Cult

CULT (lat. Cultus, from colere = to cultivate, to honor).

I. GENERAL NOTIONS

In its broadest meaning it is the expression of the inner sentiment with which man acknowledges the excellence of another being; it may therefore be called an act of esteem. To this fundamental expression of esteem, worship (cultus) in the proper sense also adds the sentiment of man's inferiority and subjection when he performs an act of worship toward the being that is the object of that worship. Worship is therefore founded on the greatness of a being who is honored precisely for that greatness, and on the rights that this greatness confers upon him.

It is therefore immediately clear that, since the reason for worship is the excellence of a being, there must be as many forms of worship as there are formally distinct types of excellence that can exist. From this standpoint we can at once distinguish a religious worship and a profane worship. By religious worship we mean to acknowledge all those greatnesses that either have God as their direct end or refer directly to God (God, Jesus Christ, the Saints, relics, ecclesiastical authorities...); by profane worship we mean to acknowledge all those other forms of greatness that are not God and do not refer directly to God (the homeland, parents, national heroes, illustrious men, civil authorities...). Religious worship is therefore the concrete expression of the duties of the moral virtue of religion, while profane worship is the expression of the duties of the virtue of piety and of observance (v. RITI CINESI, GIAPPONESI, MALABARICI).

Commonly, when one speaks of worship, the term is reserved for religious worship, and by the term worship one also customarily designates, more briefly, religion. Hence one speaks of admitted or tolerated worships (Statuto Albertino, art. 1; Law of 24 June 1929, no. 1159, art. 1, 2); of legislation on worships, of minister of worship, etc. Catholic thought on religious worship may be set out as follows in its fundamental lines.

II. THE VARIOUS KINDS OF CULT

1. Latria. Since the ultimate foundation of cult is the greatness of a being, we, instructed by reason and by faith, recognize in God the unshared and unshareable greatness of first principle and last end of all things. God must therefore be the term of a cult that will be exclusive to him, which was already called latria in ancient times. The Italian term "adorazione" (adoration) does not exactly translate the term latria, because it is sometimes seen used also with regard to the Madonna, and it is used also with regard to the pope (the triple adoration of the cardinals after the election).

The cult of latria is due to the Most Holy Trinity, to the individual persons of the Most Holy Trinity, to Our Lord Jesus Christ, even under the sacramental species (can. 1255 § 1), to the individual parts of his humanity, on account of the hypostatic union (for this reason the Church has approved the sacred cult of the God-Man, of the Most Holy Heart of Jesus, of the Most Precious Blood, of the Five Wounds), whereas for reasons that are not dogmatic but practical, of which the Church is judge, the cult of the Holy Face or of the Face of Christ has not been approved (Decree of the Sacred Congregation of the Holy Office, 4 May 1892) and the introduction of the cult of the Head of Our Lord Jesus Christ has been forbidden (Holy Office, 18 June 1938: AAS, 30 [1938], p. 226-27).

2. Hyperdulia

Among all the saints, in Mary Most Holy, instructed by Revelation, we find a holiness possessed in a degree higher than that of any saint, and the divine maternity. The holiness of the Madonna, as the grace of Christ, differs from that of all the other saints only quantitatively, not qualitatively; the divine maternity is proper and exclusive to her. The Blessed Virgin will therefore be the term of a particular cult, called that of hyperdulia, both because of her singular holiness and because of her divine maternity (can. 1255, § 1, 1276).

3. Dulia

In the saints is found holiness, that is, martyrdom or the heroic practice of all the Christian virtues, the fruit of supernatural grace, so that in them the essential holiness of God the Creator is reflected in a particular way. The saints will therefore be, by reason of this divine life that is revealed particularly in them, the term of a cult that finds its reason for being in the cult of latria, because the greatness venerated in the saints is the particular manifestation of the divine perfection and therefore it is a cult subordinate to the cult of latria, which was called the cult of dulia (can. 1255 § 1, 1276).

