The Adoration of Christ

We adore Christ, God and man, with the same adoration. For what we adore is the Person called Christ. Even though this Person has two natures, the human and the divine, he is one Person,and that Person is God. Even the humanity of Christ is adored asthe humanity of a Person who is God.

St. John Damascene (De Fid. Orthodox, iv 3)says that we adore the flesh of Christ, not for its own sake, but because the Word of God is united with it. And, since we give divine worship (called latria) to God, we give the same sort of worship to the humanity of Christ unitedhypostatically with divinity. Only when we consider the humanity of Christ apart from the hypostatic union do we pay it the honor of reverence (called dulia) instead of the adoration of latria.

When we honor an image of Christ, we honor Christ. Wedo not give any honor at all to the image as a piece of painted canvas or as a carved bit of wood or marble or metal. The image is meaningful only in what it represents. And what it represents is Christ whom we worship with the adoration of latria.

The same thing is true of the honor and reverence we give to the cross on which our Lord died. What we see in the cross is not the wood of which it is made, but the whole meaning of the Crucifixion. And we adore the Word Incarnate, with the worship of latria, whose death for us the cross calls to our remembrance and appreciation.

The Blessed Mother is not venerated by latria, for this is divine worship and is owed to God alone. She has the reverence paid to holy creatures, saints and angels, and this is called dulia. Indeed, since she is the Mother of God andthe queen of all angels and saints, we pay to the Blessed Virgin a special and higher type of dulia which belongs to her alone and is called hyperdulia.

We honor the relics of the saints (their bodies, bones, or things they used or had about them during life)with a true veneration that is directed to the saints themselves. And in honoring the saints we honor Christ whose members the saints are.