Bingo!

While reading through all these back and forth responses I am getting an education that cannot be bought, I thank you all very, very much for this gift.

All I'm doing AD is responding to Lula's posting above in #102 and #104. I didn't start this.   I'm just not giving her a free pass here. 

Even the Angels in scripture said to "get up" when one tried to bow before them.  Read how John tried to do that at the end of Revelation.  I believe the same with Daniel.  When someone tried to bow before Peter, he said "get up I'm just a man."  The only kneeling to worship should be in the presence of our Lord.  Not a Mary, Saint or Jesus Statue or icon for that matter. 

We shouldn't be bowing before any objects in any form of adulation or adoration.  Jesus taught us how to pray in Matthew Chap 6.  Maybe we should all read this tonight for a refresher. 

you're welcome MM.  Feel free to ask us questions if you need to, afterall it's your blog....heh!

If I may ask AD.  Where does this tradition come from? 

There is a general tendency to make God out of whatever makes you comfortable. As long as I am comfortable, says the common man, I will let Him be God.

KFC POSTS:

I sure do know what the Catechism is all about... teaching the one true deposit of faith of Christ...the same one that St. Paul received and kept. 2Tim 4:7. By reading and studying it, I'm undergoing a learning experience, hopefully growing every day more and more in knowledge of the faith.  

I know from reading the Church Fathers that the first Christians used images and icons (pictures). The Catacombs were full of Christian art that when the persecution ended found its way into the early Churches and thus arose the present day practice of honoring  Our Lord, His Mother and the Saints through having art, icons and images. What I'm saying is when Catholics kneel and pray, they aren't worshipping them. The real attitude is explained in the decrees of the Council of Trent, "The images of Christ and the Virgin Mother and of the other Saints, are to be had and kept, especially in Churches, and due honor and veneration are to be given them; not that any divinity or virtue is believed to be in them, ..or that anything is to be asked of them or that trust is to be reposed in images, as was done of old by Gentiles who placed their hope in idols, but becasue the honor which is shown them is referred to those whom the images represent...in such wise we adore Christ, and we venerate the Saints whose likeness they bear."

So, the statues, icons, (pictures) and images in Catholic Chruches, are given honor, not for what they are in themselves, but for what they represent.

You have "set free" from the fullness of Christian religious truth which is found only in the CC, the very one which Christ Himself established, even though St.Paul commands Christians to 'stand fast, and hold the traditions, which you have learned, whether by word, or by our epistle." So from this passage, it appears that the living tradition of having art and images in the early Church are quite within Apostolic teaching. It teaches that traditions are to be "held" as a part of the Apostolic deposit of faith. You set yourself free of Apostolic traditions and picked up Sola Scriptura and Sola Fides, inventions of the 1500s by Fathers of Protestantism....who, unilke St. Paul, left the faith.....but whatever.

If I kiss a photo of my mom, am I honoring a piece of paper or is it a tribute of love and devotion offered to her? Catholics honor images, icons, and statues in the Church only in so far as they remind us of God, of Christ, Our Blessed Lady or of the Saints in Heaven.  Every Catholic Church in both the Eastern and Roman rites have a Crucifix on the altar becasue it stands for Christ and His sufferings of our behalf. I'm sure when these young girls went inside a Baptist Chruch the bare walls, bare table, and absence of a Crucifix was noticeable to them.

Your mistake, KFC, is that you have tried to judge interior dispositions from exterior conduct.   

KFC POSTS:

Ever heard of the saying, you strain at a gnat and swallow a camel? Or Pres. reagan's saying, here we go again, confusing the legitimate bow or kneeling with the sin of idolatry. This is the bad fruit of your private interpretation of Scripture.

Note what I highlighted...and then re-read my post 102.....

In every Catholic Chruch, on the altar and near the Tabernacle where the Holy Eucharist is kept, there is a sanctuary lamp is perpetually lit indicating God's presence. When the priest utters the words of consecration, he finds himself in the immediate presence of Christ-in fact he's touching him physically in the Sacred Host. After elevating the Host, he genuflects or bows deeply in public adoration. The Holy Mass is the closest thing to being in Heaven on earth as Christ enters time.  

This is a story that appeared in the Wanderer newspaper Sept. 29, 2005.

"During the homily, the priest told an interesting story of Pope John Paul II's visit to the Baltimore area in 1995. The Pope was scheduled for a quick trip by the local seminary. But even though it was not scheduled, he wanted to go in and pray at the chapel. So a security team and the German Shepherd canine unit that was especially trained to find human beings-using their superior sense of smell (like the ones used after the Sept. 11 attack to find people in the rubble)---were sent to search for people in various rooms. They searched the halls and rooms and found no one, and then were sent into the chapel where the Pope intended to pray. They sniffed in all the aisles and then came to the Tabernacle which held the consecrated Hosts. The dogs sniffed pointed, indicating that they sensed a human being present in the Holy Tabernacle and would not leave until the handlers called them off. This was witnessed by over ten security people."