The cult of hyperdulia and of dulia to the Madonna and to the saints is, so to speak, a special form of religious cult, both because cult, as religion, is due only to God, and because the Blessed Virgin and the saints are venerated only insofar as they are united to God, and God manifests his power in them. Therefore it is a cult that does not terminate ultimately in the saints or in the Madonna but in God, exactly as the liturgy expresses it: «Sanctorum memoriam colimus, Domine, Te magnificamus...».

4. Absolute and relative cult

This cult of latria, of hyperdulia and of dulia, if it terminates directly in God, in the Blessed Virgin or in the saints, is called absolute; if it terminates in a representation (image) of God, of the Blessed Virgin or of the saints, or in a relic, it is relative (can. 1255 § 2).

Thus, for example, the relative cult of latria is due to the Holy Cross and to the instruments of the Passion, to the images of God and of Christ (Council of Trent, sess. XXV, de invoc. Sanct. et s. imag.: Denz-U, nn. 984-86). The same relative cult of latria is perhaps due to any relics that might remain of the Blood of Christ no longer pertaining to the hypostatic union, and to blood that might have flowed miraculously from consecrated hosts, because it is nothing but a sign of the true blood of Jesus Christ.

The legitimacy of the cult of images and also of relics was already defined by the Second Ecumenical Council of Nicaea in 787 (Denz-U, nn. 302-305; v. ICONOCLASTI). The particular cult of certain images, for example of the Blessed Virgin (miraculous image, thaumaturgic, etc.), was defended by Pius VI in the condemnation of the errors of the Synod of Pistoia, and is justified both by the practice of the Church and by the liberality of Divine Providence, which, as St. Augustine affirms, «nec in omnibus memoriis Sanctorum ista fieri voluit, qui dividit propria unicuique prout vult» (Denz-U, n. 1570; CIC 1255, § 2).

For the different terms to which cult is directed (Mary Virgin, Cross, relic, saints, etc.) v. the relevant entries.

5. Internal cult and external cult

Since cult, in its most intimate reason, is an act of esteem, out of a demand for sincerity, so that it may not resolve into an act of hypocrisy, it must be an act of the internal powers of man, of the intellect and of the will, that is, it must be internal. But since man is soul and body, and everything that is truly in man is reflected also in the external powers, not only as a manifestation, but also insofar as from the external powers it receives a strengthening, cult must also be external, which is furthermore justified by the fact that God is the creator of the soul and also of the body.

6. Private and public cult

Man, considered as an individual, being a creature of God, is obliged to an internal cult and to an external cult; this cult, which each individual renders to God, is private cult.

Human society, which derives its reason for being from the demand for social life that God has placed in man, is also bound to a cult that will be public and social. This cult, by the very nature of things, will have to be an authoritative cult (that is, rendered to God by those who are legitimately deputed to represent the whole of society and as such can stand before God in the name and on behalf of society itself) and external, precisely because it is a matter of a society of men. The interiority (which has already been said to be essential to the cult of God), since we cannot seek it in society, which in itself is an abstraction, we will have to seek in individuals, insofar as one of the duties of society is also that of favoring the development of the virtue of religion in citizens. When man and society are elevated to an order higher than the demands of their own nature, their cult becomes supernatural. In concrete terms, God established from the very origins of man a religious cult corresponding to the plan of Grace, which obtained its definitive form in the public cult of the Church.

«Cult, if rendered in the name of the Church by persons legitimately deputed to this end and through acts that are to be rendered by institution of the Church only to God, to the saints and to the blessed, is called public; otherwise private» (can. 1256).

Public cult with regard to canonized saints is authorized everywhere and in an absolute manner; with regard to the blessed it is only permitted with limitations relating both to places and also to acts (can. 1277 §§ 1-2), whereas with regard to the servants of God, even those already venerable, it is forbidden. Private cult (it is not said occult) may be rendered to anyone who enjoys a reputation for holiness or is held to be a martyr.

By the very nature of things, public cult, as also external cult, remains under the authority of the Church. The Holy See has reserved to itself, as a major cause, the ordering of the liturgy and the approval of liturgical books (can. 1257), the approval of new litanies (can. 1259 § 2), the confirmation of patron saints (can. 1278), the canonization of the blessed and the beatification of the servants of God (can. 1999 § 1). And its first concern is vigilance over abuses. The most recent interventions of the Holy See in this field are the prohibition of the Devotion to the Annihilated Love of Jesus and the Rosary of the Holy Wounds of Our Lord Jesus Christ (Holy Office, 12 Dec. 1939: AAS, 32 [1940], p. 24), the prohibition of the association: the Marian Crusade (Holy Office, 8 March 1941: AAS, 33 [1941], p. 69).

