I was in high school when I realized that my prayer life needed to move beyond communicating to a God sitting on a literal physical throne located high in the skies above. Growing in faith requires, at some point, learning to think beyond the literal (i.e., “The Garden of Eden story was literally about an apple and a snake”).
It took me several years longer to reach another stage of faith maturity: to begin grasping faith lessons with more of the breadth and meaning that religious symbolism is meant to impart. (The academic and theologian James Fowler did groundbreaking work on how we understand and navigate faith throughout our life stages in his book Stages of Faith).
Encyclopedia Britannica states that in religious symbolism, “The symbol object, picture, sign, word, and gesture require the association of certain conscious ideas in order to fully express what is meant by them. To this extent it has both an esoteric and an exoteric, or a veiling and a revealing, function” (the parables that Jesus told also had both revealing and veiling purposes).
Faith becomes more multifaceted when conceptualizing faith at this more varied level. Examples of recognizing the meaning of religious symbolism include:
- There’s the apple and the snake (Garden of Eden)….. Adam and Eve were provided a terrestrial paradise with the condition that a life of terrestial paradise be contingent upon living as instructed by God; Adam and Eve violated the covenant given to them by God, thereby bringing sin and unhappiness into the world. Following God’s instructions would have allowed for the human happiness that God intended for us; we have free will, God can’t force us to live in right relationship with God. The lesson for us is that happiness for humanity as a whole and for us as individuals is contingent upon living in right relationship with God – something that we, in our broken state, have to work toward (and, we are dependent upon God’s grace). The message of us following God’s will is more important than the apple and snake in the Garden of Eden….
- Robert Barron states in his book Catholicism A Journey to the Heart of the Faith that “One of the typical biblical names for the devil is ho diabalos, derived from the term diabalein (to throw apart). If God is a great gathering force, then sin is a scattering power.” God brings us together in love and unity, the devil divides us (I heard the bishop of the U.S. Episcopalian Church, Michael Curry, indicate that sin is based in selfishness). In referencing a passage about historical Israel, Fr. Brandon discusses that “Ever since humanity’s first parents fell out of paradise, that is, broke their relationship with God, God has been hard at work trying to mend that brokenness…..God’s intention was that a unified and spiritually vibrant Israel would function as a magnet for the rest of humanity, drawing everyone to God by the sheer attractive quality of their way of being.”
Coming to recognizing the meaning intended by religious symbolism involves maturing attentiveness to what is communicated in one’s faith tradition. Surrendering to the process provided by one’s faith tradition helps to incorporate the meaning provided by religious symbolism into one’s life.
Which religious symbolism – and its’ meaning – is providing meaning in your life?
Kim Burkhardt blogs at A Parish Catechist and The Books of the Ages. If you are a new visitor, it would be great to have you follow this blog (thank you!). If you know someone who would like this blog post, please share it with them (thank you!).
