Saint Worship
In a recent newsletter from the Coming Home Network there was the first part of a work by Orestes Brownson (1803-1876), entitled “Saint Worship”. In today’s post I just wanted to post a few extracts since it ties into some of the recent discussion concerning Our Lady.
Brownson begins by looking at love, worship and the things which God has created:
“…love must worship, and it must worship the universal God: God in Himself and God in His works… The worship would seem to the soul incomplete, defective, if it did not embrace the creature with the Creator, and especially if it did not include the saints, who of all His creatures are the nearest and dearest to Him“
He makes the point that if say we love God, then we must also love His workmanship, specifically the Saints who are so dear to Him. He then goes on to speak of the Protestant understanding of Catholic devotion to Saints:
“[Protestants] seem not to be aware that the supreme and distinctive act of worship of God is sacrifice, and that we offer sacrifice never to any saint, never but to God alone.”
Worship necessitates sacrifice and in the Catholic Church sacrifice is only offered to God. Therefore, anything which we do in relation to Saints, such as asking for their intercession, cannot possibly be regarded as worship.
“Having rejected the sacrifice of the Mass, [Protestants] have no offer, and therefore no supreme distinctive worship of God; and their [highest] worship is of the same kind, and very little, if any, higher than that which we offer to the saints themselves”
Brownson explains the necessary consequence of other Protestant doctrines upon their understanding of the Saints. By rejecting the belief that the Eucharist is a sacrifice, it becomes virtually impossible to distinguish between worship and devotion.
“Their divine service or religious worship consists chiefly of prayer and singing of hymns or psalms, and comprises in kind nothing which is not perfectly lawful to offer to men”
Within Protestantism, worship is pretty much restricted to prayer and singing. However, these are not just things we do with regards to God, since we also ask our friends to pray for us and it is not unheard of to sing to each other (“For he’s a jolly good fellow…”). What is unique about our worship to God?
“It is lawful to love our neighbour, to honour the magistrate, to pray to those in authority, to sing the praises of the conquering hero, and to confide in our friends. What in all this is distinctively religious worship, or that which can be given only to God?”
He then speaks about the central paradigm problem
“…because Protestants… believe in no higher worship, it does not follow that there is none higher… It is not good logic to argue that because they in their worship anthropomorphize God, we in ours divinize the saints“
Brownson then concludes by speaking specifically about Saintly intercession:
“The saints honoured by offices in the church service are not the direct object of the worship. The sacrifice is offered to God in thanksgiving for them: the prayers are all addressed directly to God and only the saints’ intercession is invoked. [So, too], in the authorized litanies of the saints and of the Blessed Virgin, the saints are indeed invoked, but nothing is asked of them but their prayers for us; which is no more than we all ask daily of our pastors, of our friends, and of one another. And why may we not ask as much of a saint in heaven as of a sinful mortal on earth? Is the saint less living, or less dear to God?”
I received an email from a non-Catholic friend of mine in response to this article. He raised some good points, so I wanted to address his questions and provide a bit of a response.
“Father let me dedicate all my life to thee…”
> Here is how they are so: worship is not just sacrifice (see Rom12:1-2, also Hebrews ch9); and Protestants don’t just worship through their Sunday morning gatherings – though they be called “worship services” – but through our daily lives (ideally – this is a tough thing to do)…. Further scriptural reference to worship through lifestyle: 1Cor10:31, Col3:12-17
Catholics would also agree with this 100%. Romans 12:1-2 is one of my favourite New Testament passages and I’ve used it a bunch of times on this blog in reference to having a “lifestyle of worship”. This post was, in no way, meant to suggest that non-Catholics are bad people, or that they can’t dedicate their lives to the Lord whom we both serve.
