There’s an unfortunate confusion, even among believers, of the idea of praying to a Saint for a miracle and asking a Saint to intercede with God for a miracle. One is idolatrous and the other is not. Statues and icons properly understood serve to focus the mind on the virtues of the Saint being asked for intercession.
Relics, properly regarded, serve as focal points as well. It doesn’t matter if an icon is “genuine” if it serves that function. But yes, there’s a strong whiff of superstition about them, even the notion that they have inherent supernatural power.
I am not Catholic. I can’t properly claim to be a Christian or even a theist. I once tried to sum up my idea of God by saying that if God is God, then God can do anything… including existing and not existing simultaneously. [See the non-gender-specific way of referring to God?] I believe that Buddha or Krishna or a great moral ideal can serve to focus the deep mind on what might be considered divine.
But in Paris, having received word that a friend of longstanding had died, I lit a candle and said a prayer for him in Notre Dame. Once back in the USA, I found he was still alive and quite well.
There’s an unfortunate confusion, even among believers, of the idea of praying to a Saint for a miracle and asking a Saint to intercede with God for a miracle. One is idolatrous and the other is not. Statues and icons properly understood serve to focus the mind on the virtues of the Saint being asked for intercession.
Relics, properly regarded, serve as focal points as well. It doesn’t matter if an icon is “genuine” if it serves that function. But yes, there’s a strong whiff of superstition about them, even the notion that they have inherent supernatural power.
I am not Catholic. I can’t properly claim to be a Christian or even a theist. I once tried to sum up my idea of God by saying that if God is God, then God can do anything… including existing and not existing simultaneously. [See the non-gender-specific way of referring to God?] I believe that Buddha or Krishna or a great moral ideal can serve to focus the deep mind on what might be considered divine.
But in Paris, having received word that a friend of longstanding had died, I lit a candle and said a prayer for him in Notre Dame. Once back in the USA, I found he was still alive and quite well.
Now I wish I’d prayed for Notre Dame itself.