Adoration

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In the strict sense, an act of religion offered toGod in acknowledgment of His supreme perfection and dominion, and of the creature's dependence upon Him; in a looser sense, the reverence shown to anyperson or object possessing, inherently or by association, a sacred character or a high degree of moral excellence. Therational creature, looking up toGod, whom reason and revelation show to beinfinitely perfect, cannot in right andjustice maintain an attitude of indifference. That perfection which isinfinite in itself and the source and fulfilment of all the good that we possess or shall possess, we must worship, acknowledging its immensity, and submitting to its supremacy. This worship called forth byGod, and given exclusively to Him asGod, is designated by the Greek namelatreia (latinized,latria), for which the best translation that our language affords is the wordAdoration. Adoration differs from other acts of worship, such as supplication, confession ofsin, etc., inasmuch as it formally consists inself-abasement before the Infinite, and in devout recognition of His transcendent excellence. An admirable example of adoration is given in theApocalypse 7:11-12: "And all theangels stood round about the throne, and about the ancients, and about the living creatures; and they fell before the throne upon their faces, and adoredGod, saying:Amen. Benediction and glory, and wisdom, and thanksgiving,honour, and power, and strength to ourGod. forever and ever.Amen." The revealed precept to adore god was spoken to Moses upon Sinai and reaffirmed in the words ofChrist: "TheLord thy God thou shalt adore, and Him only shalt thou serve" (Matthew 4:10).

The primary and fundamental element in adoration is an interior act of mind and will; the mind perceiving thatGod's perfection isinfinite, the will bidding us to extol and worship this perfection. Without some measure of this interior adoration "in spirit and intruth" it is evident that any outward show of divine worship would be mere pantomime and falsehood. But equally evident is that the adoration felt within will seek outward expression. Human nature demands physical utterance of some sort for its spiritual and emotional moods; and it is to thisinstinct for self-expression that our whole apparatus of speech and gesture is due. To Suppress thisinstinct in religion would be as unreasonable as to repress it in any other province of our experience. Moreover, it would do religious grievous harm to check its tendency to outward manifestation, since the external expression reacts upon the interior sentiment, quickening, strengthening, and sustaining it. As St Thomas teaches: "it is connatural for us to pass from the physical signs to the spiritual basis upon which they rest" (Summa II-II:48:2). It is to be expected, then, that men should have agreed upon certain conventional actions as expressing adoration of the Supreme Being. Of these actions, one has pre-eminently and exclusively signified adoration, and that is sacrifice. Other acts have been widely used for the same purpose, but most of them — sacrifice always excepted — have not been exclusively reserved for Divine worship; they have also been employed to manifest friendship, or reverence for high personages. Thus Abram "fell flat on his face" before the Lord (Genesis 17:3). This was clearly an act of adoration in its highest sense; yet that it could have other meaning, weknow from, e.g.,1 Samuel 20:41, which says thatDavid adored "falling on his face to the ground" before Jonathan, who had come to warn him of Saul'shatred. In like manner Gen xxxi; 3 narrates that Jacob, on meeting his brother Esau "bowed down with he face to the ground seven times". We read of other forms of adoration among the Hebrews, such as taking off the shoes (Exodus 3:5), bowing (Genesis 24:26), and we are told that the contritepublican stood when heprayed, and thatSt. Paulknelt when he worshipped with the elders of Ephesus. Among the earlyChristians it was common to adoreGod, standing with outstretched arms and facing the east. Finally, we ought perhaps to mention the act ofpagan adoration which seems to contain the etymological explanation of our word adoration. The wordadoratio very probably originated from the phrase(manum) ad os (mittere), which designated the act ofkissing the hand to thestatue of the god one wished tohonour. Concerning the verbal manifestation of adoration — that is, theprayer of praise - explanation is notnecessary. The connection between our inner feelings and their articulate utterance is obvious.

Thus far we have spoken of the worship given directly toGod as theinfinitely perfect Being. It is clear that adoration in this sense can be offered to no finite object. Still, the impulse that leads us to worshipGod's perfection in itself will move us also to venerate the traces and bestowals of that perfection as it appears conspicuously in saintly men andwomen. Even to inanimate objects, which for one reason or another strikingly recall the excellence, majesty,love, or mercy ofGod, we naturally pay some measure of reverence. Thegoodness which these creatures possess by participation or association is a reflection ofGod'sgoodness; by honouring them in the proper way we offer tribute to the Giver of all good. He is the ultimate end of our worship in such cases as He is the source of the derived perfection which called it forth. But, as was intimated above, whenever the immediate object of our veneration is a creature of this sort, the mode of worship which we exhibit towards it is fundamentally different from the worship which belongs toGod alone.Latria, as we have already said, is the name of this latter worship; and for the secondary kind, evoked bysaints orangels, we use the termdulia. TheBlessed Virgin, as manifesting in a sublimer manner than any other creature thegoodness ofGod, deserves from us a higher recognition and deeper veneration than any other of thesaints; and this peculiar cultus due to her because of her unique position in the Divine economy, is designated intheologyhyperdulia, that isdulia in an eminent degree. It is unfortunate that neither our own language nor the Latin possesses in its terminology the precision of the Greek. The wordlatria is never applied in any other sense than that of the incommunicable adoration which is due toGod alone. But in English the wordsadore andworship are still sometimes used, and in the past were commonly so used, to mean also inferior species of religious veneration and even to express admiration or affection forpersons living upon the earth. SoDavid "adored" Jonathan. In like manner Miphiboseth "fell on his face and worshipped"David (2 Samuel 9:6). Tennyson says that Enid in hertrue heart, adored the queen. Those who perforce adopted these modes of expression understood perfectly well what was meant by them and were in no danger of thereby encroaching upon therights of the Divinity. It is hardly needful to remark thatCatholics, too, even the most unlearned, are in no peril of confounding the adoration due toGod with the religioushonour given to any finite creature even when the wordworship, owing to the poverty of our language, is applied to both. TheSeventh General Council, in 757, puts the matter in a few words when it says that "truelatria is to be given toGod alone"; and theCouncil of Trent (Sess. XXV) makes clear the difference between invocation ofsaints andidolatry.

A few words may be added in conclusion on the offences which conflict with the adoration ofGod. They may be summed up under three categories:

The first class comprisessins ofidolatry. The second class embracessins ofsuperstition. These may take manifold forms, to be treated under separate titles. Suffice it to say that vain observances which neglect the essential thing in the worship ofGod and make much of purely accidental features or which bring it into contempt through fantastic and puerile excesses, are emphatically repudiated inCatholictheology.Honouring, or pretending tohonour,God by mystic numbers or magical phrases, as though adoration consisted chiefly in the number or the physical utterance of the phrases, belongs to the Jewish Cabbala orpagan mythology, not to the worship of the Most High. (seeBLASPHEMY;IDOLATRY;MARY;SAINTS;WORSHIP.)

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