Adore, honor, revere. The three verbs to adore, to honor, and to revere are used for both religious and secular forms of worship. In religious worship one adores God, one honors the saints, and one reveres relics and images. In the secular form of worship one adores a mistress, one honors decent people, and one reveres illustrious individuals or those who have distinguished talent. Concerning religion, to adore is to worship the Supreme Being in a dependent and obedient fashion; to honor is to worship subordinate but spiritual beings for their protective and invocatory powers; to revere is to worship certain material objects with respect and care, in memory of the spiritual beings to whom they once belonged.

In profane usage one adores by devoting oneself entirely to another person’s service, even admiring their flaws; one honors with acts of consideration, respect, and politeness; one reveres by giving tokens of high esteem and unusual attention.

The manner of adoring the true God must never deviate from the standards of reason, because God is the author of reason and He wanted people to use it even in judging what is suitable to do or not to do regarding Him. Perhaps during the first centuries of the Church the saints were not honored and their images and relics were not revered , as they have been since that time; people than had an aversion to idolatry and maintained a cautious attitude toward the rituals of worship which had not yet been sufficiently formalized.

Beauty makes itself adored only when it is sustained by grace. This worship can almost never be justified, because caprice and injustice are very often the companions of beauty.

The education of the people is limited to making them live in peace and on familiar terms with their equals. The people do not know what it means to honor one another: this feeling belongs to a much higher mode of existence. Virtue deserves to be revered, but who recognizes this? Nevertheless its place should be everywhere.