@Deeje, you're mistaken...
Sorry, I missed this.
NOBODY kneels to statues or crosses.
You don't seem to understand that images of anything were forbidden in God's law. They should not even be there. What part of "do not make images" does the Catholic church not understand?
If you look closer at those propoganda pictures, it is what is inside the monstrace that they're kneeling and prostrating before. Also, many non-Catholics don't realize this, but in every church and chapel, you will see a lit candle that shows which direction the tabernacle is, which is a locked up box that contains the Body of Christ. Here is the tabernacle:
OK....lets talk about the Monstrance.
Where will I find a monstrance used in Christian worship ever mentioned in the Bible? This too is idolatry.
Did you never wonder why the monstrance is in the shape of the sun? Or why the wafer is round?
If you read the Bible accounts, the bread offered at the last Passover, was broken by Jesus and handed to all of his disciples. It would have been no particular shape. So why is the Monstrance and the wafer the same shape as the sun?.....It was a leftover from pagan Roman sun worship. Just like the obelisk in the middle of the Babylonian sun wheel in St Peter's "Square". The obelisk was transported from Egypt where it was honored as a symbol of Ra, the Egyptian sun god. There right in the center of supposedly "Christian" worship are the pagan symbols of sun worship...larger than life.
The Romans felt right at home with Catholicism......especially when it became very familiarly, "Roman".
Constantine was an astute politician. It was said that for every Christian church he built, he also built a temple for Zeus. He was a worshipper of Zeus all his life, pretending to favor Christianity when all he really wanted to do was to consolidate his religiously divided empire. He did not Christianize the paganism, but he successfully paganized the Christianity.
The idea of transubstantiation is actually repulsive to anyone who has knowledge of the scriptures. If the bread and wine were turned into the literal flesh and blood of Jesus, then anyone partaking would be breaking God's law. Consuming human flesh and drinking human blood are not something sacred, but offensive, even as the ones hearing Jesus speak of it, walked away in disgust, not discerning the spiritual nature of what he was saying. The apostles were shocked too, and Jesus asked if they were going to walk away as well......Peter asked where they would go to, since Jesus was the son of God, who had the sayings of everlasting life....there was nowhere else to go....(John 6:48-69) In verse 63 Jesus indicated that his sayings were "spirit and life".....certainly not to be taken literally.
Look closer, at your own pictures, and you will likely see one of the following things that they kneeling or bowing before -which contains, at it's center, Christ Jesus' Body:
Where will I find anything like this in first century Christianity?
Where will I find images and sun symbols in the Christian worship practiced in apostolic times?
Where will I find relic worship and the adoration of Mary as if she was somehow more important than Jesus? There is no special mention of Mary except as the highly favored Mother of Jesus? We don't know when Mary died, but if you believe the Catholic church, she was taken up to heaven without dying. Where does it say any of this in scripture?
When Jesus first instituted the New Covenant with his apostles on the night before he died, there was no pomp or ceremony...it was a simple Passover meal with roasted lamb, bitter greens and bread and wine.
As he broke the bread and shared it, and he drank the wine and shared that, he asked that his disciples keep doing this "to proclaim the death of the Lord until he comes". The Passover was replaced by this memorial celebration and it was held annually. Anniversaries are also held annually. Jesus is the Passover Lamb but the Passover was not held weekly...it was held on the specific date on which it fell.
Have you done any research on Easter yet? Did you ever wonder why it always falls on a Friday? What anniversary that you celebrate always falls on the same day of the week each year?