To the Ordinaries, in cann. 1255-1321, very ample faculties are granted both of supervision and of ordinance.

The cult of God, that is, the recognition of and homage to God's greatness, is expressed first of all in adoration, which is almost a contemplation of God's greatness in relation to the creature's littleness, and in thanksgiving. To these sentiments is added impetration (that is, the asking of favors), which springs from the conviction of one's own littleness, and, after sin, propitiation, that is, the asking of forgiveness. The various acts of cult must necessarily (though not all with equal intensity) express all four of these sentiments; each of them then places the accent on one in particular: thus, while praise emphasizes adoration more, prayer emphasizes impetration more. Only sacrifice expresses by its nature equally all four sentiments of divine cult, although the particular intentions of the one who celebrates or has celebrated may fix upon thanksgiving (Missa pro gratiarum actione) or upon propitiation (Missa pro remissione peccatorum), etc.

The principal acts of cult are: sacrifice, prayer, praise, oath, adjuration, vow, offerings, tithes. Almsgiving too, or acts of other virtues, can become acts of cult if in the intention of the one who performs them they are destined to the cult of God.

External cult takes concrete form in formulas, acts and gestures of which it is difficult to give a complete classification. Among the principal ones are recalled: building churches or altars, placing images in a church, painting a servant of God in a particular attitude (with a halo of rays or with a nimbus), genuflection, bowing, standing with arms outstretched in the form of a cross, incensation, processions, blessings, consecrations, lighting lamps, bringing votive gifts, etc.

The system of the different formulas, of the different acts and of the different gestures by which the cult of God is made concrete in the Catholic Church, considered however not from the outside, that is, in the ordering of rites and ceremonies, but from the inside, that is, as the cult of God on the part of the mystical body of Christ which is the Church, is the liturgy (Pius XII, encyclical Mediator Dei, 20 Nov. 1947: AAS, 39 [1947], pp. 528-29).

In the CIC the 3rd part of book III, entitled de culto divino, contains various other juridical norms on cult: of these, which constitute cann. 1255-1321, there is discussion in the entries relating to the matters there regulated (v. especially ALTARE; CHIESA; COMUNICAZIONE NELLE COSE SACRE; EUCARISTIA; GIURAMENTO; LITANIE; LITURGIA; MUSICA SACRA; PROCESSIONE; QUARANT'ORE; RELIGIE; SUPPELLETTILI SACRE; TABERNACOLO; VOTO).

III. ORIGIN AND DEVELOPMENT OF THE CHRISTIAN CULT

Just as the kingdom of Israel had a social order and a liturgical ceremonial, so too the Kingdom of God, that is, the Church, which besides being a mystical body is also a social body, required its own liturgical order. Unlike the Old Testament, in the New the Divine Master contented himself with a few substantial elements, leaving the particulars to be fixed later according to times, places, and different peoples: "Pray together, preach, baptize, celebrate my memory," and a few other injunctions which the Church herself conformed to the particular needs of individuals and to the demands of social life.

The Apostles, although they still went to the Temple and took occasion there to preach, held the assemblies of the first believers in houses, where they renewed the Lord's supper by distributing the eucharistic bread, read the Scriptures, gave the necessary teachings, and presided over common prayer.

Sacrifices were no longer offered there; these, moreover, ceased among the Jews, like the other ceremonies, when in 70 A.D. the Temple was destroyed. Furthermore, unlike the Jews, for whom the day consecrated to God was the Sabbath, the faithful kept as a feast day the following day, which they called Sunday (v.) in remembrance of Christ's Resurrection. Just as the Jews celebrated their Passover in spring in remembrance of their liberation from the slavery of Egypt and continued to celebrate it even after their dispersion, so too in the Christian assemblies the Passover was celebrated in the same season in remembrance of the Passion and Resurrection of Christ, the liberator of men from the slavery of sin.

