religious veneration Quotes

Religion worships God, while superstition profanes that worship.

The pope has been called many things, historic figure, spiritual leader, moral force. But a growing chorus of voices has begun to refer to him as John Paul II the Great, in other words, as a saint.

The soul of the Christian religion is reverence.

Orthodox Christians have the habit of claiming all great men, all men who have held important positions, men of reputation, men of wealth. As soon as the funeral is over clergymen begin to relate imaginary conversations with the deceased, and in a very little while the great man is changed to a Christian - possibly to a saint.

Venerate the martyrs, praise, love, proclaim, honor them. But worship the God of the martyrs.

It is imperative that the Christian, at the beginning of his pursuit to understand what true worship is, gets it clear that the object of our worship is to be God and God alone.

Any civilization where the main symbol of religious veneration is a tool of execution is a bad place to have children.

We take ourselves way too seriously, and we don't take God seriously enough. It is not by accident that humor and humility come from the same root word. If you can laugh at yourself, you'll always have plenty of good material.

Such is my veneration for every religion that reveals the attributes of the Deity, or a future state of rewards and punishments, that I had rather see the opinions of Confucius or Mahomed inculcated upon our youth than see them grow up wholly devoid of a system of religious principles.

Man always needs a rein, and even if it might be ridiculous to sacrifice to fauns, or sylvans, or naiads, it is much more reasonable and more useful to venerate these fantastic images of the Divine than to sink into atheism. An atheist who is rational, violent, and powerful, would be as great a pestilence as a blood-mad, superstitious man

Catholicism believes in the Virgen de Guadalupe. The mother of God is worshipped, especially in Latin America. I find her very empowering. I find that the Virgen de Guadalupe allowed me to return to parts of my upbringing I had disregarded.

It is evident, from their method of propagation, that a couple of cats, in fifty years, would stock a whole kingdom; and if that religious veneration were still paid them, it would, in twenty more, not only be easier in Egypt to find a god than a man, which Petronius says was the case in some parts of Italy; but the gods must at last entirely starve the men, and leave themselves neither priests nor votaries remaining.

Public opinion aside, it will be up to the future pope to continue John Paul II's journey to sainthood. Many of the late pope's followers believe he is already there.