The Family Photo Album

I’m not Catholic by birth, but by choice. I was raised in the Baptist tradition until I was a preteen at which point my family stopped attending church. I’m not entirely clear on all the specifics, but no matter the reasoning, I’m convinced starving souls had as much to do with it as anything. Nonetheless, even though I wasn’t baptized and after age ten or so and had no official affiliation with an organized faith of any sort, I identified as a Baptist until I met my husband. It was after I attended my first Mass with him I knew I’d come home. Being raised in the very buckle of the Bible belt, it was particularly difficult to announce I was attending RCIA. I found myself being pelted with questions, most of which I had no idea how to answer right away. A newly forming Catholic is by no means an expert in apologetics. But, like many cradle Catholics and fledgling Catholics alike, I found myself faced with one of the biggie questions right away.

“Why do those people worship and pray to statues?”

I thought at first I’d falter and look the fool trying to answer this question, since we’d not really covered it in RCIA just yet. But when the time came to open my mouth and reply I found the Holy Spirit, who resides in the Trinity, works as mysteriously as the other two-thirds of that equation.

“Do you have a picture of your mother on your mantel?”

I was as surprised by my rebuttal question as my inquisitor was.

One of the first things which drew me to the Church was Mary. I had such a strong desire to connect with her; a desire I could neither explain nor fathom. But it was there. In fact, I’d purchased myself a rosary within days of attending that first Mass with my husband and was learning to pray it and I knew I had to have a statue of Mary in my house. I’d seen the statues of her in the church and I was simply drawn to her.

But through all that curiosity and desire, it never occurred to me until posed with one simple question that in coming back to not only the statue of Mary, but in perusing the other statues tucked into alcoves here and there, I was thumbing through the family photo album.

All of us have photos of our family set out on our mantel, hanging on the walls of our homes, and tucked into alcoves and recesses. We keep them secure in picture albums and boxes. Why would it be any different for our extended family, the family we come together with as Catholics under the matriarchal authority of Mother Church? It seemed only natural to me at the time, and seems necessary to me now, that we have that family photo album accessible to us and our children. The family photo album is where we first learn of our family history and learn to identify those who come together as a village to raise the next generation. It’s the visual aid in remembering where we came from.

Religious statues are no different. They remind us of our story. They help us remember from where and from whom we came. They teach us the lessons we need to learn in order to be a happy, healthy one of the faithful. Like photo albums, we thumb through them and pass on the construct of our family tree and what each person sitting in its branches is best known for at family gatherings.

“…here we have Mary, Blessed Virgin, who gave birth to our Savior Jesus Christ. Isn’t she beautiful…and this is her husband, Joseph. He was an outstanding carpenter and a great father…Uncle Patrick. Oh the stories I could tell you. Now his parents were Roman, but he managed to find his way to Ireland…what a great likeness of Uncle Francis. He loved animals, that one…”

You see, we don’t worship or pray to statues. We fill the walls and alcoves and recesses of our family home with our ancestors so we might remember.