LIVESTREAM - Living a Life of Divine Worship - Fr. Michael O'Connor, O.P.

good evening it's a pleasure to be with you this evening for this to Mystic Institute quarantine lecture to think about the human vocation to worship God to talk about what it means to live this vocation to live a life of divine worship even at a time like this in the midst of this terrible endemic the reality is that at present many Catholics throughout the world most Catholics in this country cannot go to Mass which for a believer is a cause of great suffering the Eucharist is the source and summit of our Christian lives and so to be cut off from sacramental communion from being able to receive our Lord his body and blood even for a time is undoubtedly a source of great suffering but this is not the only thing that the Catholic is deprived of so to speak when the public celebration of the mass is suspended because the celebration of the Eucharist is itself something broader than the reception of the Eucharist in sacramental communion that is to say that when a Catholic goes to Mass he or she is not only there to receive the sacrament of the Eucharist which of course is an unspeakable gift but there is in fact something more fundamental happening and a more fundamental reason for going to Mass namely to worship the one true God this idea of divine worship is what I would like to reflect upon with you this evening what does it mean to worship God what does it mean to say that we go to Mass firstly to give worship to God and how can we do this in an extraordinary situation like the one we find ourselves in now a 20th century orthodox theologian named alexander schmayman coined this felicitous phrase that capture the theme that we're here to consider tonight Shui Minh speaks about the human being as homo adore ons it's a Latin phrase that basically means man homo is a worshipping being otter ons that man is made for worship by his very nature man is homo a Doran's a worshiping being interestingly schmayman then defines secularism in view of this conception of the human person he says that secularism is the negation of man as a worshipping being the negation of man as homo a Doran's he argues that secularism is not a negation of God's existence it is a heresy about man the denial of man's innate vocation to worship the one living God we're not here this evening really to talk about secularism though schmayman makes a very interesting argument we're here simply to consider the basic idea of man as a worshipping being to consider what it means to be made for divine worship such that worship is an essential act for a human being an act that fulfills the human being and even perfects him so moving from a 20th century orthodox theologian back to a 13th century dominican theologian I'd like to expound on this idea of homo a Doran's using the very helpful teaching of st. Thomas Aquinas and specifically st. Thomas's teaching on what he calls religion it's important to say at the outset that the word religion has several different meanings and usages it can be used to signify a set of beliefs or practices or the institutional organization of religion or perhaps the public aspects of personal spirituality among several other things concept of religion is a complex matter but for st. Thomas Aquinas religion means something very specific and something quite different from these usages I have just mentioned because all of these in one way or another conceive of religion as it relates to man but for st. Thomas religion is about how man relates to God it is about living in right relationship with the one true God to understand the thrust of what he means it's helpful to consider a bit of his larger context here he's actually speaking about religion here as a virtue again something rather uncommon to think of religion as a virtue a virtue is simply a habit that disposes a person makes it possible for a person to act rightly to act well with regard to something it's a good quality that conduces to living well a good habit and so to speak of religion as a virtue is to speak of it as a habit that orders a person or directs a person to live rightly in relationship with Almighty God for Aquinas then this means that the virtue of religion is closely related to the virtue of justice justice is one of the four cardinal virtues one of those four principle human virtues upon which all of the other human virtues hinge and depend prudence justice fortitude and temperance justice is the virtue that governs our relationships with others it's the willingness to give to another person what he or she deserves to give what is due to another person the virtue of religion is related to the virtue of justice because religion is about giving God what is his due it's about paying the debt that man owes to the Living God so let's explore st. Thomas's teaching on religion by considering three questions why what and how why does man Oh something to God what does he owe to God and how is he to pay this debt to God in very concrete terms the answer to the first question why does man Oh something to God is obvious in some ways fundamentally the creature is indebted to the Creator for his very existence not just as a once and done matter we who have been created out of nothing who have been brought into existence by God continue to rely upon the Creator for every moment of our existence if for one second God ceased to will that I exist I would be annihilated God continues to give us life and breath because he desires that we exist he desires that we live even that we live forever the creature cannot be the cause or the source of his own existence he receives existence from another and is thus forever dependent upon that greater other for the gift of his life and existence beyond this foundational level of infinite indebtedness to the Creator for the gift of life itself the Christian has something even greater to be indebted to God for the gift of new life in Baptism which is the gift of God's own life the sharing in God's very life when a person