In this way the first nucleus of the ecclesiastical year was established, and once certain difficulties, provoked by particular customs that had arisen in the province of Asia (v. QUARTODECIMANI), were overcome, a concordant and constant usage prevailed in this regard.

Despite the persecutions, in the 2nd and 3rd centuries there was a gradual progress in the external forms of worship, which was already for the most part being carried out in buildings specially destined for that purpose. Already the Didaché (90-100), Clement of Rome in the last chapters of his epistle to the Corinthians (96-98), and St. Ignatius (107) in his letters give us important particulars about the sacred synaxis and about the hierarchy that succeeded the apostolic regime. Even Pliny, propraetor in Bithynia, in his famous letter to Trajan has left us some summary indication of it. Then follow in turn St. Irenaeus, St. Hippolytus, Tertullian, St. Cyprian, and the authors cited by Eusebius in his history, who offer us new particulars in correspondence precisely with the constant development of evangelization and of internal life, and who shed light on the progressive ordering of the catechumenate and of baptismal rites, on the organization and evolution of the hierarchical grades and their attributions. People were already beginning to hold in veneration the memory and the tomb of those who had most distinguished the individual churches by their learning and by martyrdom.

But all this had a broader development after the peace granted to the Church by the Edict of Constantine in 313; the spacious and magnificent churches, the ranks of the faithful continually increasing, the hierarchical order becoming more complicated, demanded not only more precise prescriptions but also more evolved external forms. The ecclesiastical year was now enriched by the feast of Pentecost and by the commemoration of the appearance of Jesus Christ in the world (Christmas and Epiphany), while the worship of the Virgin, though included in the memory of the Savior's mysteries, acquired an altogether particular prominence, which was to lead to the institution of special feasts. Psalmody, processions, and various ceremonies were added to make the primitive simplicity more solemn, provoking criticism not only from pagan intellectuals but also from Christians who, like Vigilantius, merited the reproach of St. Jerome and St. Augustine.

When it was perceived that there was no longer any danger of confusion with the Jews and the pagans, terms entered common use (such as pontiff, priest, altar, etc.) that could no longer give occasion for ambiguity, and for worship there were adopted incense, sprinklings with water, anointings with oils — gestures that already had a sacral meaning and that could very well contribute to making their symbolic meaning more august. On the other hand, usages that could serve superstitious practices were forbidden; and it certainly cannot be said that the struggle against certain heterodox forms of worship cost the leaders of the Church little effort. Thus there were admitted into the Christian temple not only paintings or wall mosaics of symbolic and historical meaning, but also the veneration of images of the Redeemer, of the Virgin, and of the saints; sacred chant too was welcomed into the Church, at least in the 4th century, thanks precisely to the attractions it exercised, although it had served in Jewish and pagan ceremonies. It knew how to clothe Christian thoughts and assume an ecclesiastical tone that found its perfection in Gregorian chant: a perfection that, like the figurative arts, was destined for constant progress. Nor for this reason should one speak, as a certain school has done, of a formal dependence of Christianity on Judaism and idolatry, or of a contamination produced by them in Christianity itself, but of a coincidence due to the fact that to the religious mind of man certain forms of worship present themselves spontaneously and as such are handed down through the generations. In Christianity, in fact, these forms were welcomed more by force of circumstances than by virtue of special prescriptions; and since it was not possible to vary infinitely around the primitive and substantial nucleus, they passed from church to church with mutual exchanges, until they had reached such a maturity of plastic expression as to admit thereafter only very limited modifications and additions.

Pio Paschini

IV. THE CULT IN NON-CHRISTIAN RELIGIONS

Cult as a manifestation of religious feeling is found in all religions, because in all of them the sense of the divinity present (sensus numinis) bends the individual, and the group to which he belongs, to veneration and at the same time to the request for whatever is needed for his various necessities; in the concept of colere, in fact, whether it relates to a field, to a person, or to the divinity, the intent of obtaining a benefit from the action performed is always implied.

