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catholic terms:shrines,cult,fraternity etc anthony Wednesday, April 8, 2009

Question:

Hello Bro Ignatius,
The church uses terms such as shrines,cult,fraternity and others i will like to know the origin of the words as some pagans also use the words as well and this makes some uninformed people refer to catholics as cultists.

secondly is angel Micheal the same as saint Micheal?

Can you please offer some explanation and many thanks for your help so far.
God bless.



Question Answered by Bro. Ignatius Mary, OLSM

Dear Anthony:

Sorry for the delay in answering.

Here are some definitions:

Shrine:

In general, a holy place. It may be a box-shaped repository in which relics of a saint are preserved; or the sacred image or statue of Our Lord, the Blessed Virgin, or a saint in church or at home to which special devotion is given. But mainly shrines are prominent sacred localities. They may be the burial place of a saint, or where he or she lived or died, or where a heavenly apparition took place. Shrines are the focuses of pilgrimages by the faithful and often of miraculous phenomena approved by the Church. (Etym. Latin scrinium, box, bookcase.) [Source: Catholic Dictionary]

Cult:

1) A definite form of worship or of religious observance, sometimes rendered "cultus," especially when referring to the worship of saints. 2) Also a particular religious group centered around some unusual belief, generally transient in duration and featuring some exotic or imported ritual and other practices. (Etym. Latin cultus, care, adoration; from colere, to cultivate.) [Source: Catholic Dictionary]

The first definition is the one that the Catholic Church uses most often. A Cult in that definition can refer to the cult of Mary. That refers to the veneration of Mary.

The "worship of saints", by the way, is not referring to the worship given only to God. The English word "worship" derives from three Latin words latria, dulia, hyperdulia.

From the article Saint Worship from Catholic Answers:

The word "worship" has undergone a change in meaning in English. It comes from the Old English weorthscipe, which means the condition of being worthy of honor, respect, or dignity. To worship in the older, larger sense is to ascribe honor, worth, or excellence to someone, whether a sage, a magistrate, or God.

For many centuries, the term worship simply meant showing respect or honor, and an example of this usage survives in contemporary English. British subjects refer to their magistrates as "Your Worship," although Americans would say "Your Honor." This doesn’t mean that British subjects worship their magistrates as gods (in fact, they may even despise a particular magistrate they are addressing). It means they are giving them the honor appropriate to their office, not the honor appropriate to God.

In Scripture, the term "worship" was similarly broad in meaning, but in the early Christian centuries, theologians began to differentiate between different types of honor in order to make more clear which is due to God and which is not.

As the terminology of Christian theology developed, the Greek term latria came to be used to refer to the honor that is due to God alone, and the term dulia came to refer to the honor that is due to human beings, especially those who lived and died in God’s friendship—in other words, the saints. Scripture indicates that honor is due to these individuals (Matt. 10:41b). A special term was coined to refer to the special honor given to the Virgin Mary, who bore Jesus—God in the flesh—in her womb. This term, hyperdulia (huper [more than]+ dulia = "beyond dulia"), indicates that the honor due to her as Christ’s own Mother is more than the dulia given to other saints. It is greater in degree, but still of the same kind. However, since Mary is a finite creature, the honor she is due is fundamentally different in kind from the latria owed to the infinite Creator.

All of these terms—latria, dulia, hyperdulia—used to be lumped under the one English word "worship." Sometimes when one reads old books discussing the subject of how particular persons are to be honored, they will qualify the word "worship" by referring to "the worship of latria" or "the worship of dulia." To contemporaries and to those not familiar with the history of these terms, however, this is too confusing.

Fraternity:

An association for special religious purposes. [Source: Webster's Dictionary]

Examples of Catholic Fraternities are spiritual groups such as the Fraternity of Charismatic Covenant Communities, or benefit and service groups like the Order of Foresters, the Holy Name Society, and Knights of Columbus, or student Catholic fraternities on college compasses.

Saint Michael:

St. Michael is Michael the Archangel. The reason the angel Michael is a "saint" when he is not human is that the word "saint" means a person worthy of honor and veneration. The Archangel is honored and venerated in the Church, as is the Archangels Gabriel and Raphael.

God Bless,
Bro. Ignatius Mary


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