is baptized the Blessed Trinity comes to dwell within the soul of that person God comes to make his home within man's soul all the wild destiny the baptized person to make their home forever with God in the kingdom of heaven for this gift of grace the gift of being given a share a participation in God's own divine life and for the unfathomable destiny of sharing in that blessed life for all eternity for this the Christian is indebted beyond words beyond all conceiving he is indebted to Almighty God the giver of every good gift in the face of this kind of natural and supernatural indebtedness an indebtedness for the gift of human life and for the gift of divine life man can never fully repay the debt that he owes to God in truth he can't even come close to repaying that debt and yet his efforts to do so its efforts to give God what is his due are a source of great delight to his heavenly father perhaps it's something akin to when young children buy Christmas gifts for their parents using the very money their parents have given them to buy these gifts for them the desire of these children to give honor to their parents to give thanks to express their love to their parents is undoubtedly a tremendous delight even by means of a humble but very real gift in the mass at the beginning of the preface at the introduction to the Eucharistic prayer we often hear these words it is truly right and just our duty and our salvation always and everywhere to give you thanks Lord Holy Father Almighty and eternal God through Christ our Lord notice these four words it is truly right and just our duty and our salvation it is right meaning giving thanks and praise to God is the most fitting appropriate proper response to the giver of all good gifts it is not only the right response it is a just response meaning it's a matter of justice it's what is owed to God giving him thanks and praise is owed to him if we are to live in right relationship to the giver of all good gifts it is right it is just ended is our duty if such praise and thanksgiving is owed to God as a matter of justice then we have a duty to render this debt to God in gratitude for all that he has done for us but what does it mean that it is our salvation to give thanks and praise to God our duty and our salvation the amazing thing is that when we praise and bless and Dore and glorify the one true God we don't actually do so for his sake because God by his very nature is full of glory there is nothing that we can add to his glory that he otherwise lacks and so when we glorify Him it ultimately redounds to our own good because of His infinite goodness to us God is so good that even when we render him the praise and thanks that is due to him he causes it to benefit us for our salvation another one of the texts of the mass one of the preface 'as to the Eucharistic prayer expresses this very idea in these beautiful words addressing God it says for although you have no need of our pray our Thanksgiving is itself your gift since our praises add nothing to your greatness but profit us for salvation we've considered briefly what or whet rather why man owes something to God our next question is to consider what he owes to God st. Thomas's answer to this question is very straightforward what man owes God is lot tria latria is a word that comes from Greek that means worship the supreme worship that is given to God alone st. Thomas expands on this by speaking about two aspects of worship reverence and service reverence he says is our response to God's supreme excellence to his overwhelming goodness we revere God with the deepest honor and respect because of his surpassing perfection because he is perfection itself and as such he is infinitely worthy of our aw and wonder before him latria worship implies just this kind of reverence and awe before Almighty God it also implies service st. Thomas says that being a servant implies a relation to a lord or a master and where there is a special kind of lordship there is a special kind of service to be rendered there is no more special kind of lordship than that exercised by the creator of the universe the king of kings and so the service that the Lord requires of us is also a most profound kind of service the service that we owe to God by way of the virtue of religion is nothing other than complete subjection to God to be entirely and wholly in his service subject to him at his disposal for his purposes this is the service of lot tree of divine worship it's interesting to note that when we typically speak about service in relation to the Christian religion we are usually speaking about service to other people to human beings but for st. Thomas serving one's neighbor does not come first it comes second because man does not come first God is always first and so to with our service the fundamental meaning of service in the Christian religion is the service that man renders to God by worshipping Him by giving himself to God in divine worship the service of latria the subjection of man to the king of kings it is only from this primal service that service of one's neighbor in the name of the Lord then overflows as a natural fruit as a necessary effect consequence of being given over entirely to the Lord God and to his service so in general we can say that what man owes God is supreme worship a worship expressed in reverence for God's greatness and in complete and willing service and submission to the God of gods and Lord of lords this is still a rather generalized idea but st. Thomas very helpfully unpacks this idea further in considering what he calls the acts of the virtue of religion how does one actually carry this all out in act how does one live a life of divine worship this is our third and final question how do we pay our debt to God in concrete terms st. Thomas is a master teacher he loves to break things down into further and further layers or pieces and so here in response to this question he makes a distinction between internal acts of worship and external acts of worship why internal and external