The Meaning of Worship
Opening Homily for Eucharsitic Mission
“The Eucharist is the source & summit of the Christian life.”
(Catechism of the Catholic Church 1324)
This weekend we begin our parish mission focused on the Eucharist as the “source and summit” of the Christian life, as it is called by the Second Vatican Council. Typically for a parish mission, a preacher is brought in from outside the parish, but Fr. Paul has asked that I preach this mission. I don’t know that he considered at the time that the gospel for this Sunday says that a prophet is not without honor except in his native place. Maybe that’s just a bit of divine humor. Nevertheless, I will do my best.
Proverbs says that “the fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom.” I think it’s also true to say that the fear of the Lord is the beginning of worship. Why do I say that? When the scriptures speak of “fear of the Lord” what they mean is awe and reverence. If awe and reverence for God is the beginning of wisdom, I would argue that the same is true for worship. To worship God properly we must begin from a place of awe and reverence and even wonder.
Too many Christians approach the liturgy like a spectator sport. We show up, find our seats in the pews, try our best to pay attention, repeat our lines of dialogue, get in line for Communion, go back to the pew, and pray that the announcements don’t take too long.
But worship is not a spectator sport and the Mass is not a show. The Second Vatican Council called for conscious and active participation in the liturgy by all the faithful. I want us to be fully activated Christians, offering true worship to God; fed by His word in the scripture, fed by His Body in the Eucharist, and strengthened to fulfill our part in the ongoing mission of Jesus Christ in the world. That’s what the Mass is all about. That’s why it’s both the source and the summit of the Christian life. We ascend to it, and we are nourished and animated by it.
So we must begin by asking the question, “What is worship?” Do we know the reason why we come to Mass at all? What do we do when we worship God? Worship involves offering sacrifice. Whatever culture we look at, be it the Israelites, the Romans, or the Aztecs, cultic worship always involves a sacrifice. Whether it be a grain offering or an animal offering, or even a human sacrifice, the way you worship God or “the gods” is to offer something. The idea is to take something good and offer it as an oblation. It may be an offering of petition — please do this for me — or of thanksgiving, or an offering for atonement of our sins. But something of value is sacrificed.
True worship means offering sacrifice to the true God. This was God’s primary revelation to the people of Israel: there is only one God and He alone is to be worshiped. When God called his people out of Egypt after four centuries of slavery it was so that they might return to right worship. Moses’ demand to Pharaoh was not just “let my people go,” but “let my people go into the wilderness to worship God.” He wasn’t just demanding freedom from slavery, but for freedom for worship.
Once they were free, God established his covenant with them, saying, “You shall be to me a kingdom of priests, a holy nation” (Ex 19:6). What is a priest? A priest is one who offers sacrifices to God. A priest is one who worships, and God wanted his people of Israel to be priests, offering right worship of Him on behalf of the world. The original priests of Israel were all the male heads of household, but they lost this privilege when they fell into false worship by worshiping the Golden Calf at Mount Sinai. It was after that incident that God established the priesthood of Aaron, and from then on only those descended from Aaron’s line could serve as priests.
But in Christ, God restores this kingdom priesthood. In Christ we have become “a chosen race, a royal priesthood, [and] a holy nation.” All who are baptized in Christ share in His priesthood. So even though we are not all ministerial priests, meaning we do not all have priestly ordination allowing us to serve in persona Christi (in the person of Christ) in the liturgy, we all have the privilege and therefore the solemn duty of offering priestly worship to God.
This is why our participation in Mass cannot be a “spectator sport.” We have a job to do. The original meaning of the word “liturgy” in Greek was “public work.” It’s a work done for the good of the people. Liturgy is not private devotion. It is something we do for the good of the world. That’s why it’s a mortal sin to miss Mass without a grave reason. It is cosmically important, what we do at Mass.
To help us worship better at Mass, over the course of this parish mission we will be taking a look at the meaning of the different movements of the liturgy, from the Liturgy of the Word to the Liturgy of the Eucharist, the Communion Rite and the Dismissal. But we must begin at the beginning, with the Penitential Act. After the Entrance and the Greeting, every Mass begins by us recalling to mind our sins and asking for God’s mercy.
I mentioned at the start of my homily that fear of God — meaning awe and reverence of God — is the beginning of worship. One cannot possess fear of God without humility; without acknowledging that we are mere creatures who owe everything to our Creator, who have been undeservedly blessed by Him, who rely entirely upon Him for our very being, and yet we dare come to him with our petitions and our offerings. How can we do this with anything other than a spirit of humility? To be proud before God is the height of stupidity.
And so it’s only right and just that before we offer worship, we first acknowledge our sins. We don’t dare pretend to be anything other than what we are: sinners in need of God’s mercy. Like the tax collector in Jesus’ parable, we bow our heads and pray, “Lord, have mercy on me, a sinner.” This is the meaning of the prayer, Kyrie Eleison, Christe Eleison, Kyrie Eleison. Lord have mercy, Christ have mercy, Lord have mercy.
We confess our sins and ask for God’s mercy because we need forgiveness of our sins to be right with God. But mercy means more than forgiveness of sin. Mercy means “help.” And we need God’s help. We need God’s help in all the struggles of life. We need God’s help to overcome our weaknesses. We need God’s help to resist temptation, to endure our trials, and to carry our crosses after His Son. We need God’s help because we do not know how to pray as we ought. We need God’s help to keep from falling into idolatry. We cannot worship God rightly without God’s help and so we dare not begin our liturgy without praying Kyrie Eleison, Lord have mercy.
Then we praise God by singing the Gloria, one of the most ancient hymns in the Church in which we echo the song of the angels who announced Christ’s birth with “Glory to God in the highest and on earth peace to people of good will” (Lk 2:14).
And then and only then, after acknowledging our sins, asking for God’s mercy, and offering him our praise, does the priest lead us in prayer with the Collect. This prayer collects the prayers of the faithful into one unified prayer offered to the Father, through Jesus Christ, in the Holy Spirit. If you want to know what the Church is calling us to focus on in our worship on any given day, look at the Collect Prayer.
The Collect for today’s Mass is: “O God, who in the abasement of your Son have raised up a fallen world, fill your faithful with holy joy, for on those you have rescued from slavery to sin you bestow eternal gladness.” Like the ancient Israelites in Egypt, God has set us free — not from slavery to Pharoah, but from slavery to sin. And like those set free in the Exodus, this is not just a freedom from, but a freedom for. We have been set free from sin to be a priestly people to offer true worship, a worthy sacrifice for God. And this is something that should fill us with holy joy and eternal gladness.
What is the nature of that worship? What is it that we offer as worthy sacrifice? Those are the themes we will be exploring over the next few days during our mission. But I will give you a hint: it has everything to do with the Eucharist.
The Lord is calling us to great heights through our worship, to the very gates of heaven itself where he dwells in endless majesty. But we must begin our journey where we are, as mere creatures, rebellious children, and humble sinners in need of mercy. God calls us out of darkness and into the light. The Christ who is the source of our faith, the source of those living waters pouring down the mountain to us, is calling us up to the summit where He lives forever at the right hand of the Father to intercede for us. With confidence in his mercy, “let us climb the mountain of the Lord.”