1. Cult and magic

The resemblance that is observed in more than one case between certain religious ceremonies and some magical practice must not lead to the conclusion of an initial identity of religion and magic, because they are distinct from one another by virtue of two fundamental criteria: a) a social one: religion performs its rites in function and for the advantage of the social group and performs them by directing itself, in the person of the one who has the social investiture of the group itself (king, priest, etc.), to the superior Power that has the capacity to grant the requests addressed to it; whereas magic, through the sorcerer or magician or witch-doctor, operates by virtue of the powers that he possesses, in the service of private interests and often to the harm of others; b) an individual one, inasmuch as the religious man bends his knees and clasps his hands because, conscious of his own weakness, he directs himself to the Being whom he knows to be powerful and placable; whereas the magician feels himself in possession of a force capable of dominating that of nature and therefore commands and does not pray.

2. Cult and myth

Since man is endowed with reason, the act of cult always has an intellectual justification that legitimizes it, suggested by fantastic motives on the basis of external associations, not due to rational arguments, or to erudite research or to scientific observation. Myth is therefore a necessary complement of cult, inasmuch as it justifies its ceremonial, explains its motive to the mind of the individual and of the group whose action it unifies, and periodically renews its efficacy, making it living and actual when, in coincidence with the seasonal rhythms or with the various circumstances of social life, it becomes necessary to renew the sacred action once found to be efficacious (v. MITO).

3. Cult and symbol

The ceremonies of cult have a value that is not only realistic, but above all symbolic, relating to the supernatural Powers with which one wishes to enter into relation. An immersion in the Ganges is not a bath for cleanliness but intends to attain a spiritual end through those sacred waters; the ritual meal of the totemic kangaroo among the Arunta (central Australia) is not meant to be the merry conclusion of an excursion into the forest, but intends to renew, through the ingestion of the sacred animal, the group's store of holiness and to recall, with allusive dances and songs, the mythical history of the tribe. This fundamental symbolic value of the rite must be kept in mind in order to prevent it from being debased into a strange and inconclusive aping of reality.

The cultic elements of a religion can be grouped around four points: a) the places of cult, that is, in its broadest sense, the sanctuary, which ranges from the clearing bounded by trees in the depths of a forest or from an open space enclosed by rough stones, all the way up to the most sumptuous temple; b) the persons, that is, the priesthood in its most varied categories and functions, from the sorcerer-physician capable of satisfying all the needs of the community to the priest invested with the specific functions of sacrificer, diviner, exorcist, doctor, and so on; c) the times, that is, the sacred calendar that gives a religious rhythm to the life of the group and allows it to renew on a fixed date, which in natural religions coincides with the rhythm of the seasons, its store of religious energy; d) the rites, that is, all those gestures and movements and formulas by means of which the group or the individual puts himself in contact with the higher powers.

a) The places. — The place where the divinity manifests itself to the social group must be a special place, withdrawn from profane use and sharing in the sacredness proper to the god, so that whoever approaches it without the due dispositions is punished for it, whereas whoever enters it in a state of ritual purity receives an increase of blessing. The choice of the place is generally determined by its natural aspect: the evocative clearing of a wood, the proximity of a spring, the isolated presence of a tree, of a mound or rise of ground, of a rock or of a cave; an aspect that suggests, besides the presence, also the quality of the god. The first type of sanctuary will therefore be a sacred enclosure, made of stones or of trees, which delimits the space reserved for the divinity, separating it from profane use. It is found everywhere under various names: it is the cromlech of prehistoric peoples, the various palisades of primitive peoples, the haram of the Arabs, the hērem of the Hebrews, the témenos or peribolos of the Greeks, the sacellum of the Romans, the so-called "cemetery" of Christian rural churches. Rigorous prescriptions regulate access to this enclosure: one may not hunt there or gather wood, because it is reserved for the divinity; nor exercise human justice there or capture anyone seeking refuge in it, because whoever penetrates into it enters into the possession of the divinity and is therefore sacred (sacer, tābu) and inviolable.

