Image: Flight into Egypt – Stéphane René (b. 1954) Egypt, 2021
Egg tempera on wood

“In Christ, God has now lifted the veil from His face (The Spirit of Liturgy – Ratzinger, p.116).” Many non-Catholics always misunderstood the way we venerate sacred images; they put it in a context of worshipping idols. When Jesus Christ, our Savior, took the human flesh as His own image, God revealed His true image to humanity. He became True God and True Man. As Pope Benedict wrote, God no longer completely conceals Himself but now shows Himself in the form of the Son. The same way the Sacred Images are doing to us: it awakens our senses and leads us to prayer and contemplation. They are not just a mere art, per se, but a revelation of the Truth. It tells us the story how God works throughout the history of man. These representations of scenes from the bible, as the book “The Spirit of the Liturgy” says, it is not only a kind of pictorial history lessons but a narrative, calling something to mind, that makes it present. It is stated in the Catechism of the Catholic Church (CCC) on paragraph 2131 that the Incarnate word, the Son of God, introduced a new “economy” of images.  The same thing that we are doing in the images of the Saints.

In paragraph 2132 of the CCC, the Christian veneration of images is not contrary to the first commandment which proscribes idols. Indeed, “the honor rendered to an image passes to its prototype,” and “whoever venerates an image venerates the person portrayed in it.” It is a respectful veneration and not adoration due to God alone. Therefore, a Sacred image is a form of liturgy that tells us the revealed truth, the incarnation of the Word of God.