Description
Religious imagery is part of this arrangement. It helps to keep the mind sharp by looking at religious objects and statues in the church that can be viewed during the service. It's a similar idea to having stained-glass windows in a church depicting religious scenes or saints. This helps churchgoers feel surrounded by the spiritual. Catholics also ask the Virgin Mary and the saints to intercede and pray for them.
So you often see statues of these saints, where you can direct your thoughts, prayers, and requests. Art is a way of expressing an inner feeling—honorably to glorify God. During the first 1,600 years of Christianity, most people could not read or write. Every stained-glass window and statue in medieval churches told a story. Illiterate people could look at the stained-glass images on the church windows and understand what the story was about. So not only were the statues and paintings beautiful and reverent, but they were also highly functional. They told the Bible story, and the priest could point to the objects during his sermons. Statues and stained glass were, for the priests, teaching tools, aids, and reminders. When we walk through a classical shrine and see the statues, each saint has his own story. A well-educated Christian could learn the stories of all these saints and tell them to his children, even if he could not read. This also explains the classical arrangement of the windows: a large central image surrounded by numerous smaller ones. With the right explanation, one could quickly and easily learn the entire story—say, of John the Baptist—along with all the important aspects of Christ's life. These were not false images to be worshipped, but reminders of the story of redemption.