In the middle of the sacred enclosure there is generally a stone, more or less square or conical, which is considered as the incorporation of the divinity: for this reason the oil of libations or the blood of victims is poured over it. But most of the time the sacred place is not limited to an open-air enclosure. In the middle of it rises a roofed and closed building, in which the divinity, represented by a sacred object or by a simulacrum that depicts it, dwells as in its own house. Only the priests may enter it, inasmuch as they are the special servants of the god: the people remain excluded and assist from outside at the unfolding of the ritual. In the great monarchies of the East, where political centralization corresponds to an analogous religious centralization, the temples assume great economic importance: they have many buildings attached for the administration of property, for the lodging of the personnel assigned to the various services; among the Greeks and Romans, on the other hand, the temple is isolated, inasmuch as it is only the dwelling of the god, without administrative buildings, given the smaller number of attendants and the different organization of the priesthood.

Exceptions to this rule are the mystery religions, because in them the sacred place is not only the dwelling of the god but also the place of assembly of the faithful who have consecrated themselves to him; and the historical religions due to a founder or reformer, because the sacred place becomes the center of gathering for the adherents, who assemble there to hear the teaching of the founder commented upon and to perform those acts of cult that he has imposed on the community. The temple of Mahāyāna Buddhism, developed especially in China and Tibet, the Muslim mosque, the Christian church are places of assembly of the faithful and not merely the exclusive dwelling of the divinity.

The sacred building, once constructed, before being used for its office needs a special ceremony, that is, dedication, which, while separating it from profane use, dedicates and consecrates it expressly to the divinity. Thus, the Roman magistrate dedicated the temple, holding its doorpost with one hand during the whole time in which he pronounced the formula of dedication; in the Christian liturgy the dedication of the church is performed by carrying out the external and internal circumambulation of it and by depositing under the high altar the relics of a holy martyr, as a sacred protection of the building.

b) The persons. — Like the sanctuary, so too the priesthood has a social value, inasmuch as the priest is the intermediary official between the group and the divinity. In primitive groups his functions merge with those of the head of the group (priest-king, witch-doctor king), since it is above all his magical powers, his ability to interpret the will of the gods, that serve the group, which is anxious to have assured a good hunt, a good harvest, the safety of the livestock, immunity from epidemics, and the success of a war. The functions of king and of priest begin to separate gradually as, with the development of the cultic life of the group, its needs and the sacred ceremonial develop along with it, with a greater differentiation of the various functions. Thus in natural religions there are three fundamental types of priests: the sacrificer, the exorcist and the diviner (v. SACERDOZIO).

c) Times. — Sacred times are those fixed by the religious calendar and commonly known as feasts. In every human group the importance of feasts is great, because they serve to renew the cohesion of the group by directing its thought and action toward a single direction, and to call back to memory the ideas and events from which the group acknowledges the benefit of its existence.

Given the two elements, cultic and conceptual, of which every religion consists, in the celebration of feasts too one will find: 1) a set of rites (dances, processions, banquets, formulas) through which the group expresses its unity of feeling and actually lives it; 2) a series of ideas or notions (beliefs, myths, legends) that explain the meaning of the feast and justify in the eyes of the group the reason for its cohesion and its sacred action.

The feast brings as a consequence a suspension of ordinary occupations, a suspension accompanied, for greater emphasis, by a change of garments, by preparatory rites (fasts, purifications, truces of God), by celebrations of contests, games, fairs and markets.

And since the life of human groups is regulated by the succession of the seasons, which determine the times of the hunt and the rhythm of agricultural occupations, the series of feasts follows in natural religions, whether tribal or national, the course of the agricultural year. Onto the seasonal calendar are always grafted feasts and commemorations relating to the events of the group's history and to the great figures who guided it. Such are, in the Athenian calendar, the Panathenaea and the Apaturia, and in the Roman calendar the Regifugium and the Poplifugia, as well as the Palilia, in which to the pastoral meaning has been added the civil one of the founding of Rome. The same may be said of the lunar calendar of the Hebrews, in which to the agricultural feast of Passover has been added the remembrance of the departure of the Hebrews from Egypt, and of that, also lunar, of the Muslims, which commemorates the birth of Muhammad, his ascension, etc. In Christianity the religious calendar is independent of the civil one and is entirely regulated by the life of the divine Founder, from Advent, which prepares for his birth, to the Sundays after Pentecost, which recall the expansion throughout the world of the church founded by him. For all these questions v. CALENDARIO.

d) The rites. — On the definition and classification of rites v. PREGHIERA; RITO; SACRIFIZIO.

