Explaining the Faith - ICONS: Miraculous or Graven Images?

foreign well thank you everybody for joining us live here at the national shrine of the divine mercy and stockbridge the snow has begun to come down i think it's going to be a mini blizzard so we made a few people made it out here god bless you we have this is going to be one of my favorite talks we've done of the 85 it's on going to be on icons and specifically are they graven images does the bible prohibit them and then we're going to talk specifically a little bit more about the divine mercy image and stuff you've never heard because i've never said and i'm going to begin with a little bit of a duplicate about the first five minutes of a talk i did last year on statues because some of it applies the same to statues as icons but then we're going to break into some amazing stuff and we're going to show you some miracles and then please stay with us or at least come back at the very end we have something very special at the very end that we're excited to tell you about that we've also never mentioned so let us begin with a prayer in the name of the father and of the son and of the holy spirit amen heavenly father we ask you send the holy spirit down upon us to bless us to open our minds and hearts to receive the grace you wish to bestow and through the most incredible and beautiful image of your son the incarnate face of god the father through the son may us by the power of the holy spirit live your divine mercy and we ask all this through christ our lord amen name of the father son and of the holy spirit amen so it's exciting to bring you back to somebody this was a big thing we studied in seminary so i worked a little bit with chris sparks of theologian dug up my notes from seminary because of a big thing called iconoclasm which was a heresy that said we can't have images and so now the church has clarified that very clearly and we're going to explain it so as you saw these icons are they miracles or are they prohibited graven images all right now many non-catholics say that having grave images graven images is idolatry but not really you'd have to take the picture off your desk as you've heard us say before because those are technically graven images and so we we know that there's more to this but the claim that you cannot have graven images is actually not biblical and we get these letters all the time you have graven images i saw these images in your church blasphemy no that's not what the bible says this comes from exodus 20 verse 4 and 5 that says you should not have graven image images for the purpose of worshiping them the very thing is your god like the golden calf no we don't do that all right god forbade the worship for instance of statues or icons but did not forbid their religious use interesting all right so let's take a look at our next uh thing and if you're here with us you can follow along our slides if you're here at the shrine on our youtube channel divine mercy you can follow along we're going to be showing slides which will be posted up and remaining you can catch also after the talk it'll remain up for permanent but here's a picture of what that's a picture of the ark of the covenant and what's interesting is that god commanded that cherubim angels be carved graven images be carved and placed on the ark this is exodus 25 18-20 what about david david's plan for the design of the temple included statues of angels so god can't contradict himself here how could he say one thing that you can't have them and another one he tells commands moses to put him on the ark or david to put him in the temple no he didn't contradict himself because he never said you couldn't have them he says you can't worship them ezekiel 41 verse 17 describes graven carved means carved images in the temple and it says he was shown in a vision on the walls in the inner room and on the nave where carved likenesses of cherubim shall be carved graven again we don't worship these issues these images you know that what about this one take a look at our next slide moses in the desert was commanded by god to carve a bronze serpent to make a bronze serpent out of bronze and to lift it on a pole so the sick could gaze upon it and be healed this was foreshadowing the cross so that when people see jesus risen up on the cross that they will be healed this is from numbers chapter 21 verse 8 and 9. one had to just look at it which shows that statues and icons are to be looked at not worshiped used ritually not just as art this is interesting not meaning worship though as i keep saying christians the earliest christians use statues paintings to recall the story of our faith because most were illiterate most were illiterate and so this is how they taught their faith do you know that the bible the canonized bible that we have today didn't come till 350 years after jesus the books of matthew mark luke and john who picked those why didn't we pick the gospel of thomas or matthew why did we pick uh i'm sorry tom sorry thomas or peter why don't we put the gospels of thomas or peter into the bible those aren't in there they existed the church determined through the holy spirit matthew mark luke and john and the other books but that wasn't determined until 350 years after jesus died if this is the case how did they teach their faith the early christians taught their faith through icons images statues paintings this is how they did it many protestants have pictures of jesus in their sunday school and teach what about nativity sets many many non-catholics have nativity sets those are graven images those are no different than our statue of jesus on the cross but yet many protestant many non-catholics have the nativity set think nothing of it say oh that's wonderful but let us have a statue of mary and they go to pieces it's the same thing in fact the nativity set has a statue of mary at least in the accurate one all right so when people begin it's the problem is this when people begin to adore the statue as a god like the golden calf that's when god becomes angry well father don't tell me this because you catholics say you don't worship the idols or the images or the icons or the statues but i see you bowing them in front of them and kissing them so you may not call it worship but your actions are worship your actions of bowing to a statue kneeling before it and kissing it i don't care what you want to call it it's worship hmm interesting good point right they cite deuteronomy 5 verse 9 where god says you shall not bow down to them oh well how do we then explain this as catholics very interesting though yes bow bowing down can be used to to to be worshipped because i'm going to bow down before our lord when in the eucharist later today when i go for my holy hour you better believe i'm going to bow down so it can mean worship yes it can and god is saying don't do that in front of somebody else that you're worshiping many many narcotics will claim that you know you don't adore you don't worship but as i said you're kissing them you're praying to them and fr or sorry you're praying in front of them nobody knows we're praying to a statue we we asked for intercession of what they represent but we'll get to that so is kissing or kneeling down before an icon or a statue the same as worshiping an idol no not necessarily now it could be if you're the golden calf okay now jacob let's talk about this jacob bowed down to the ground on his knees seven times to his older brother esau genesis chapter 33 so if the bible explains that i think we need to understand that that is that is very very important because the bible is saying right there that it happened what about bathsheba she bowed down to her husband david this is in first kings chapter one what about solomon he bowed down to his mother bathsheba first kings two none of these were worship none of them they were honor in japan i've told this before this goes back to my other old talk i went um i used to work in the detroit auto industry where we used to design eight and a half and nine and a half inch ring gear uh ring gear rear axles for mid-size chevrolet vehicles and so we would meet with the japanese businessmen that