Last week, we distinguished between the worship (Latria) we show to God alone, and the honor and veneration (Dulia) we show to the saints. This is a very important distinction. Catholics do not worship Mary and the saints, but we venerate them as models of holiness and virtue, worthy of our imitation.
However, even the idea of venerating and honoring the saints upsets many people. But i want to assure you that Scripture exhorts us to honor and venerate the Saints, and some more than others. The Catholic practice of venerating the saints by praying to them and venerating them through the use of statues and images is very biblical.
St Paul writes in 1 Thess 5:12-13, “We beg you, brethren, to respect those who labor among you and are over you in the Lord and admonish you, and to esteem them very highly in love because of their work”. Similarly, St Paul writes in 1 Tim 5:17, “Let the elders who rule well be considered worthy of double honor, especially those who labor in preaching and teaching”. As was the custom in the early church, each church had a Bishop, priests and deacons that would labor in preaching and teaching to ensure the truth was safeguarded among the faithful and passed on without error. St Paul exhorts the faithful to show double honor to the spiritual fathers who do this.
This also makes the case for varying degrees of honor that ought to be shown to members of the church. If there are those who are worthy of double honor, surely there are those who are worthy of a lesser honor.
Jesus says in Matt 10:41, “He who receives a prophet because he is a prophet shall receive a prophet’s reward, and he who receives a righteous man because he is a righteous man shall receive a righteous man’s reward.” Once again, we see different levels of honor or reward for a prophet and a righteous man. And in John 12:26, Jesus says, “If anyone serves me, my father will honor him.” If God the Father honors those who served the Son, how much more should we honor those who served the Son?
If the Bible encourages us to honor the saints (holy ones) on earth who are elders, prophets or righteous men, how much more should we honor the saints in heaven who have been perfected in glory and are free from all sin?
As we said already, Dulia is the Latin term the Church has adopted to refer to the honor and veneration that we show the saints in heaven. But as we have seen from the above scriptures, there is also a biblical basis for showing some more honor than others. For this reason, the Church adopted the term Hyperdulia to refer to the devotion, honor and veneration that we show in a singular way to Mary the Mother of God.
When St Elizabeth greets Mary, Scripture says she is filled with the Holy Spirit and exclaims, “Blessed are you among women, and blessed is the fruit of your womb”, Luke 1:42. In the Hebrew language, there were no superlatives, meaning there was no way to say, “Mary is the most blessed.” The language of St Elizabeth, “Blessed among women,” was an idiom that declared Mary to be the “most” blessed of every woman. Just a few verses later, Mary herself would declare, “For behold, henceforth all generations will call me blessed”, Luke 1:48.
Why is Mary the “most” blessed among all women? Why should – and will – all generations call her blessed? Simple. St Elizabeth tells us why. The fruit of her womb. What is the fruit of her womb? Jesus.
Please remember this: We give Mary special honor and devotion because of her unique vocation to be the Theotokos, God bearer. No one in history has ever been called to this unique grace that Mary had.
The Bible is clear that we should honor the saints, and even give varying degrees of honor. When we invoke the intercession of the saints, we are honoring them because we acknowledge their state of perfection and trust in the effectiveness of their prayers (Jam 5:16). Another way we show honor and veneration to the saints is through gestures of love and affection (bowing, kissing, incensing) to images, statues and relics of the saints in light (Col 1:12).
We will tackle this topic next week!
