Adoration

Adoration (Latin) is respect, reverence, strong admiration or devotion in a certain person, place, or thing. The term comes from the Latin adōrātiō, meaning "to give homage or worship to someone or something".

In classical Rome, adoration was primarily an act of homage or worship, which, among the Romans, was performed by raising the hand to the mouth, kissing it and then waving it in the direction of the adored object. The devotee had his head covered, and after the act turned himself round from left to right. Sometimes he kissed the feet or knees of the images of the gods themselves, and Saturn and Hercules were adored with the head bare. By a natural transition the homage, at first paid to divine beings alone, came to be paid to monarchs. Thus the Greek and Roman emperors were adored by bowing or kneeling, laying hold of the imperial robe, and presently withdrawing the hand and pressing it to the lips, or by putting the royal robe itself to the lips.

In Eastern countries, adoration has been performed in an attitude still more lowly. The Persian method, introduced by Cyrus the Great, was to kiss the knee and fall on the face at the prince's feet, striking the earth with the forehead and kissing the ground. This striking of the earth with the forehead, usually a fixed number of times, was a form of adoration sometimes paid to Eastern potentates.

The Jews kissed in homage, as did other groups mentioned in the Old Testament. Thus in 1 Kings 19:18, God is made to say, "Yet I have left me seven thousand in Israel, all the knees which have not bowed unto Baal, and every mouth which hath not kissed him." And in Psalms 2:12, "Kiss the Son, lest he be angry, and ye perish from the way." (See also Hosea 13:2.)

In Western Europe, the ceremony of kissing the sovereign's hand, and some other acts which are performed while kneeling, may be described as forms of adoration.

The Catechism of the Catholic Church states that "Adoration is the acknowledgement of God as God, creator and savior, the Lord and master of everything that exists as infinite and merciful love." "Adoration is homage of the spirit to the King of glory, respectful silence in the presence of the ever greater God." Adoration is prompted by the Holy Spirit.

In the strict sense, adoration is an act of religion offered to God in acknowledgment of His supreme perfection and dominion, and of the creature's dependence upon Him. "The rational creature, looking up to God, whom reason and revelation show to be infinitely perfect, cannot in right and justice maintain an attitude of indifference. That perfection which is infinite in itself and the source and fulfilment of all the good that we possess or shall possess, we must worship, acknowledging its immensity, and submitting to its supremacy."

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