Venerable THOMAS BULLAKER, Franciscan, 1642

THE IMAGE OF CHRIST

Biography

" IF you go on as you have begun, before many years," he said to the Sheriff, " the law will make it treason to believe in Jesus Christ. You must hate Him greatly since you cannot bear to behold the Statue and image which is a memorial of His Passion and our Redemption, and which the most praiseworthy piety of your forefathers erected at great cost." Hereupon those who stood around cried out," Where in the Scripture did Christ order an image of Himself to be made ?" Bullaker replied : " The precise words do not occur, yet the natural law, to which the Divine law is never opposed, approves of the practice. Reason teaches and experience proves that an injury done to a statue is done to Him whose person it represents. To make the thing clearer, if any one insulted, trampled underfoot, or broke to pieces the statue of the King, would you not say that he was guilty of treason ? And if it be so, ask yourselves, I entreat you, how much greater a crime it must be to injure and abuse the statue of Jesus Christ our Saviour, the King of kings, as you have lately done."

" Whom He foreknew, He also predestinated to be made conformable to the image of His Son."—ROM. viii. 29.