Typically, I write my posts a long time in advance. I had scheduled this one quite a while ago and had intended to return to it to add a little more commentary. However, the flurry of comments from Monica took a lot of my attention and I ran out of time to return to this post and elaborate further. So, to hopefully help make my point clearer, please allow me to try and add a bit more explanation here…
The problems of language
The are several difficulties in Catholic-Protestant dialogue, but in the debate about Saintly veneration our difference in language causes particular problems. This is then compounded by having different theological and liturgical traditions.
Within Protestantism, you typically won’t hear anyone refer to the Eucharist as a “sacrifice”. In contrast, like the Early Church, Catholics and Eastern Orthodox affirm that the Eucharist is, in fact, a sacrifice… the perfect offering spoken of by the Prophet Malachi (Malachi 1:11). This was the historical worship of the Church, the source and summit of Christian life. As Catholics, our highest expression is the Eucharist, the sacrifice to God and only God. In contrast, we give the Saints honor.
Since a sacrificial Eucharistic concept doesn’t really exist in Protestant congregations, the vocabulary becomes more limited, meaning it’s harder to make distinctions. Without a Eucharistic sacrifice, the focus in the congregational gatherings goes elsewhere. In my experience, it typically shifts to the songs, the prayers or the sermon. Since there is no greater liturgical expression than prayers and songs, it’s not surprising that such things look like “worship”. This is what Orestes means when he says “[Protestant] worship is of the same kind, and very little, if any, higher than that which we offer to the saints themselves”.
Protestants sing and pray to God. Catholics do the same in regards to the Saints, but it’s not a problem for us because we have a “supreme distinctive worship of God”. We have something concrete which separates “honour” from “worship” – the Eucharist.
Perhaps some silly comparisons will help express what I’m trying to communicate…
Example #1: In French, there is no word to distinguish between “house” and “home”. They’re both the same word: “La Maison”. It therefore means it’s a little tricky when you’re speaking in French and trying to express that distinction. It’s possible, of course, but it requires more work to articulate the difference. That’s what it sometimes feels like for a Catholic trying to express to a Protestant the difference between worship and honour.
Example #2: In your toolbox, you can have lots of different tools, each for different purposes and jobs. However, if you just have a hammer…everything is going to look like a nail. As your toolkit grows, this changes, and you start to distinguish between the different categories of job and the tools required for each. Once I purchase a hammer I can stop beating nails into the wall using the wrong end of a screwdriver! My DIY skills are legendary, by the way… 😉
Likewise, once the Eucharist is recognized as a sacrifice, the honor which we offer to Saints falls into a very different category. With an increased vocabulary, distinctions can be more easily made between different things which can look somewhat similar, in much the same way Salsa music (or Jazz or Classical) can all “sound the same” when one first begins to listen to it.
Future Dialogue
> I appreciate you giving me the clearest sense of why Catholics pray to the saints the way they do, and look to read (when my school schedule permits) your recent writings on the origin of the Church. I also am willing to discuss further these above points, should you wish to do so.
I’d love that. The two non-Catholics who were responding to my series have barely touched that final post, which is a shame because it was quite time-consuming to write!
Great Post!
I hate to say this again, but I will: We believe what we are taught.
One of the “truths’ we are taught is that one of the great errors of the catholic church is that they undeniably worship the saints as well as pray to them and to Mary. As protestants, we learn this very early on.
I have to admit that up until 3 years ago, I would have defended that line of reasoning until I was the last man standing.
However, my frustrations with the real church, ie the protestants, led me to begin reading everything I could on the early church. I was stunned to realize that praying to saints has been going on for a very, very long time, even before Chris Tomlin began playing guitar and writing “worship songs.”
When I read how Catholics and the Orthodox viewed this practice themselves, it made perfect sense to me. I changed my views about it. The Catholic and The Orthodox worship the saints in the same way that Calvinists worship Calvin. In other words, they don’t. It may look that way if you are told over and over again that this is what they are doing.
The positive thing about this is that, with a slight shift in mindset, vast amount of Catholic/Orthodox “problems” are quickly resolved 🙂