CEREMONIES AND PILGRIMAGES

New Zealand Tablet, 11 August 1910, Page 1257

CEREMONIES AND PILGRIMAGES

The Rev. J. G. Chapman, in a recent issue of the laranaki Herald, was credited with the following remarks under the heading ' Notes of a Sermon ': —' There "s a churchy righteousness which is nothing more than starch. That is, a kind of righteousness which any scoundrel may have! Look at poor Luther, toiling on his knees up the sacred stairs at Rome, counting his beads, muttering his Pater Noster, when he hears ringing in his mind the sublime sentence, "Therefore being justified by faith we have peace with God, through our Lord Jesus Christ." Henceforth, to him, ceremonial, pilgrimages, penances, beads, image worship, and all the rest of the tomfoolery and religious humbug are filthy rags.' Mr. J. H. Parker, in the course of a letter to the Herald of August 2, replies to Mr. Chapman's remarks. He says:—-Let us examine the passage sentence by sentence and word by word. Mr. Chapman says: 'Look at poor Luther toiling on his knees up the sacred stairs at Rome, counting his beads, muttering his Pater Noster.' Murray's Handbook for Borne says, referring to the Scala Santa (sacred stairs), 'The stairs consist of twenty-eight bluish white marble steps (Marmo Tirio) from the quarries on the slopes of Mount Lebanon. They are said to have belonged to Pilate's house, and to be the identical ones which our Saviour descended when He left the Judgment Seat. They may be ascended only by penitents on their knees,' etc. Now, to one who believes that they are the very steps down which his Saviour walked on His way to Calvary, to be crucified for him, where is the impropriety of his climbing them on his knees? In the Bible we read of men who took off their shoes from their feet, or prostrated themselves upon the earth in places sanctified by Divine visitation. 'Counting his beads.' Well, if this be true of poor Luther, then he must have been what he was fond of calling those who differed from him on religious matters an ass. What good could it possibly do him to 'count 5 his beads? He knew the number, surely, of the beads of his Rosary, and he knew also that the Rosary is the Gospel history under fifteen mysteries or parts. And as the Gospel, either in Hebrew, Greek, Latin, or English, is the representation of the principal facts of the life of Christ, under forms of words, etc., which are understood by the instructed; so is the Rosary the history of the same life under a certain arrangement of beads, which is equally intelligible to the instructed as the printed records are to others. ' Muttering his Pater Noster.' Poor Luther! I wonder where he learnt to ' mutter' the Lord's Prayer ? Certainly not in the Catholic Church. A Catholic worthy of the name knows that he is taught when he prays to say the Lord's Prayer, and that with confidence and reverence. Was it wrong for poor Luther to say the Our Father? ' Henceforth, to him, ceremonial, pilgrimages, penances, beads, image worship, and all the rest of the tomfoolery and religious. humbug are as filthy rags.' Here are a number of things placed together in one category and labelled ' Tomfoolery and religious humbug.' Let us examine the items. ' Ceremonial.' Poor Luther, he must have turned Quaker. No more ceremony for him. Well, certainly he did not stand much upon ceremony with his fellow-men, if what is related of him by his own friends be true. But what about the ceremonies of the Old Dispensation as well as the ceremonies connected with the administration of the sacraments, etc., of the New? Most of them were directly appointed by God; and the principal ceremonies of the Catholic Church can be clearly traced at least to sub-apostolic times. And, further, ceremony is the necessary outcome of the twofold nature of man, intellectual and spiritual, on account of which, as St. Thomas Aquinas says (contra Gentiles B. 3 C. 119), he must pay God a twofold adoration—-one spiritual, which consists in the interior devotion of the soul the other corporal, which manifests itself in the outward form of worship, for there is no inward sentiment or feeling, which man is not wont to express outwardly by some suitable gesture or action. Ceremonies are employed to embellish and adorn sacred •functions; to excite in the faithful, sentiments of respect, devotion and religion, by which the honor of God is increased and the sanctification of the soul is obtained, since these constitute the principal objects of all liturgical acts; to lead the illiterate more easily to a knowledge of the mysteries of religion, etc. Now, sir, he is a bold man who will dub all ceremonial 'tomfoolery and religious humbug.' ' Pilgrimages.' The usual motives for a pilgrimage were and are: (1) The desire to realise the objects of faith and quicken religious feeling in the soul; (2) the fulfilment of a vow; (3) some especial benefit—as when Chaucer's pilgrims went to Canterbury The holy, blissful martir for to seke, That him hath holpen when that thei were seke; (4) the execution of some penitential task, whether selfimposed or enjoined by the clergy. A Protestant writer in Smith's Dictionary of Christian Antiquities has collected with praiseworthy industy a multitude of facts bearing on this subject during the first eight centuries; which see. Can the above motives and practice of all Christian time be labelled ' tomfoolery and religious humbug ' ? ' Penances.' Webster's Dictionary explains ecclesiastical penances as follows: —A means of repairing a sin committed and ob-

taming pardon for it, consisting partly in the performance of expiatory rites, partly in voluntary submission to a punishment corresponding to the transgression. Penance is the fourth of the seven Sacraments of the Catholic Church.’ The translation of the Greek word ‘ metanoeite, 5 which occurs in the second verse of the third chapter of St. Matthew, into Latin by _ St. Jerome was —poenitentiam agite the English for which is in the Douay Bible used by Catholics ‘do penance. The Revised Version has it ‘repent ye. 5 This is • what the Baptist’meant when he said: . ‘ Bring forth fruit therefore worthy of repentance (Luke iii., 8). Can this be labelled ‘tomfoolery and religious humbug 5 ? ‘ Beads, 5 we have referred to above. ‘ Image worship.’ Now, I can say without fear of contradiction that Catholics abhor idolatry as much as Mr. Chapman. The Catholic penny catechism will settle this point. On page 35 the question No. 186 is asked: What honor should we give to relics, crucifixes, and holy pictures? Answer: We should give to relics, crucifixes, and holy pictures a relative-honor, as they relate to Christ and His saints, and are memorials of them. Question 187: Do we pray to relics or images? Answer: We do not pray to relics or images, for they can neither see nor hear nor help us. From the above it will be seen that Catholics have no part in image worship.