would come over and join ventures anything and the first thing that they would do when they met us is a japanese would hand their business card and oh they would bow down or if you gave them your business card they would take your business card and they would bow down do you think they were worshiping me hardly they were probably laughing thinking what the heck does this stupid kid think he knows they weren't worshiping me out of a sign of respect they would take your business card because your business card was your identity it was who you are it is everything you are to the japanese in that business card so it's an honor of respect that if you hand your business card to that japanese businessman he bows he's not worshiping me like i said he was probably laughing thinking this kid doesn't know anything and yet we say that this is automatic worship no it's not what about when you're knighted by the king or queen of england all right lord mountbatten in world war ii was knighted he knelt down before the king and was knighted does that mean he was worshiping the king no none of this means worship a catholic kneeling isn't worshiping the statue or even necessarily praying to it any more than it is that a non-catholic meals with a bible i've seen non-catholics take bibles and they kneel in the presence of the bible well are they praying to the bible or worshiping the bible itself those pages that pieces of paper no they're acknowledging the god from which that bible came just like we are acknowledging the god that that icon represents saint paul encouraged what about kissing oh i can't believe you catholics you kiss what paul encouraged christians to greet one another with a kiss this is romans 16 or first corinthians 16. so bowing and kissing doesn't necessarily mean worship will you catholics change the second commandment you notice we get that one a lot because the commandments are different between catholics and non-catholics our first commandment is you shall not have any other gods before me non-catholics share that protestants have that same first commandment but their second commandment is you should not carve graven images our second commandment is you should not use the lord's name in vain oh there you go right there you catholics took it out you removed it so you could idolize and worship your statues and your icons no no no no no no the catholics did not delete that second commandment it's built into the first for us by not having any other gods before me which is our first commandment that includes no graven images that you're worshiping of another god do you know the jews did the same thing here's what's really interesting they say that we deleted this prohibition of idolatry so that we could as i said worship our statues and icons but this is false because as i said we group them differently do you know the bible does not list the commandments by number the bible does not say the first commandment is this the second commandment is this the third commandment is this the bible doesn't say that you know what the bible says the bible gives 14 commands well wait a minute father i thought there were 10 the bible if you count them actually gives 14 prohibitions now if that's the case what the jews did is they grouped it into 10 because 10 is a powerful number symbolic to them so guess what you think they grouped the jews grouped not having graven images along with no having no other gods before me that's what we catholics did so if you're attacked by as a catholic about not having the second commandment you can say it's built into the first exactly like the jews did very interesting very interesting in exodus 20 2-17 this gives the two the ten commandments as i said there's actually 14 imperatives i said prohibitions it's really imperatives because some are things we do some things we don't so to arrive at 10 some of them were grouped together in different ways now why did the catholics group the two first two commandments together because in the ancient world polytheism meaning multiple gods you have more than one god than the real god and idolatry were the same they were united so the first two commandments to the jews were saying the same thing so they combined them the jewish numbering of the ten commandments always group these together you shall have no other gods before me and you shall not make yourself a graven image they grouped them together so if the jews did that way before us christians which one do you think you should follow well we as catholics follow the jews they knew the ten commandments very well the numbering of us catholics as i said follows the jews and sort of the lutherans so i should not say all protestants the lutherans actually follow the same way we do interesting jews and christians abbreviate the commandments so that we could have ten just like the bible discusses it says the bible says there's 10 but doesn't number them now we summarize the sabbath commandment as remember the sabbath and keep it holy but you know in the bible there's actually four commandments listed with that now non-catholics don't argue that if you read the bible there are four verses that refer to remember keep hold of the sabbath but we all only have one commandment why because they go together this is what we're saying so jews catholics lutherans we put no graven images together in the first commandment with having no other gods because if your graven image is a god you violated the first commandment having it is not the problem worshiping it is now we as catholics we follow saint augustine's tradition and the protestants follow the greek fathers so who's which one's better it's just depending on how you look at it god didn't say one or the other was right as long as you understand they encompass all of what he wanted us to learn all right so let's talk about more of this let's go on now some non-catholics also say that deuteronomy deuteronomy 4 verse 15 prohibits no likeness not even making images of god this is fascinating is this true if you go to seminary with me which i'm taking you back right now i'll save you the money and the time by giving you the answer the bible does say you are not supposed to carve likeness images of god well if you don't understand it you're going to point to that and say you catholics are crazy but read jewish tradition or should say the early christian tradition listen to this early on israel was forbidden to make any depictions of god because he had not yet revealed himself so yes the jews were prohibited from making any image in the likeness of god because he had not yet revealed himself and they could have got it wrong they could have made it a bird or a golden calf they were pagans so worshipping animals was common and god did not reveal himself yet he didn't till later like daniel chapter 7. later the holy spirit revealed himself as a dove so god did reveal himself later so the protestants use these images when they're talking about the bible they use the holy spirit as dove because later god revealed himself the incarnation god showed mankind an icon of himself so father when did god reveal himself fully at the incarnation the birth of jesus paul said he is the image and guess what everybody what language was the scriptures written in greek and guess what word is used in the bible in the greek when paul said he is an image of the invisible god icon i-k-o-n from which we get the word icon i-c-o-n if you go to the original greek paul says he jesus is the image icon i k o n of the invisible god the firstborn of all creation so let's look at our next slide this is where we get the image of divine mercy christ is the tangible divine icon of the unseen god we see this in the divine mercy image so now god has revealed himself in images the image of his face it isn't wrong for us to use these images now because god has now revealed himself back to the jews in the old testament when god said don't do it it was before he had revealed himself now god has revealed himself very important the catholic church is always condemned idolatry this is not idolatry there is a distinction between thinking that a piece of stone or plaster or a canvas image is