How the Lord’s Supper wood carving became Idolatrous
Notice there is no picture here. Pictures can be idolatrous. You know the Ten Commandments? The part about no other gods before me and you are not to make for yourself an idol in the form of anything in heaven, earth, etc and bow down or worship them. This begins the story of how the Christian faith Center Church womens prayer group went on a crusade to tear down the idol out of their prayer room.
I was wanting more and more of the Holy Spirit back in my Charismatic days in the early 80’s so I was drawn to activities of the Spirit such as prayer. This is a good thing but this was before I read Luther talking about those schwarmers enthuasists who wanted to swallow the Holy Spirit, feathers and all. I was young, naive and vulnerable so I joined the Womens prayer group.
This group was full of mainly old women who would moan and groan and they were glad that I was there so they could use their prophetic gift to guide me. I heard phrases like God told me to tell you this or that. Damn who needs to make decisions because God has a plan for my life and I did not have to listen to God or use the god-given common sense God gave me to be responsible and think for myself. I had God’s prayer warriors and travel/psychic advisors by my side.
A lot of strange things started happening in that group among the unknown babble and crying. One of the things I liked about the prayer room was a nice wood carving of the Lord’s Supper. It was very sacramental to me before I knew what sacraments were all about but that was soon taken down. One day Sister Annie had an heavenly vision that God was displeased with that piece of wood and if they would not take it down then God would judge the Church. This place would be Icabod they screamed. The Spirit of the Lord would depart from this prayer room and Church. They tore that idol down just like they stopped all that devil rock music that the youth were listening to. I knew right then and there that I had to leave this crazy bunch!
Years later I was watching the movie Luther where Karlstadt goes nuts and starts tearing off his clerical albs, tearing up all things that looked Roman including the Crucifixes and crosses yelling that it was all idolatry. He runs off yelling gibberish and then I realized where all this crap originated from.
What a shame. The Holy Spirit inspired some artist to use his talent to proclaim God’s glory by carving that piece. Instead of using it as a focal point for prayer and meditation, they looked upon it as sinful to display. I’ll tell you a secret, Catholics don’t pray TO the statues, we just use them to focus our thoughts much like one would display a photo of their spouse and children on a desk. They help remind us of God’s presence in the world through the examples set by Christ and the saints.