Nicola Turchi

V. POPULAR WORSHIP

It is the complex of traditional forms with which the people express their sentiment and their innate artistic taste in participating in the rites of the Church and in religious life in general. These forms range from the simplest to the most grandiose and complex. In many Catholic countries, on the doors of country houses one observes a little wooden cross; in the midst of fields of tender wheat or atop the sheaves of the harvest a cross is placed, made of simple reeds or of woven ears of grain. Around the sacred images at the head of the bed (or even in the kitchen) peasants are accustomed to place branches of blessed olive. Shepherds paint in red ochre on the fleece of the sheep the monogram of Mary. On the doors or inside the stables the image of St. Anthony Abbot is never missing. In some regions the principal works of the fields are not carried out without traditional rites and sacred songs, with invocations to the Madonna and to the patron saints, which vary according to the locality. Images of the Madonna del Fuoco, of St. George, and of St. Anthony are painted on the great agricultural carts of Romagna and of other regions. Thus in maritime life, from the ceremony of the blessing of the boat to that of the blessing of the sea, infinite are the circumstances and the forms in which popular worship manifests itself: images of saints, of the Madonna and of the Holy Family are painted on the sides of the boats, which are often given the names of sacred figures, as a protective invocation.

Of particular interest and significance is the offering of ex-voto offerings, especially the painted tablets on which is depicted the miraculous episode for which the offerer gives thanks to the Virgin or to the saint invoked. Thus the people, alongside the prayers taught them by the Church, also know and repeat prayers of their own which present in a plain and easily memorable and comprehensible form the concepts and teachings of Christian doctrine, or recall episodes from the life of Christ and of the saints, or express the sentiment and faith of the humble with particular forms of devotion. Moving and significant is the homage of flowers, candles, lamps to the Madonna on the facades of houses, at the corners of streets, etc.

Original and expressive manifestations of popular worship also occur on the occasion of pilgrimages to sanctuaries, with the adorning of flowers and sacred images on the staffs used for the long journey, with the covering of stretches of road or the climbing of the sanctuary's stairs on one's knees, with songs and hymns and other manifestations of faith that sometimes reach aspects of fervent mysticism or even of excessive enthusiasm. Important in this regard are the patronal feasts, with the contest among the faithful or the members of confraternities for the honor of carrying the statue of the saint, with illuminations, bands, pinwheels, and so on. But the most original and grandiose forms can be observed on the occasion of the various calendar feasts according to the circulum anni. Full of poetry is the custom of strewing the streets with flowers or throwing flowers from the windows when the procession passes, as at Marta (Bolsena) on the occasion of the feast of the "Barabbata." In certain places, as at Genzano and at Torre del Greco, the flower festival acquires the character of a true work of art with the creation of a floral carpet that occupies an entire street and presents admirable chromatic and decorative effects. Elements of popular worship also manifest themselves in the unfolding of processions, with the dressing of children as angels, with the adorning of the statue of the saint or of the Madonna with flowers, ribbons, little medals, offerings, and with other simple ways according to local customs.

The same may be said for all those manifestations that are known as "living relics of the sacred drama." Also very ancient manifestations are the bonfires for St. John the Baptist, St. Joseph, the Ascension, the bonfires for St. Anthony Abbot, the torchlight processions for the Assumption and the like. Some of these manifestations rise to a spectacular grandeur, especially with the sacred carts in the shape of bell towers, candlesticks, lilies or even large boats: they sometimes reach colossal proportions.

Van Gennep states that "popular cult and official cult move on two different planes." But in the majority of cases it is observed that these are rather integrative and complementary elements through which the humble classes manifest their participation, with their feelings and with their faith, in the rites of the Church. Not that one cannot sometimes detect some excess or some distorted survival of pre-Christian ritual forms, but it is precisely the Church that takes care to regulate these manifestations, permitting their outward expression when they serve to keep the faith alive and safe in the soul of the people, without overstepping the limits fixed by the liturgical norms.

Paolo Toschi