BEING ALL THERE

 

BEING ALL THERE

We worship God with our mind, heart and body.  Jesus said, “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your mind, and with all your strength” (Mark 12:30).  Our worship must engage our mind, our heart, and our body if it is to be true and pleasing to God.

In the Mass the mind is engaged by the prayers, the proclamation of the Scriptures, and the homily.  The Constitution on the Sacred Liturgy of the Second Vatican Council states that “Mother Church earnestly desires that all the faithful should be led to that fully conscious, and active participation in liturgical celebrations which is demanded by the very nature of the liturgy.”  Conscious and active participation requires at least a fundamental knowledge of the Scriptures and understanding of the sacred rites.

Worship, of course, is more than an intellectual activity.  It also engages the heart, the center of emotion and of loving.  Feelings must not control our worship, but our understanding of the One whom we worship – His greatness, power, love, and mercy – ought to stir strong feelings.  God is not seeking cold, stoical worshippers.  Through the Prophet Ezekiel he says, “I will give you a new heart, and a new spirit I will put within you.  I will remove the heart of stone from your flesh and give you a heart of flesh.  I will put my spirit within you so that you walk in my statutes, observe my ordinances, and keep them” (Ez 36:26-27).  When we open our hearts during worship we are empowered to live the mysteries we celebrate.

Song and chant are important elements in moving the heart.  St. Augustine said, “Singing is for one who loves” and there is an ancient proverb which states, “Whoever sings well prays twice.”  Beauty also moves us to praise and wonder, as we hear in the eighth Psalm: “When I see your heavens, the work of your fingers, the moon and the stars that you set in place – What is man that you are mindful of him, and a son of man that you care for him?” Our churches and their appointments should always be attractive since the Church is Porta Caeli, “the Gate of Heaven.”  If any place is beautiful, it is heaven!

Jesus says that we are to love God with all our strength.  Worship requires the expenditure of human energy.  The physical acts of the body called for at fixed moments of the Mass are signs of a spiritual orientation.  Standing reveals respect, alertness, or anticipation; kneeling is a sign of adoration, surrender, humility, and/or penance; sitting indicates attentiveness.  The General Instruction of the Roman Missal states that “The gestures and bodily posture of both the Priest, the Deacon, and the ministers, and also of the people, must be conducive to making the entire celebration resplendent with beauty and noble simplicity, to making clear the true and full meaning of its different parts, and to fostering the participation of all.”

Our common gestures and postures reinforce unity and help us experience communion with one another.  The liturgy is not a place for what the General Instruction calls “private inclination or arbitrary choice.”  It is not the place for me to express my individuality; rather, I am joined with my brothers and sisters in the Body of Christ in offering the unique sacrifice.  The General Instruction teaches that “A common bodily posture, to be observed by all those taking part, is a sign of unity of the members of the Christian community gathered together for the Sacred Liturgy, for it expresses the intentions and the spiritual attitude of the participants and also fosters them.” 

The posture and gestures of the priest at Mass which are distinct from the faithful reinforce Catholic unity.  Mass is always more than a local gathering.  The entire Church is united in the sacrifice, which is a participation in the one sacrifice of Christ.  Thus, the Church, the Pope and the local Bishop are mentioned in every Eucharistic Prayer.  The distinct gestures of the priest reveal him in persona Christi capitis, “in the person of Christ the head.”  But when he joins with the people in saying the Penitential Rite, the Creed, the Our Father, and the prayer of humility before Communion, he affirms his oneness with them as a fellow disciple.  Saint Augustine told his people, “For you I am a bishop; with you I am a Christian.”     

Catholic worship is three-dimensional: spiritual, physical, and intellectual.  We are “all there” when we engage our minds, our hearts, and our bodies in worship to God in the one Body of Christ.