acts of worship because he understands so profoundly that the human person is a composite of body and soul the human person is not a body alone or a soul alone but an integrated composite a body animated by a soul and so religion which by its nature involves the whole human person is expressed both internally spiritually we could say at the level of the soul and externally physically at the level of the body when we think about expressions of divine worship we probably think readily of physically or bodily things like bowing or genuflecting or any and all of the rituals that make up Christian worship but st. Thomas insists very interestingly that the internal acts of religion take precedence over the external acts he says that the internal acts of religion belong to religion essentially well the external acts of religion are secondary to religion they are meant to be signs or external expressions of the internal spiritual acts so with this in mind what are these acts we'll start first with the internal acts of religion those things that belong most essentially to the life of divine work to the virtue of religion st. Thomas enumerates to internal acts devotion and prayer the to internal acts of religion devotion and prayer as usual his understanding of these terms is not necessarily what we might expect not necessarily the way in which these terms are understood largely speaking these two internal acts are related to the two great powers of the soul the intellect the human capacity to know and the will the human capacity to choose devotion is the higher of the two acts Aquinas says and it is the act that engages the human will it engages our capacity to choose st. Thomas says that devotion is the will to give oneself promptly and joyfully to the worship of God think about it in this way when a person gives himself over to a cause in a complete and ready way he is said to devote himself to that cause to be devoted to that cause the same meaning is at work here the act of devotion is the act whereby we set our human will our human choosing on God and the service of God such that we are ready and willing and happy to worship Him and to do or give whatever his service demands of us we are devoted to him and to his service it's important to say here that devotion for Aquinas is not at all the same thing as sensible fervor or an emotional feeling that a person may have at times devotion is not a feeling at all it's an act of the will it's a choice continued repeated choice even regardless of how we feel or what we feel it's a mistake to think of devotion to God largely or exclusively in terms of feelings or emotions to be devoted to God is to give oneself to choose to give oneself in service to God now at times a person may experience sensible delight emotional responses as a kind of overflow of this act of devotion but it's certainly possible and quite common seemingly to be devoted to God by an act of the will without experiencing any kind of sensible fervour without experiencing any kind of emotional response just as it's possible on the other hand to experience all kinds of sensible fervor or emotion but without any real devotion at all so how do we acquire devotion how do we grow in this internal act of devotion the best way to get our will moving so to speak is by thinking to think frequently about God about the goodness of God about our complete and utter dependence upon him for all things about the promise of God to be faithful to us to never forsake us in our need to bring to completion the great work of salvation that he has begun in us thinking about God about his goodness to us is a sure path to wanting to belong to him more fully to being devoted to him more completely the more we are convicted of the goodness of God of God's love for us the more ready and eager the human will will be to worship and to serve him alone devotion is the first the highest internal act of religion the second internal act is prayer we said that devotion is an act of the human will prayer for Aquinas is an act of the intellect the human mind it is a raising of one's mind to God if we stand before God firstly and fundamentally as poor finite limited creatures who are utterly completely dependent upon him for every good thing then it makes sense that prayer is basically an act of beseeching God in its simplest sense prayer is the begging of a poor man before Almighty God the act of beseeching the good Lord to continue to pour out his blessings upon us now this is a very simple understanding of prayer much more could be said about prayer st. Thomas for example distinguishes between four basic kinds of prayer first he says there is adoration to praise and adore God for who he is in himself secondly Thanksgiving to give thanks to God for His goodness his abundant gifts third the prayer of petition which is to pray for oneself one's own needs to come before God in supplication and to ask for what one needs and fourthly the prayer of intercession to pray for others to intercede before God on behalf of others you can find helpful reflections on each of these four different types of Prayer in the fourth section of the Catechism of the Catholic Church the basic point here is that one's life of prayer should contain all four kinds of prayer adoration Thanksgiving petition and intercession each of them is necessary for our Christian life in the world none should be overlooked you could consider for example how the mass contains each of these forms of Prayer in multiple ways how they all come together to form one great sacrifice of praise in the Holy Mass so we've been talking about paying our debt of worship to God by way of the internal acts of the virtue of religion devotion and prayer the essential acts of religion but these internal acts are meant to be expressed externally as well because we are not only spiritual beings but embodied beings that which is alive most deeply within our souls is meant to find expression in our physical bodily life and so there are external acts of religion as well