the god and you're worshiping that canvas and desiring to to to worship that peace or object versus remembering christ who we see in that image totally different the making and use of religious statues and icons is not against the bible people always write to me know your bible read your bible exclamation point capital capital letters yes we do know the bible this is why we teach what we do by scripture christians now make images or icons of god because we've seen him he's revealed himself so statues and icons get us to contemplate god just as much as the word does we are human beings we hear the word we see the image why if god gave us both sight and hearing would he not allow himself to reach us through both sight and hearing nobody argues hearing the word of god on sunday no non-catholic does but god didn't give you just ears he gave you eyes and with those eyes we see the icon of the father through the face of jesus the son wow this is how he works or even his saints through which he works all right the reason for all this is jesus jesus himself gives us the ultimate example of the value of statues and icons now listen to this christ in his humanity opened up a new way to pray to him right iconography or iconography that's right i'm trying to remember how i would say that iconography this is what he did he opened that all up now christ becomes for us a person and those are represented colossians first chapter 1 verse 15 tells us christ is the image again of the invisible god as i just said when jesus said who has seen me has seen the father this is john 14. he does not mean that he and the father is one they are one but he doesn't mean he is the father he is the son so he is somebody who represents another the image of divine mercy is something that represents something else jesus himself to us christ is the ultimate icon revealing god as father and listen to this it shows he shows the glory of the father now this is really powerful just as the word became flesh this is john 1 and revealed the father representations of god's angels and saints are also icons of christ because they reflect the glory of god so the bible tells us that we can have something that reflects the glory of god and the angels and saints do that paul says i urge you then to be imitators of me so he was an icon the church continues to hold up these great men and women as icons of the life of christ they imitated him that's what an icon is it's an imitation wow your picture on your desk is not your family you're not going to take that picture and and treat it the same way i mean it's going to remind you of your family it represents your family but you're not going to leave your family at home and take a picture of them to the baseball game while your family sits at home and you say well i took my family to the baseball game because i got their picture your little boy's gonna be like dad where were you well son you were with me at the game see how far that gets you all right so we need to take very seriously these injunctions to praise and honor the great members of god's family where does it say that father i get this one all the time father nowhere in the bible does it say to honor the saints oh yes it does psalms 45 17 luke 1 48 first thessalonians 5 12. first timothy 5 17 first peter 5 5 i'll go on and on it does say we give honor to those great members of god's family this is a far cry from idolatry all right now few things are more delightful than seeing a little child draw a picture of god do you really think when i saw this was back a couple summers ago before kovid we had a bus group and they were here and there was a family and part of the bus group and we were out underneath the tents having lunch and this little girl i think she was probably about four she wanted a picture or a piece of paper and a pen from her mom or a pencil and she started drawing a picture of god i had a million things to do i had to get over to the gift shop i had to get back over here to be able to get ready for the next group coming in had to get back over the nbc and i sat there enthralled watching this little girl draw a picture of god who she thought god was do you really think god is angry with that little girl trying to draw a picture of him come on no way his heart must be filled you know so this is why we get a little bit too hung up this right but yes adults can take it the wrong way we can become there are adults who are satan worshipers that worship that dumb gul goat creature and things like that you know the pagan religions yes they were filled with idols and statues that they dreamed was their god so you got we got to be careful um look at our next slide this is the infamous one we've been talking about the golden calf right so this is one reason why god forbid israel from trying to depict an image of him because they would get it wrong as we said before at the point in time we had not yet revealed god had not revealed his savior our savior jesus christ so we weren't qualified to do an image of him now we are through jesus you know before we couldn't we couldn't picture him but now we can god has imaged himself for us in the sun and now we can use that image in things like art and prayer this is powerful it's the best way for us when we are left on our own to relate to god we relate much better when we see a picture of something how many times we say to ourselves geez if i just had a picture of it like when you're trying to work with somebody over the phone and showing them something to do if you just had a picture of it how much easier is that way easier when god himself though leads us that's the key we just don't want to go off and i don't want to draw a picture of of of a boot and say this is god because he needs to kick us all in the rear end that's my idea of god no now we're getting a little carried away okay that's not what we mean by that god has actually helped give us his image his icon we don't have to make it up you catholics are making up no we don't let's look at three of the most incredible icons in the history of christianity one the shroud of turin let's take a look at your screen look at the shroud of turn this is a picture i've never seen before i was doing research look at the image in the middle where jesus would be laying crucified in the tomb that's how he would have looked per the image of the shroud that was laid over him that's amazing what's the shroud the shrub is an icon we didn't make it up god gave it to us what about the next one brother mark shows are they did guadalupe we didn't make up what mary looked like we know what mary looked like because she gave us the icon you can see on your screen that's our lady guadalupe mary revealed who she was an icon of herself let's go to the next one the sacred heart of jesus god revealed jesus revealed who he was the saint margaret mary out the coke my heart that's the sacred heart the most sacred heart of jesus this is an icon that god has revealed to us we just don't make it up and say well your god is is the sacred heart mind's a boot mine's a snake or mine's a dog no god gives it to us that's what our catholic icons are they're just not randomly made up god gave them to us they are all icons that god gifted all right let's continue now the best of them all i think the image of divine mercy right up there with the shroud our lady of guadalupe and the sacred heart on february 22nd so guess what everybody we're coming right up on this anniversary i laughed because i asked my dad once what and i put this in my book i asked my dad what anniversary february 22nd was because he's been learning his faith and he says it was the day that the u.s hockey team beat the russians in 1980. so this is true but there was a bigger reason of something on february 22nd happened back in 1931. now ironically guess what it was on that day the feast of icons in the eastern church they celebrate the feast of icons to defeat the oconoclast or the iconoclasm the okana iconoclast heresy that you're not allowed to have images it was defeated and the church in the east celebrates that and guess what jesus appeared on that day of that feast the feast of icons it's the first