouble.


but we are told in the bible by none less than Jesus himself that the believers (ie US) will do even greater miracles than he himself did...... so surely we should be striving for these gifts rather than traipsing off halfway round the world to see a relic of dubious authenticity that another believer long ago used.....

and the idea of keeping st Kylie's toenails, tonsils and breast milk? sorry, but I just REALLY don't understand that one......

I dunno, I think its the veneration of these places and items that worries me... is worries the right word? confuses, might be better.....

?

A lot of these Catholic distinctives have there basis in the incarnation.

We follow the pattern set by jesus - god is not content to remain invisible to us but God becomes man so that in Jesus we have the image of the invisible God made visible. Col 1:15

There is a prayer in the mass which I think helps... we pray to the father, that He 'may see and love in us what (He) sees and loves in Him (Christ).

In other words, we know that when we are in Chirst, The FAther sees in us the image of his beloved son, whose members we are.

Similarly, the Saints are attractive to us because they, being close to God, allow something of the invisible nature of God shine out into the world. Think of how we see in Mother Teresa something of the compassion of God, or in Gordon Wilson something of the forgiveness of God, and so on. When we venerate the saints, we are really praising God. Just as we learn in living our own Christian life that all good in us comes from God (I know of nothing good living in me Romans 7:18 / It is no longer i who live but christ living in me Galatians 2:20) so it is in the lives of the saints we venerate, by honouring them, we are in fact honouring the work of God in them.

You i am sure are comfortable with looking at nature and seeing in it the glory of God expressed (see Psalm 104) but in Genesis 1, hen God creates the world and then mankind, he looks at the rest of the world and says it is good, but looks at man as says 'very good'.
now what can be more good for nature than that by being whatever it was created to be...sun moon stars, creatures etc, their existence gives glory to god; in the same way our human existance has as its purpose not our own glory but the glory of God. The way we do that is different to say a tree, a tree just has to be a tree to give god glory, but for humans we must be morally good, that involves our free will and the choices we make etc. (Sorry i know you know all this , being a Christian)

Anyway, the bottom line is that in venerating (not worshipping) the saints we are in fact honouring God, who has made them holy, not thinking they have done something in their own strength.

Maybe it would help to realise that worship (to declare the worth of, to praise) for Catholics is two different things. For most protestants it is one thing, and so, (rightly) it is uncomfortable to feel you are worshipping God and worshipping a human being, no matter how good that human being might be.

But for Catholics, there is latria - worship which is offered to God, and dulia honour which is given to saints.
Latria means worship with sacrifice. We only offer sacrifice to God - it is utterly forbidden to worship any human being, even a saint or mary in this way, as this is the way we worship god alone.

Dulia is honour, but not with sacrifice. It follows the old testament tradition given in Sirach:

Sirach 44:1, 10-15
1 Next let us praise illustrious men, our ancestors in their successive generations.
10 But here is a list of illustrious men whose good works have not been forgotten.
11 In their descendants they find a rich inheritance, their posterity.
12 Their descendants stand by the commandments and, thanks to them, so do their children's children.
13 Their offspring will last for ever, their glory will not fade.
14 Their bodies have been buried in peace, and their name lives on for all generations.
15 The peoples will proclaim their wisdom, the assembly will celebrate their praises.

Now the old testament contains only shadows of what is in the new Covenant - in the NT the illustrious men to be praised are those who have come to God through Jesus the lamb

Heb.10

B]1[/B For since the law has but a shadow of the good things to come instead of the true form of these realities, it can never, by the same sacrifices which are continually offered year after year, make perfect those who draw near.


Revelation 7:14 I answered, "Sir, you know." And he said, "These are they who have come out of the great tribulation; they have washed their robes and made them white in the blood of the Lamb.

REvelation 22:14 "Blessed are those who wash their robes, that they may have the right to the tree of life and may go through the gates into the city.

nonetheless, if those who in the ot were just and good are to be remembered and honoured, how much more in the fullness of the new covenant are those who are made righteous by the work of Christ to be remembered and honoured?

Would it make sense that those, who are righteous in Christ would be honoured less than those who were righteous under the law, when the law itself was only a preparation for Christ?

Similarly - in the OT we see the bones of good men being honoured (Josephs bones are carried out from egypt) and even working miracles (Elisha's bones bring a dead man back to life). So in the new testament, we see that the bodies of the saints, made holy by God, continue to link us to the power of God, not in some magical way, but simply because the person whose bones they are is in communion with God. (Our bodies do not stop being 'ours' even after death, we await the resurrection of the dead when we will be reunited with these same bodies, which will also be glorified as Christ had the same body which was put in the tomb, but after the resurrection it was new in some mysterious way (walking through locked doors for example)