Shrines and icons honor holiness

At the shrine where Jacob spent the night he didn’t just have a gastrointestinal dream, a spicy bean-induced hallucination in a place between consciousness and deep sleep. He had an encounter with God and the occupants of heaven itself. When the diseased woman reached to touch the edge of Jesus’ clothing she was appealing to his authority to heal her. She wasn’t annoying Jesus. She was reaching out for his help.

Holy participation with God can happen anywhere, of course. There is no place where God is not with us. At a memorial, however, we actively engage more of our senses than praying at our desk at work or humming a song to God while we wash the dishes. We put our body into a place called holy in order that we can be wrapped in holiness.

Holiness transforms creation


http://www.usccb.org/bible/readings/070819.cfm
Genesis 28:10-22
Matthew 9:18-26


The earth is dotted with shrines to God. The inspiration found at these sites — from cathedrals built in the center of practically every city on earth to the holy places marked at the top of mountains and in the middle of deserts — carries on today. We can visit holy places where memorials honor God’s saints and where church’s venerate and celebrate great miracles. Even the smallest of shrines that stand at pinpoints and resting places along historic pilgrimage trails invite us to stay a moment and feel God's presence there. 

That is why we go to them. During our visits to the world’s shrines we recognize God's interactions in creation, hoping also to experience an intimate conversation with God.

Every memorial monument to the divinity of the Holy Trinity, around the globe, triggers opportunities for God to speak to us. We are drawn to God's presence initially by the majesty of the huge monuments that speak about him. Putting ourselves in the physical proximity of a church, altar, sanctuary, or even a catacomb moves us into purposeful association with the divine’s interaction with creation. We stand at a threshold, under a window, or within a space formally designated as holy. Here, God once interacted with us. 

The call for reverence is not strange. It is appropriate. We are awakened by God to know him through every element of creation. Beauty, magnificence, delight, and elegance easily grab our attention. Reflection caused by venerated places and things, though, shifts our attention from the material element of beauty to the presence and interaction of the creator with one of our kind.

The simple tenderness of a painting, a book, or a sculpture is crafted to draw our attention, and pull us into the author’s desire to communicate with us. When the purpose of the construction is to acknowledge God’s presence the one(s) who build it want us to know God is not only real, but actively engaged in creation. When we allow a shrine to move us, we are willing participants in the connection experience of a construction designed to well up reverence. In that moment time will stand still. 

Holy participation with God can happen anywhere, of course. There is no place where God is not with us. At a memorial, however, we actively engage more of our senses than praying at our desk at work or humming a song to God while we wash the dishes. We put our body into a place called holy in order that we can be wrapped in holiness.

A small cross on a chain that we wear can trigger the same thing in us as a huge temple. It's an icon, an image that represents what we adore. The comparison of a shrine to an icon is like the difference between attending a symphony with a thirty-six person orchestra and listening to the same song on a radio. There is no real power in the thing, or even the place. There is, however, locality of holiness. The shrine that Jacob visited, for instance, had already been dedicated to a divinity. When he stayed at the place of that shrine and had a dream there, he exclaimed, “How awesome is this place!” 

Likewise, when you see a person wrap their hand around a cross they wear they act in the same way, acknowledging a connection to God, sometimes in quiet prayer, sometimes in crying out for help. “I wear this cross every day,” they may say. 

The choice of the reading from Matthew where the woman touches Jesus’ tassel as the Gospel companion to Jacob’s dream at the location of a shrine affirms the importance of the locality of holiness. The tassel on a holy figure represents an icon of their authority. In our yearning for God we reach out for things and places where we can acknowledge contact. They are only memorials and monuments, not the actual presence of God. The tassel of Jesus’ garment was not Jesus himself. Yet, in these places and in contact with these things we don’t just open ourselves to the presence of God. We admit our yearning to touch God, hoping at the least for a word or a whisper.

The affirmation of holiness does not stop at the existence of the shrine or the ritual of acknowledging the association of a place or thing with holiness. Being reminded that holiness exists, though, invites an actual communication and contact with God. The physical and emotional stillness and mystical aura around memorial things and places moves us into that portal where heaven and creation meet. 

At the shrine where Jacob spent the night he didn’t just have a gastrointestinal dream, a spicy bean-induced hallucination in a place between consciousness and deep sleep. He had an encounter with God and the occupants of heaven itself. When the diseased woman reached to touch the iconic edge of Jesus’ clothing she was appealing to his authority to heal her. She wasn’t annoying Jesus. She was reaching out for his help.

God does speak to us in holiness. God spoke to Jacob. More than words will always take place. While the communication may be our goal in opportunities of holiness, God always has more in mind. He engaged Jacob in a vivid display of heaven’s concourse. The woman healed by Jesus subsequently embarked on an evangelical witness that we hear two millennia later.

We are not just God’s fawning creatures. He has plenty of those already at his beck and call. We are drawn to God for reasons particular to our own existence. Shrines bother us with their potential for not just engaging with God, but with joining him in an adventure. I say bother, because we must usually step away from our own projected path to visit a shrine, or reach out to a memorial we wear on a chain. 

Disease and brokenness typically provide us with the desperate courage required to engage in a holy place and allow God to engage us. God knows this, and willingly complies. Not always, but often enough to draw us out of ourselves. For Jesus didn’t just acknowledge that a woman cried out for help, crawling into a crowd to touch his cloak. He cured her, for all to see.

The array of shrines and memorials to God are piled upon each other, a recognition of holy engagements. Shrines are built upon shrines. Rosaries are laid about on the entryways of churches. Crutches are hung near holy springs. Crosses poke out from buildings all over the cities. People swarm to these places, whether due to courageous necessity or gracious homage. They go not for just that moment. The visitors to shrines are the same folks who carry the crosses and rosaries on their bodies, and who kneel by their bedsides in prayer. 

Stories of Jesus’ presence provide living shrines. The cured woman spent the rest of her life as a monument to the power of Jesus. The Bethel shrine has venerated the dream of Jacob for many more millennia. This points to the eventual rejoining of creation with a new earth and the heavens above. The memorials turn into holy places in actuality. The entire earth, and probably every atom in the universe, will eventually turn from memorial to holiness. Everyplace we walk, and everything we touch will be holy, because we will become holy and transform creation.

The land on which you are lying
I will give to you and your descendants.
These shall be as plentiful as the dust of the earth,
and through them you shall spread out east and west, north and south.
In you and your descendants
all the nations of the earth shall find blessing.
Know that I am with you;
I will protect you wherever you go,
and bring you back to this land.
I will never leave you until I have done what I promised you.
(Genesis 28:13-15)

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