we're going to consider the two primary external acts that Aquinas articulates adoration and sacrifice adoration is rather straightforward we adore God with our bodies through gestures like kneeling genuflecting bowing we adore God with our voices in singing hymns of praise and adoration in extolling the greatness of the Lord in simply saying the words my Lord and my god I adore you and I worship you or take the Book of Psalms in the Bible so many of the Psalms are prayers of adoration and praise if you open your Bible to the very last Psalm Psalm 150 you find these great words of Prayer praise God in his holy place praise him for his powerful deeds praise him for his boundless greatness praise him with the sound of trumpet praise him with lute and harp let everything that lives give praise to the Lord allelujah this is just one of so many glorious songs of divine adoration and praise in the Book of Psalms the second very significant external act of religion and the last that we will consider this evening is the act of sacrifice st. Thomas's precise understanding of sacrifice includes these four elements sacrifice is the offering of something bodily or physical which is called a victim it's an offering made by a designated or qualified person called a priest made in a suitable place on an altar wherein the destruction of the victim which is called emulation is meant to express the supreme and unique dominion of God over all his creatures there's a lot going on here hopefully some of these things bring to mind Old Testament ideas and stories for example stories of animal sacrifices offered as victims by priests on an altar immolated as bodily physical signs of something offered to God in divine worship as a kind of act of Justice a rendering of what is due to Almighty God but of course the act of sacrifice comes to perfection only in Jesus Christ our Lord it is Christ the only begotten son of the Father who becomes man so as to offer himself to the father as a sacrifice as the sacrificial lamb the Lamb of God offered in our place on our behalf that we might be justified brought back into right relationship with God the entire mass the entire celebration of the Eucharist is this very act the sacra of Jesus Christ offered to the Father for our sake which has made real and present to us here and now by the gift of the sacrament it is the ultimate act of religion because Jesus Christ who was a true man in addition to being truly God was a worshiping being like us homo a Doran's in taking our nature upon himself he has shown us in his death on the cross the perfection of true religion the complete offering of himself body and soul as a sacrifice to the Father in reverence in humble service in worship when we talk about the external act of sacrifice we can speak about it most precisely when we speak about the sacrifice of Christ the one perfect an eternal sacrifice that saves man from sin but we can also speak about sacrifice the act of sacrifice in a more extended sense in a broader sense that can apply very readily to our daily lives in this sense the act of sacrifice signifies all of the ways that we can offer ourselves to God we can unite ourselves to God in sacrifice especially interior ly Psalm 40 says you do not ask for sacrifice and offerings but an open ear you ask not for Holocaust and victim instead here am i and in Psalm 51 we pray in sacrifice you take no delight burnt offerings from me you would refuse my sacrifice to God is a contrite spirit a humbled contrite heart O God you will not spurn the point here is that the Lord is not asking his chosen people to try to please or appease him with the blood of goats and bulls with animal sacrifices what he wants what he wants most of all is their hearts their hearts set upon him as the one they love above all else we've covered a lot of ground in this quick overview of st. Thomas's teaching on the virtue of religion we've considered why man owes something to God as his creator and as the giver of every good gift we've considered what man owes the divine worship of latria with reverence and service that that worship implies and we've looked at how this life of divine worship can be lived very concretely in the internal acts of devotion in prayer and in the external acts of adoration and sacrifice it's interesting to note that all of these acts of religion can be practiced in quarantine even if a person is completely alone he or she can worship God with internal acts of devotion and prayer and with external acts of adoration and sacrifice and indeed every member of Christ's body is meant to live a life of divine worship personally to go into his or her personal upper room to close the door and to worship their Lord and God but at the same time it must be said that the life of divine worship is ultimately meant to be lived communally by the whole body of Christ which is the church in being made members of Christ's body by baptism our worship is most complete most perfect when all of the members of the body are united in one of giving worship to the head of the body such that divine worship will only ultimately be perfect in heaven in fact this is precisely how the book of Revelation depicts the life of heaven the angels and saints joined together around the Lamb who was slain offering one great ceaseless song of praise in worship of the Godhead holy holy holy Lord God of hosts heaven and earth are full of your glory in this life the closest that we can come to the life of heavenly worship that we are ultimately destined for is in the celebration of the church's liturgy which is in fact a participation in the worship of heaven the church's liturgy is composed of all of the sacraments and the Liturgy of the hours the Divine Office prayers that are prayed throughout the day every day the whole vast liturgical life of the church from the sign of the Cross to the sacrifice of the mass is a great act of religion an act of rendering fitting worship to God in reverence and devoted service at present many Catholics cannot participate