sunday of lent so february 22nd in 1931 was the first sunday of lent or the feast of icons and jesus appeared to saint faustina at her convent in poland now let's read what he said to her you can look it on your screen again if you're here in the shrine you can look up this video afterwards let's look what it says on the shrine or on the screen jesus said to her paint an image according to the pattern you see with the signature jesus i trust in you i desire that this image be venerated first in your chapel and then throughout the world notice venerated not worshipped many non-catholics do not understand the difference i promise the soul that will venerate this image will not perish jesus i'm counting on that promise don't be afraid to tell him that everybody watching right now live or if this is weeks later i want you to say jesus i'm counting on that promise i'm trusting that promise you just made he says the words i promise that the soul that will venerate this image will not perish you see father well how do i get this image hang in with us we're going to show you how i also promise victory over its enemies already here on earth especially at the hour of death i myself will defend it as my own glory whoa saint faustina's spiritual director blessed michael sappocho he then commissioned an artist to paint it because she wasn't a painter so what did they do they made an icon jesus said paint the image paint an image according to the pattern you see but when faustina first saw it she wept she cried she said jesus this isn't as beautiful as you are no image will ever capture jesus in the beauty that he is we know that but what did jesus say to her when she complained she said nobody will paint you as beautiful as you are jesus says don't worry he said not in the beauty of the color nor in the beauty of the brush lies the greatness of these is this image but in my grace in other words he's saying don't look at the beauty of the color or the brushstroke but in the grace i give you through this image powerful stuff so this image of divine mercy has it all this image of divine mercy will show it again not yet but i'll brother mark show it in a minute contains all the characteristics of both eastern and western icons people always see the eastern icons of the orthodox church like wow why don't we catholics have that this does same in the west or the east it's a remarkable fusion of the two east and west traditions shows me and i think father sir from used to say that's that god wants to bring the east and the west churches back together this image has it the immess captures the entire paschal mystery now we're going to be showing a show coming up in a few weeks on ewtn about the image and i'm going to go through that in much more detail so please watch our ewtn show living divine mercy on ewtn or ewtn.com they have it on demand if you missed the episode or you can get it on our website we'll post it uh livingdivinemercy.org if you can just remember that livingdivinemercy.org we have all those shows up there and i'm going to go into detail on this image now this captures the paschal mystery now listen to this you want to know where this is biblical you want to know where this icon is biblical i'll tell you where it's biblical leviticus chapter 16 and sirach chapter 50. listen to this clad in this garment the high priest was allowed to enter into the holy of holies jesus is clad in his high priest garment in that image it says that he could enter into the holy holies of the temple and offer the blood of sacrifice well that's exactly what he did on the cross for us and then he was to emerge from that inner sanctuary with a hand raised in blessing for all the people this is what we see in the image this is the high priest jesus is the new high priest the high priest can now bless his disciples that's us with the most perfect blessing the blessing of blood and water why because that's baptism and holy communion now we have a special intimate union with him now let's have brother mark put the image back on the screen for those of you here in the church it's the image right there that says jesus i trust in you above our altar let's look at this everything is in this image so i'm going to brother mark hold it up for a few minutes keep it on the screen while i walk through this look at this image first of all what is jesus wearing he's wearing a white elb like a catholic priest he's the priest he's the high priest all right so holy thursday is captured in this image remember the holy father said the best images of christianity are those that capture the paschal mystery the entire paschal mysteries in this image when did the past what is the paschal mystery pascal mystery is the passion death resurrection and ascension of jesus this is the only image i'm aware of that captures it all let's keep looking at it on your screen first of all jesus is dressed as the high priest his white album right the blood that we'll talk about in a minute is the blood of the sacrifice of the priest what happened the day after holy thursday that started the paschal mystery what is jesus doing as the high priest he instituted the eucharist what is jesus doing here he's giving us communion through the precious blood and remember if you're not receiving precious blood during covet that's okay because the host has body blood soul and divinity in it what happened then jesus at the last supper instituted the priesthood we see him dressed as the high priest next what's the next part of the paschal mystery good friday what is good friday he is crucified we see jesus here now i admit in the restored vilnius image it's hard to see the wounds of the crucifixion but they are there if you look at the original image of divine mercy you can see him a little better i think in the restoration that's the one thing they missed was darkening those wounds of the hand and the feet his feet are actually covered by his elbs so you can't see it but on good friday the next part of the paschal mystery it is there it is there the wounds what happened next easter what happened jesus resurrected what do we see in the image jesus's resurrection notice the halo over his head he's in his glorified state he is resurrected then what happened 40 days after easter the ascension how was the ascension on this image that was a little trickier but the bible tells us before jesus ascended to the father he blessed all those present what is jesus doing he's blessing those present before this image just like he ascended to the father this is what he did this is the ascension and then finally ten days after that was pentecost how do we know what happened on pentecost it was a giving of the holy spirit how is pentecost shown in this image the blood and the water the two rays coming out of his sacred heart those two rays the blood and the water are critically important because what are the two and now brother mark can take that image down oh and you know what look at the left foot i'm sorry before he takes it down i'm probably killing poor brother mark up there his left foot is stepping forward he's coming to us he said divine mercy is mankind's last hope of salvation you think he's going to let us go no in the scriptures he tells us if one sheep is lost i will go get it you can see his left foot stepping forward all right now those blood and water rays are critically important the blood and the water why because satan has only two tools sin and the result of sin is death you've heard me say that many times and those two rays wipe them both out satan's first tool is sin what wipes out sin the cleansing waters of baptism and confession the pale ray the water what's satan's second tool death and what wipes out death life and what was life to the jews blood blood is the life of the being so that blood ray wipes out death blood is life so we see this image has it all what about jesus coming out of the darkness yes our times are dark our times are darker now than ever maybe and jesus is coming out of the darkness of our time stepping toward us he's blessing us even before you ask for the blessing that's what i love about this image i go to the chapel i'm all frustrated