Wednesday, Lent Wk 5: "we will not serve your god"

or worship the golden statue that you set up.

-- Dn 3:14-20, 91-92, 95

The first commandment condemns polytheism. It requires man neither to believe in, nor to venerate, other divinities than the one true God. Scripture constantly recalls this rejection of "idols, [of] silver and gold, the work of men's hands. They have mouths, but do not speak; eyes, but do not see." These empty idols make their worshippers empty: "Those who make them are like them; so are all who trust in them." God, however, is the "living God" who gives life and intervenes in history.

-- CCC 2112

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." The honor paid to sacred images is a "respectful veneration," not the adoration due to God alone:

Religious worship is not directed to images in themselves, considered as mere things, but under their distinctive aspect as images leading us on to God incarnate. The movement toward the image does not terminate in it as image, but tends toward that whose image it is.

-- CCC 2132

Art: Joseph Mallord William Turner 1775-185: Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego in the Burning Fiery Furnace. Exhibited 1832, Oil on mahogany. Tate Britain.