in much of the church's liturgical life especially where it is not possible to attend Mass this does not mean however that they cannot continue to live out their vocation as homo utterance it doesn't mean that they cannot continue to live a life of divine worship even while they may not be able to do so in the fullest way possible by participating in the Holy Sacrifice of the mass remember that the heart of the virtue of religion is found in its internal acts in devotion and prayer that we can engage in at any time at any place we can always and everywhere lift up our hearts to the Lord in willing and devoted service in prayer and supplication and we can participate directly in the liturgical life of the church in some ways even when the celebration of the mass is suspended unfortunately we don't have time here and now to consider the incredible riches of the Liturgy of the hours the other lung of the church's liturgical life but it's definitely something worth looking into us a way to enter into the church's daily external acts of adoration and sacrifice in the praying of the Psalms in the singing of the goodness of God at an extraordinary time like this when so many people are cut off from sacramental communion it can be helpful to take a step back and to consider the larger picture of what is going on at mass Catholics go to Mass not only or even not primarily to receive communion Catholics go to Mass firstly to worship the Living God to enter into the church's worship of the father through the son by the power of the Holy Spirit to enter into the sacrifice of Christ offered to the Father for our sake what st. Thomas's novel treatment of the virtue of religion teaches us is that we actually cannot receive the sacraments fruitfully without living a life of divine worship without practicing the virtue of religion because the virtue of religion establishes us in right relationship to God without religion without a relation to God and living in right relation to God we are not able to receive his gifts were not open to the gift of divine life that offered us through the sacraments right religion comes first living in right relationship to Almighty God comes first when God established a covenant with his chosen people what he required first and foremost was right worship because these were people who had been tempted as we are and indeed people who had given in at times as we do to idolatry to false worship and so in making these people his own God commands them before all other things to worship Him to serve Him alone you shall worship the Lord your God and him alone shall you serve the first commandment of the Decalogue remains foundational for every member of Christ's body and so st. Thomas teaches that the virtue of religion is the greatest the most important of all of the moral virtues or the human virtues such that when the virtue of religion is lacking when right religion is lacking moral corruption ensues because the whole Christian life is predicated upon this one relationship upon man's relationship to the Living God a relationship offered to man in utter gratuity in unmerited grace in a relationship that man can only enter into and live rightly by worshiping the Lord his God and serving him alone thank you well thank you very much father O'Connor what a wonderful reflection on the virtue of religion and our existence as beings made to adore God we have time for some questions so our first question tonight is coming from Catherine Addington at the University of Virginia so Catherine please go ahead go ahead Catherine we're waiting for you my father for your talk I really appreciate it I wanted to ask what role you see for technology and media and our cultivation of the virtue of religion just to give one example I think of how a lot of folks are struggling right now with the idea of spiritually communing with the mass with the help of a live stream that lives in the same place as you know we check our emails and watch Netflix so what good habits might we be able to form regarding the tech technology in the media so that they can be a help in the cultivation of the virtue of religion and not a hindrance it's a good question it's a difficult question obviously there's a great difference between being physically present to something and being present in a mediated way through technology and we prize physical presence in such a primary way because of the incarnation because God became man he took on human flesh he dwelt among us so there's something unreplaceable about being physically present to each other and to the lord in worship that can't be simply reproduced by media by technology how these kinds of tools can aid I suppose you know in a secondary way certainly in terms of resources for example I mentioned the Liturgy of the hours it's a form of prayer that many Christians are not often familiar with but you can find a lot of resources you can even find the entire text of the Liturgy of the hours online different apps it gives you a tool to be able to enter into this kind of Prayer in terms of more creative ways good habits to develop in terms of using technology and as a kind of aid or help to religion I I can't offer you anything else at the moment off the top of my head but certainly no person is cut off from the Living God in their own physical space to be able to to be present to God to know his presence wherever you are in the the quiet of your room we all have access to the Living God precisely through Jesus Christ so in one sense this kind of technological mediation isn't necessary though it can be a aid to to allow us to to see to to be able to experience in a remote kind of way worship that is happening at a time in place but in a primary sense we can live out that worship ourselves when we can't do so communally which is in its fullest form we can do so personally and there is great merit and and value in that where our second question will come from Peter Varga of William and Mary so Peter please go ahead thank you Father for your talking for walking