i'm tired i'm hungry i can't even get into prayer it's midnight and i sit down and i look up and he's already blessing me it's like whoa only our god right then he said jesus i trust in you this is very important why why did he demand that be put on the image jesus i trust in you you all you know the answer even if you don't think you know the answer you want to get to heaven i want to get to heaven we wouldn't be here if we didn't want to get to heaven there's only one way you get to heaven grace the grace of god and jesus said trust is the vessel by which all grace is received in other words you want to get to heaven you need grace okay father how do i get grace you got to receive it in a vessel called trust what does trust mean when you do somebody when you when you trust somebody it means that you accept their help and one of the ways god gives to help us is this image of divine mercy so by accepting the image and and venerating it you're trusting in him and trust brings in the graces that jesus said you need to get to heaven how do we know this let's look at our next slide jesus said let no soul fear to draw near to me even though its sins be as scarlet wow that's me my mercy is greater than your sins and those of the entire world don't think your sins are greater than the mercy of god i am offering people a vessel with which they are to keep coming for graces to the fountain of mercy that vessel is this image are you kidding that's why this image is so powerful that vessel is this image with the signature jesus i trust in you the graces of my mercy are drawn by means of one vessel only and that vessel is trust the more our soul trusts the more it will receive a mei zing we have received countless testimonies of people receiving from this image miracles healing protection conversions through this merit this image we have one story on our website about ron regales who sent us pictures we wouldn't have believed it his house in hurricane sandy was roaring up the west coast east coast he was on long island everybody was fleeing he took the image of divine mercy as he was running out the door and consecrated his house to it and place the image in the face of the storm when he came back a week later all the houses in the neighborhood were destroyed his was untouched now we're not saying it's a magic wand or a rabbit's foot we're not saying that god may still allow things to happen but the trust the higher the trust the greater the chance that we will be protected we have a video out there called seal the door post it's gotten almost a million views and we ask you to place an image on your door especially during covid for protection of your house and your family where do we come up with this all right saint faustina's confessor blessed michael cepochko wrote this let everyone this is his words quote let everyone procure for their homes this image of divine mercy because there will yet come trials and those homes and entire families and everyone individually who will hold this image of mercy in deep reverence i will preserve from every sort of misfortune the time will come when all those who do so will give witness to the miraculous efficacy and to the special protection of mercy flowing from this image did you hear that again it's not magic we're not worshiping this image this image is what it depicts it represents christ himself and that is who can grant this protection let's read michael simposco's next quote brother mark can show on the screen listen to this when chastisements for sins come upon the world and they will they are and your own country listen to this your own country will experience utter degradation the only refuge will be trust in my mercy i will protect the cities and homes in which the divine mercy is found i'm telling you right now if every home in the united states or the world had this image we wouldn't be in the mess we're in i will protect the persons who will venerate this image the only refuge will be trust in my mercy amazing do you know when world war ii hitler was very upset with warsaw in poland because they had this uprising and he decided to level the city he bombed it into oblivion destroyed the city leveled it some accounts say there was four houses standing in a particular area of warsaw that was leveled everyone had the image of divine mercy everyone that's documented again i can't emphasize enough we're not worshiping this image it's not a magic wand or a rabbit's foot it's what it represents the grace and mercy of god the protection of god now i want to tell you a quick story that i find just utterly amazing sa or uh blessed michael sappocho said to protect your home to hang a blessed image of divine mercy on your door blessed and you know catechism tells you you can bless your own image catechism 1669 i think it is you have to check on that i don't think i wrote it down but i think it's 1669. you can actually bless your own image now better to have a priest bless it okay but get that image blessed hang a door even if it's a little prayer card even if it's a framed picture [Music] we had a video that said put it on your door let me tell you an incredible story two ladies in massachusetts on the east coast towards boston followed this video and they put the image of divine mercy above their door they've been protected well the storms come and rain comes the weather the image got a little bit weathered and they wanted to replace it now what do you do with something that's blessed that you want to replace you either burn it surprisingly people get shocked by that or you bury it that is the proper way we don't throw it in the garbage we don't toss it out to rot if you have a blessed image you burn it or bury it this is miraculous to me so this woman took this image that she was going to replace she tried to burn it the image burned all around the image of jesus take a look at your screen that's the ash take a look at your screen that is the ash when you burn a piece of paper can you read the text if you have a white piece of paper and you burn it do you see the image that's left no it's a piece of ash the whole paper burned there was nothing left but a piece of ash and look at the image let's have brother mark show the next image behind that this very clearly the image of divine mercy the image of jesus never burned this is incredible to me so they contacted one of our priests in poland and he said i want you to do something else he said where did you get this image she said i printed it from the marion's website and he said did you have a blessed she said absolutely he said i want you to do me a favor i want you to print another image but don't bless it and respectfully burn it not burning and defecation or or dishonor and honor burn it so she printed an image off the same printer and burned it let's look at our next slide there was nothing left of it unbless the image totally disintegrated that's why we want these images blessed incredible now before mark shows the next slide i want to tell you about another story we're going to tell you on ewtn coming up and a few wednesdays it's going to be march 16th if you want to mark your calendars march 16th will be our show on the image of divine mercy i'll be talking about a lot of other stuff i don't get to here and in that episode we're going to tell you about an amazing miracle of a guy that knew father seraphim let's post the next picture of brother mark and look this is a version of the divine mercy image which we have here as an eastern icon as an orthodox type of icon and this guy named hugo festa had a vision of jesus coming out of that image and he had ms he had multiple sclerosis he had all kinds of diseases he couldn't walk and jesus came out of that image touched him all of a sudden he was perfectly cured we're going to have that whole story on march 16th at 6 30 east coast time 3 30 west coast on ewtn or again you can see it after that on our website livingdivinemercy.org it's incredible all right we're not going to stop there we have an image here at the united in our emerian helper center and we want to be careful we're not trying to claim that this is miraculous we're not trying to claim any of