External Acts of Adoration

37. Thirdly, it was considered that the Greeks who are learned in religious matters understand fully that the Body and Blood of the Lord are not yet present under the appearances of bread and wine during the greater entrance. If they also know, as they surely must, that acts of worship (latria) are due to God alone, no one can justly suspect that they intend to offer worship to still unconsecrated species by the external actions of veneration which they practice at the entrance of the offerings. These same signs of external reverence are usually offered at different times to the Creator and to created things. Thus the holy Scriptures say that Abraham adored the angels, that Jacob more than once prostrated himself before his brother Esau, and that the prophet Nathan did likewise in the presence of David. The condemnation of this Greek rite is unnecessary also because worship (latria) is not constituted by external acts alone, but particularly by the inner disposition of the mind which determines the external actions. Moreover if the Greeks at the Mass of the Presanctified show reverence by the same acts of external adoration to the bread which is consecrated and at the same time to the wine contained in the chalice which is admittedly not consecrated, they are not for this reason accused of adoring with an equal act of worship the bread which has been consecrated and the wine which has only been blessed in the Mass of the Presanctified. This accusation is not made, of course, because external actions are guided by the mind. Therefore in accordance with different intentions, one and the same act can convey at one time the adoration of worship, at another the implication of a lesser reverence.

This point sufficiently establishes that even if during the greater entrance, in the presence of the still unconsecrated bread and wine, the Greeks perform the same external acts of adoration as they are accustomed to offer to the Eucharistic bread and consecrated chalice, it cannot be asserted that they worship ordinary bread and unconsecrated wine. For every action should be measured by the intent, which can direct the same external actions after the consecration to express an adoration of worship towards the Eucharistic Bread and Wine. It can also exclude the act of worship from the performance of the same actions before the consecration at the solemn entrance of the offerings. So the following passage of Leo Allatius is relevant: "This service is not called worship, which is due to Got alone, but it is such as is demanded by the veneration of creatures. For a gesture of external reverence such as uncovering the head, kissing the hands, joining them in an attitude of supplication, stretching them out, raising them on high and the like, as well as kneeling and prostrating oneself on the ground, is offered not only in adoration of God but of creatures too. No wrong is done in such cases provided that we mentally distinguish God the Creator from the creation, and a more excellent creature from a less excellent one. So through external gestures of the body, service rendered to God in adoration is considered worship not on account of the nature of these actions, but on account of the intention which determines them, since otherwise in their mere nature they are indifferent. For the inner will and intention of pleasing the divine honor through these external actions makes these acts suitable for the service of God, and allows the external adoration of Got to be exercised through them" (Tractat. de Missa Praesanctificatorum, no. 8).

St. Thomas teaches as follows: "Adoration chiefly consists in an inner reverence of God, but in a secondary way in certain bodily signs of humility, just as we bend the knee to show how weak we are in comparison with God and we prostrate ourselves to proclaim that, of ourselves, we are nothing" (Summa Theol. 2.2, quest. 84, art. 82, answer to the second). In explaining this teaching, Sylvius adds these words: "It is fitting that adoration chiefly consist in an interior reverence for God, but secondarily in certain bodily signs. This is true, although there is hardly any bodily sign of reverence or service which cannot be offered in homage to a creature as well as to God. Consequently external acts of homage must be distinguished on the basis of the intention of the offerer. For if he intends by an external mark of reverence to offer an honor appropriate only to God and to honor Him as supreme, then such a service will pertain to divine worship; but if it is intended to offer reverence to an outstanding creature pleasing to God, it will be an instance of the service of Dulia or Hyperdulia. I said "hardly" since no doubt there is an external sacrifice which can be offered only to God." Thus Sylvius states that the one outer sign which necessarily implies a service of Latria is an external sacrifice which is most definitely offered to God alone, as is shown at length by St. Thomas too (Summa Theol. 2.2, quest. 85, art. 2). So we read in the Acts of the Apostles that when the Laodiceans thought that Paul and Barnabas were gods, they at once considered the need of offering sacrifice to them.

Suarez hands on precisely the same doctrine: "External acts are not of their own nature fixed to the extent that they cannot be performed both to reverence God and to honor a creature, etc. Therefore, in these external acts, the distinction of the Latria due to God alone from the reverence of a creature depends chiefly on the inner intention" (in 3. part. Divi Thomae, vol. 1, quest. 25, art. 2, disput. 61, sect. 4). The same writer, it is true, adds a little later that it is not only the agent's inner will which confers on an external act the nature of divine reverence; the act can become such and be so considered if such a meaning is assigned to it by one who has the requisite authority: "Apart from inner intention a public imposition must be considered. For if these signs are imposed by sufficient authority and power to signify God and His service, they can only be used for the service of God. Then if such service is imparted to creatures, it will be at least external idolatry even if it does not proceed from the intention or arises from a mistaken judgment." But this teaching can have no application to Our present subject for there exists nowhere a decree of public authority that the external acts described above as performed by the Greeks at the procession through the church at the greater entrance must be considered as acts and signs of a service of Latria.