Of kneeling in Mass, Pope Benedict said, "The kneeling of Christians is not a form of inculturation into existing customs. It is quite the opposite, an expression of Christian culture, which transforms the existing culture through a new and deeper knowledge and experience of God. Kneeling does not come from any culture---it comes from the Bible and its knowledge of God....The Christian liturgy (Holy Mass) is a cosmic liturgy precisely becasue it bends the knee before the Crufufied and exalted Lord. Here is the center of authentic culture--the culture of truth. The humble gesture by which we fall at the feet of the Lord inserts us into the true path of life of the cosmos."

God through Isaias 45:23, "To me every knee shall bend."

And in his letter to the Phillippians, St. Paul wrote, "At the name of Jesus, every knee will bend." And when St.Paul said goodbye to the Christians of Miletus he prayed with them kneeling Acts 20:36. By kneeling we emphasize our littleness and submission before God.

The humble leper who "came and knelt before Him", St.Matt. 8:2, and also high ranking men: "...behold a certain ruler came and knelt before Him, and said, Lord, my daughter is even now dead: but come lay thy hand upon her and she shall live." 9:18

Gospel of St.Luke 22:41-42, describing Jesus in the hour before His arrest, "And He was withdrawn away from them a stone's cast; and kneeling down He prayed. Saying: Father, if thou wilt, remove this chalice from me: but yet not my will, but thine be done."  So here we have been given a clear example of how to pray in the presence of God.

It's my understanding that the Protestant demonimations that kneel during church service are Episcopalians and Lutherans. 

Kneeling has a long history in Christianity. The ox and the ass were by legend the first to kneel before the Infant Jesus. St.Matt. 2:11 relates the Three Wise Men on finding the Child with His Mother in Bethlehem, "and falling down, they adored Him...." The Jews who became the first Christians weren't accustomed to kneeling during worship. They stood raising their hands in praise of the Risen Christ. It wasn't until the 800s when a sense of unworthiness and sinfulness led the people to adopt a more penitential posture by kneeling during Holy Mass. 

 I remember my mom keeping sure we knelt with our backs straight up and our backsides couldn't slouch and touch the seat. I in turn have taught the same to my children.

And how about the Christmas song that goes, Fall on your knees! Oh hear the angels voices.....

Very good!

Is it not always by choice that we follow commandments?

Dear Lula, While I agree with you in the main, just as Zen Buddhists do not worship Buddha or statuary of the Buddha, we do not see this as idol worship as Buddha was a man.  In this case, its like paying respect to a teacher.   But Catholics believe Jesus was God, so I see a crucifix as an image of God and the commandments, as you actually pointed out, forbid the making of images of a Deity, including God.  Why?  So we will not make an image in our mind of God.  Any such image has boundaries and limits, it can be desecrated, destroyed, and so on.  So, while a crucifix is not an idol within the church, it most certainly is a graven image and it is this that makes it a problem from the POV of the bible.

The fact that early church father, and later one's as well, cast graven images is only testimony to the fact that the Church was gathering converts from non-Jewish quarters. Jews would have seen this as a grossly blasphemous activity.

Be well

Context, Lula. Which culture actually worshipped statues?

Terry Pratchett in "Small Gods" has the Omnians use turtles because their last prophet, Brutha, was tortured on a turtle (by followers of the previous prophets and the corrupt Omnian Church).

I understand, I was merely cautioning you from going down this road.  Christianity (and ANY other religion) is riddled with it's own fallibleness. 

Not sure but I would imagine it is Rabbinical?

and not once are you seeing any of them kneeling before any graven image Lula.  Not once.   Every knee will bow?  Yes.  In front of Christ, not his likeness.  In fact we read in Revelation that the Anti-Christ will somehow have an image made up for the masses to worship him.  They are to bow to his image much like the pagans did in the first century.  If you didn't you were thrown to the Lions and killed. 

So if you're going to go after an example which would you go by? 

We don't have a bare table.  It usually has either a bible, candles or communion on it.  We don't have a Crucifix that's true.  But we do have an empty cross instead.  There's a reason for that.  It's to remind us that Jesus is NOT on that Cross anymore.  We don't bow to it.  We don't pray to it.  It's just on the wall as a symbol of the resurrection.  It seems as tho from what I remember being Catholic that Jesus was either depicted in a manager or on a cross.  We hardly ever (if ever) saw much of Jesus as the Conquering Messiah.   To the Protestants, the sign of the now empty cross is what Christianity is all about. 

again, there's nothing wrong with kneeling.  That's not the point.  As you said, it's an act of submission.  When my husband was ordained.  He knelt before the congregation as a token of his submitting to them as their leader.  The best type of leader is one who will lead by example.  His example was as a servant leader. 

Hey LW, what if he was stoned?

Would they all wear millstone around their necks?

hmmmm maybe that's why God looked ahead and decided Crosses were more appropriate? 

Afterall a millstone is quite heavy and would only weigh us down. 

Just like the sins of this world?