these none of these am i showing you am i claiming that the church has validated a miracle okay i want to be very careful these are just factual events i want to show you one more this is an image in our marion helper center of a image of jesus and if you look closely it wept you can see the trail of tears pouring down jesus's face and this came from a very special friend of ours named fran out in california that had this image in her house and all of her statues and images weep now again we're not saying anything miraculous but but the bishop at the time said she was fully allowed to talk about this so that's why we're talking about it that image of jesus divine mercy wept and you can't really see it well here but if you see it in person you'll see all the tears accumulated on the word trust all the letters are white the word trust turned green you know what i think i think it's very clear mankind's lack of trust is causing our lord to weep jesus said what hurt him the most in his passion was not our sins it's our lack of trust that's what breaks our lord's heart this image if you do nothing else but just say over and over jesus i trust in you we'll help you now let's watch a quick video then we're going to take our break here and then we're going to we're almost done actually believe it or not we're gonna have a very short return time i mean when we get back it's not long before i finish so if people are here that need to use the restrooms they can but we're gonna show an incredible connection of the shroud of turin to the image of divine mercy the image of the face of jesus and its match to the shroud of turin the clip we're going to show is from the movie love and mercy faustina let's take a look at what this amazing connection is all about well if you take the original image of divine mercy this image and compare it to the shroud of turin it's actually a perfect match the actual features of the face of christ on the image perfectly match the image of the face of christ on the shroud of turin this amazing connection can clearly be seen in this clip from the movie love and mercy and is also available on dvd for the first time this similarity was noticed by father sarafin mihalenko who showed me the effect of comparing both images which was done at his request in the 1990s the results of my anthropological studies of the two faces from both images show a complete convergence with such characteristic facial points as the middle part of the eyebrows the base of the nose the cheekbones jaws the wings of the nose the beginning of the upper and lower lip and chin it's worth analyzing the same details by observing the images in three dimensions it is a face model created by professor mignero in 2002 based on the measurements of the shroud of turin and the veil from oviedo the veil of oviedo is the object that covered the face of jesus when the body was still hanging on the cross and this veil remained there on the face until the body was placed on the shroud then the veil was removed and the body was covered with the shroud [Music] traces of blood on the shroud and veil give us full information of how the face of jesus looked like [Music] i put all three images on each other and it turned out that the eight points determining the most characteristic features of the face perfectly matched [Music] so if you don't see that and just have your breath taken away check your pulse because that's incredible how the face basically father serif was involved with it when they took the image of divine mercy and they plotted several points like a hundred points of the face the difference distance between the nose and the bridge of the nose and the tip of the nose the width of the bridge the eyes the depth of the socket when they did all that and they superimposed it against the shroud of turin it's an exact match in incredible all right so let's finish with a couple things that i found were very interesting this i got from the help of chris sparks and uh he had gotten it from loyola press i think it's very interesting um now let's go back to what an icon is because that's a topic of this talk now you all know icons right you use computers you're like where's the icon on my desktop right you're used to it you don't even know it icons are popular any toolbar on your computer has icons and each symbol or each icon represents something that icon is not where you're going to do your work it represents how to get into the work just like the image of divine mercy is not jesus but it's a representation of how to get to jesus each one represents a greater thing your little icon on your desktop it represents a greater program or a process that's going to let you get to where you want to go but it gives you a quick link now would you rather on your computer have to go through six menus go in there and manually have to restart microsoft word every time you open it or wouldn't it be awesome to have an icon right on your desktop a quick link to get to where you want to go that's what the icon of jesus is but in a much greater way we don't get it religious icons are similar in that they are also symbols or representation of something greater in this case it's not a program or a process like microsoft word it's greater it's a person it's christ or one of the saints not just jesus but one of the saints too you know father seraphim god rest his soul he just passed away a year ago he said as saint john damascene put it if we deny that jesus who came to us in human flesh can be depicted in art as an icon if we deny that we deny the very fact that he was truly human in his human nature as i said these icons are like quick links they give us a kind of snapshot into heaven amazing more than that these religious icons are a form of prayer they make you aware of the presence you're in when you go to a church and you see the icon of jesus you're like oh i better straighten up when i know i've done something really stupid i sometimes don't even look up at the icon of jesus because i'm like oh man but that's exactly when you want to look at the icon of jesus what's the very definition of sin taking your eye off the creator and putting it on the creature or the created thing so when i'm in the chapel and i'm too scrupulous i don't even look up at the icon of jesus instead i bury myself in my phone and i might send somebody a text or something i'm taking my mind or my eyes off the creator and i'm putting it on the creature or the created thing that's the very definition of sin so don't be afraid to keep your eye on that image even if you've messed up ask god right then and there for forgiveness then followed up with the sacrament to guarantee it powerful powerful stuff and icons those are what help us do that they're a form of prayer making you aware the presence you're in icons just aren't art people think that they're just art an icon is different than a beautiful painting a beautiful painting of jesus and mary like oh that's so beautiful that's art an icon is living it's alive it's a window into eternity divine mercy image is an icon it's not just religious art this is this is important they're sacred art that's the difference between just regular art and sacred art they're bringing the viewer to the sacred when you look at it you're being brought to the sacred they follow the tradition of the church that has for centuries communicated our faith in pictures but now it's giving you a living experience of the sacred not just not just some nice to look at museum you don't do it like you're in a museum oh boy that's really nice no you bow down and you say lord have mercy on me this is how the early christians learn their faith the purpose of these sacred images is to bring heaven into the present think of how you were when you were a child i still never forget my mom's nativity set and i was enthralled looking at the faces and the images and that said there was one of the wise men looked really mean i was scared of him he's really mean and he was holding a land and had this real mean look on his face it really got into my soul but when you look at the baby jesus in the same way but opposite direction he can get into your soul you have to just be open to it or what about a beautiful christmas card does anybody who believes in god who's non-catholic who accuses us of idolatry through icons not accept a christmas card a christmas card can depict the beauty of god through visual representation so the next person that tells you that you're guilty of idolatry because we have an icon of jesus say have you ever sent a christmas card because i assume they're christian if they're trying to correct you praise be to god but ask them that question icons are windows to heaven in doorways to the sacred it's a window to eternity and that's why they look odd sometimes you ever notice how weird sometimes they look as i pointed out we did a little video yesterday um thursday our thursday ask american videos a little more fun there's one on the mirror with cameraman giuseppe and we were building images but i pointed out in that video that sometimes the saints have long pointed toes or perfectly round heads nobody has a perfectly round head they look odd so let's take a look at our next slide if brother mark can put up for us why is this why do these religious icons sometimes look so odd all right this uh patricia casten who i i dug up did some really good work on this and i think it's powerful now when you look at that it's not like a photo is it that's not a photo and it's certainly like not like a rembrandt trying to portray a person what is it well it looks distorted look at jesus's perfectly round head there icons are meant to remind us that there is more beyond this world it's a window to eternity that's why these icons sometimes look deformed or disjointed the pictures are not you know it's funny because the pictures are not there just to be looked at in the way as i said we would in a museum icons don't even look like real people sometimes let's look at our next one this is the most famous one with mary and jesus the icons don't even look like real people why because they're meant to be spiritual portraits look at jesus and mary there they reveal god or a saint who is with god and existing beyond the material world again i keep saying a door to eternity window to heaven let's look at the next one this is a famous one we don't need we don't have just jesus mary but we have saints too look at these saints this is why certain features of icons and the saints and their faces appear so different their ears are large why does that that means you should be listening their mouth is small which means we should be doing less talking this is all in the icons all right and you're invited to enter in with that small mouth that's saying be silent don't talk so much that's my big one you enter into prayer contemplation you need silence you need to listen bigger ears smaller mouth so they put it all out of perspective here to accentuate it with an icon you were invited to enter into silence into prayer and accomplish contemplation so the icon is a portal you don't pray to the icon like the icon is going to help you you pray in the presence of an icon all right and what's also interesting is the sizes of the figures are very interesting you ever notice their artists what we would call scale the size of the figures reflect their importance in heaven that interesting rather than their implied distance so if you figure oh well the picture's farther away the image should be smaller it might be bigger and even if you're up close you think the image should be bigger it may be appear much smaller really fascinating sometimes they even look flat the characters on there that de-emphasizes the physical body focuses on the spiritual everything pretty much is in a golden light the golden light of heaven they're highly symmetrical perfectly symmetrical that reflects the divine order the harmony of the universe and that light of grace that is said to come through the icon like that golden light is the same in the east is it for us in the west with stained glass windows we have the similar thing on stained glass windows you'll see some of the stained glass windows like we have here in the shrine are icons so let's take the last of the last couple of slides here so an icon of jesus i bet you didn't know this always shows jesus wearing either gold why gold that's for heaven or white why white for the resurrection or notice this image on your screen he oftentimes wears a blue robe i bet you didn't know this and that is for his divine nature and he wears a red tunic that's for his human blood that image i shouldn't even think about it jesus has a red tunic that's for his human blood and a blue robe for his divine nature he's human and divine that's why he has blue and red on there fascinating i learned all this in seminary we don't teach this in our churches we don't teach this in the homilies we don't teach this in our cia and this is why we get shellacked when we're called to defend our faith and we're accused of worshiping icons geez do we i guess we do maybe i should leave the catholic church and go to that non-denominational church down the street look at what you're missing when i go to those non-denominational churches they're barren they have no beauty this is beauty this is the sacred so to wrap up here i wanted to talk lastly from my seminary notes about iconoclasm this was a big heresy centuries ago so the church itself the catholic church questioned if this is idolatry are icons allowed this is called the iconoclasm heresy so akanoclasts regarded art as permissible but only if it like islam islam does this too you know you can't have a sacred image in islam they call it idolatry and so many of those iconoclasts said that art can only be restricted to secular things not the sacred iconoclasm basically represented radical secularization of art right to only be decorative not to pray or anything like that now today we've overcome that in 843 that was condemned as heresy so if anybody tells you you're blasphemous you say well actually the church that was founded by jesus christ declared iconoclasm as blasphemous which says you can't have images so actually that's the blasphemy the orthodox church now celebrates this victory of the triumph of orthodoxy and guess what they celebrate it on the first sunday of lent when did jesus appear to saint faustina i said in the image the first sunday of lent when was that 1931 february 22nd it's coming up here in a few days the anniversary it was the feast of icons father serphine used to talk about this all the time so as we wrap up here this is important icons constitute a special category of religious art not just any religious art special category they belong to an unwritten sacred tradition that is equal to written tradition there are three legs to our stool of the catholic faith we follow the jews scripture tradition and the magisterium that tradition is oral that's not biblical father 2 thessalonians 2 15. paul said hold fast to the traditions that i teach you both oral and written this falls into that sacred tradition not man made man did not make the image of divine mercy god gave it man did not make the shroud of turin god gave it man did not make the image of our lady guadalupe mary gave it important so finishing as i said they have an authentic mission to reveal the faith in visible form as scripture does in written form as i said before god didn't give us just ears to hear the word of god he gave us eyes to see it how do we see it if we're not allowed to have a single image of it that is church teaching john paul ii said quote the events of salvation history give meaning and orientate orientation to our life that the glory that is promised us already transforms our existence and icons capture this wow did you hear what john paul jude just said john paul ii basically said the events of salvation history give meaning to our life and this is already in existence in the icons they are not simply pretty objects like other religious art but faith made visible so divine mercy this divine mercy image allows humans to see the face of god the face of the father's mercy as the holy father said in his encyclical misery cordial voltus the face of the father's mercy you know brother mark can show that is why these multiple images of divine mercy we get a lot of these letters which one's best father there's the blue one there's the brown one there's the black one all right all of these images all these versions are valid as long as they have the elements we just described jesus hand in a blessing the rays coming out from the heart the left foot stepping forward dressed as a priest all those images are valid there's no difference and so in this image we venerate it's no different than kissing the gospel no difference non-catholics have no problem kissing the bible but heaven forbid you kiss an image of jesus there's no difference all right such actions yes they can look scandalous and idolatry like idolatry those to those who are unfamiliar with christian teaching since the first century that's why we got the iconoclastic controversy in the seventh and eighth centuries which has now been fixed this is why many non-catholics reject images and statues but it's been confirmed by the church that veneration shown to the icon passes on to the person it represents he who prostrates before the icon does so before the person who is represented therein the words of the church at nicaea when we venerate a nikon we are not worshiping the wood or the paint but the one it depicts and since that belongs to apostolic tradition it does merit our attention and so god bless you you've all been very patient but i'm super excited to tell you as we go about a new process here at the marian fathers you know for years we've been trying to perfect the image that we've been making here of our art we've had canvas we've had a lot of different images you may have ordered them from the last several years uh jesus the divine mercy mary saint joseph all these others and we feel bad if maybe you've gotten one from a couple years ago that wasn't made to the proper quality that you would have liked that has now all been fixed we've got some amazing new processes brother mark's been involved in it some of our employees have been involved in it and i want to show you a couple pictures because this is so much fun here's a picture of cameraman giuseppe and me downstairs making these images we are actually making everyone they're not shipped in from china they are not brought in from overseas they're made right here at the national shrine of divine mercy the next photo shows a bunch of us in that photo you see cameraman giuseppe behind him is brother patrick on the other side is myself way in the back that's brother alex making the frames that's zeke one of our employees staff members helping out it's a lot of fun nowhere else are you going to get a handmade canvas image of divine mercy made by priests and brothers than you will right here at the national shrine so brother mark can zoom in these are what we call gallery wrapped look how beautiful now how tight the corners are these right now are a special way for you to protect your home these are canvas it's beautiful canvas this is handmade as i said by priests brothers seminarians employees volunteers laity it's awesome and we have these images right now here at the national shrine these on um anywhere else are run about 80 90 to 100 because their gallery wrap their wood behind it so you can put it we're only asking for a donation of 24.95 to cover our costs now if you can't if you can't afford it this is how much i want this image in the homes of everyone if you can't afford it and god knows you know if you really can afford it or not i will send you one no questions asked i'm sorry i didn't put this on the screen but you can remember it's really easy peter james p-e-t-e-r-j-a-m-e-s one word at marion.org m-a-r-i-o-n if you can't afford one and you don't want to have to spend the money that you need to feed your family understood i will send you one now look up on your screen if you want to order one or more you can go to divinemercyart.org or shopmercy.org you could see our wide range of images in fact in addition to saint or jesus we have beautiful saint joseph images here's an image i don't know if brother mark again can zoom in on me i'm holding it i'm holding it i don't have one on the screen but i'm holding it we have beautiful canvas st joseph we have the blessed virgin mary that you can see here as well this is a beautiful one called the innocence now father i'm so disappointing you you're selling things no no no no this is a suggested donation again if you can't i'll send you one we're not selling them we're asking for donations to cover our costs and i'll tell you all the money goes right back into this ministry this is this is money that that turns around and we invest back into the equipment the canvas the wood holy mackerel every time i turn around the wood they're raising the price on the wood and canvas on us but we're gonna keep going praise be to god and we want you to be part of this so if mark can put back up on the screen again oh i think he just did them sorry i keep messing them up we forgot the gold frame too the gold frame that i'm holding in my hand if brother mark can show back up on the on the ambo here this is the beautiful golden frame images this is a different version of the divine mercy image here you can see the wounds of the crucifixion quite a bit more than what i'm holding and the gold frame if you wanted something for nicer decor but remember again what's more important is not the beauty of the paint or the brush stroke it's in the grace that these images represent how amazing is that so now i go back to brother mark if we could put back up on your screen divinemercyart.org and you could see a whole wide ranges of sizes designs different versions of jesus we have shopmercy.org or if you just want to call and say i would like to order one you can call us at 800-462-7426 and again if you're outside of the united states i'm going to send you back to peter at peter james marion.org because if you can't get it shipped if you're somewhere in asia or europe we might need peter to help you personally try to get it so you can visit him at peter james marion.org so please get this image you know what if you don't even get it from us print one off the internet download one we have on our website you can download a free image and just print it out on your printer but get you and your family protected this is the beauty of the icons this is the beauty of sacred art and how much god gives us in these gifts that we shouldn't scream blasphemy and idolatry we should rather scream thank you lord have mercy on me and that's what this divine mercy image does and so again please if i've offended anybody we're not selling these we're asking for a donation oh and one last thing if you want me to personally bless your image i will do it but we can't sell blessed images okay so what you have to do is call and place an order but then say i want father chris to personally bless it i don't care if i get 5000 requests i will do every single one okay so if you want it blessed you have to make that special request but i would re i would wait till monday to make that one if you can still want to order it today you can we'll hope that the message will get to me because we have 24 hours so you can still order it but if you want it blessed you have to make that special request and i'll bless it for you but we can't do it till after you order it because canon law doesn't allow us to sell blessed images makes sense but again all the donations go back into our ministry and we're thankful to god that we have this ministry so get the image no matter where you get it god bless you and continue to stay strong in your faith and until next week may almighty god bless you the father the son and the holy spirit amen you

Channel: Divine Mercy

Views: 39,545

Keywords: Divine Mercy, Mercy, Jesus, Christ, Marian, priest, grace, pray, prays, praying, chris alar, alar, fr. Chris, fr. alar, Catholic, Church, God, fr. chris alar, blessed virgin, Mary, blessing, worship, Salvation, Faustina, Prayer, Saints, miracle, Icon, Image, Art, Sacred Art, Shroud of Turin, Image of Divine Mercy, iconoclasm, Iconoclast, graven image

Id: 0HhNxhrMIsE

Length: 86min 25sec (5185 seconds)

Published: Sat Feb 19 2022