us through by this differentiation I wonder forever as the response to God's supreme excellence and that how it inspires inspiration but also what about beauty what ways can we experience some of those transcendental aesthetic experiences of worship that beauty on one burger without the liturgical sacramentals and community of worship I think I heard you I didn't quite hear at all but you're asking about beauty as a as an impetus to to worship said it right and how we can sort of capture some of that liturgical of communal worship by the beauty of communal worship whilst in isolation certainly because God is is the perfection of all things God is the perfectly beautiful one and true beauty is itself a participation and in God in his own being so anything that we experience that is beautiful is another cause for us to to lift our minds to God in adoration in thanks and praise we can think about beauty in many different levels certainly the arts come to mind and the church has always prized the use of art in service of the sacred but there to begin with they're simply the beauty of creation you know to to observe the beauty of God's handiwork to to allow our minds to to be raised up to him and to glorify Him and seeing such beauty to give thanks to him at a time like this it can be very helpful to to use sacred art images icons sacred music as things that can help dispose our minds our wills to be lifted up to God as vehicles instruments can help us to tap into the glory of God who is the source of that beauty our next question is from Sam hung at the University of Texas at Austin so Sam please go ahead thank you fabric honored for your talk when you were talking about before kinds of prayer I couldn't help but think about the four ends of the mass and how closely connected they were and I was thinking specifically about atonement and I was wondering if you could speak specifically about that in relation to find abortion atonement is certainly related to the the act of sacrifice so the idea of offering a victim to atone in some way to make rights a relationship that has been broken you can trace this idea in different ways throughout the Old Testament and then ultimately in the person of Christ that Christ atones for sin for sinners by sacrifice by offering something that is a far greater value and merit to the Father then the the depth of the offense something that far out does the the offense that needs to be atoned for so certainly the idea of the mass as a sacrifice which is absolutely fundamental we speak about the Holy Sacrifice of the mass meaning the mass makes present to us the sacrifice of Jesus Christ on the cross his sacrifice is offering to the father in our behalf in atonement for our sins in the sins of the whole world that one perfect sacrifice perhaps the best place to turn to to meditate on this idea to think about this ideas the the letter to the Hebrews that wonderful book at the end of the New Testament one of the great themes of the letter to the Hebrews is the theme of Jesus Christ as the great high priest one of the primary functions of a priest is to offer sacrifice but Christ not only offers sacrifice he offers himself as the sacrifice to atone so certainly the the letter to the Hebrews is a great place to turn to continue to think about that idea our next question will be from an SEM LaFave at the University of Oregon so Anselm please go ahead a little much for your talk I was wondering if in light of the relationship between internal and external acts of worship if we would say that Christ's prayer and devotion were more essential to his atonement or saving work than his external act of offering his life or maybe another way of saying that would be is his sort of submission of his will and intellect more essential to the atonement than the sort of physical offering of his life and then maybe how if you could speak about how should that inform the way that we unite ourselves to him yeah I think that is exactly right it follows entirely from what st. Thomas teachers here that it because the intellect in the will are the the greatest powers the greatest gifts God has given us it's how we are made in His image most fundamentally the greatest way in which we can give ourselves back to God is by the giving of our mind and our will to him entirely so we see this in Christ you know his complete willingness he goes freely to offer himself knowing perfectly what lies ahead what the father has asked of him knowing entirely how unworthy these human beings are for the gift that will be given so Christ doesn't offer this sacrifice in ignorance by any kind of coercion to do so would undermine the whole sacrifice even the external act if the whole external act was still carried out if he was still crucified to the cross but was ignorant or unwilling the act would have no meaning and this is what st. Thomas says about the virtue of religion that external acts of religion only have meaning insofar as they are expressions of internal acts of what is happening at the level of the mind and the will devotion and prayer certainly we see him in the in the Gospels the continual critique that Jesus makes of religious leaders in his day who carry out external rituals but who are like whitewashed tombs there's nothing inside animating these acts they're going through the motions without any kind of raising of the mind to God submission of the will to God that is a very dangerous and can ultimately be a very damning thing that the acts that we perform externally should be a reflection of what is in our minds and hearts so for our own lives of worship growing in the interior of the life of prayer of the life of devotion is essential for entering into the life of worship here we could say that this is where the life of personal prayer of quiet prayer before God provides a great kind of training round for being able to enter into the communal worship of the life of the church the liturgical life of the church for example the Christian needs both and one feeds the other and and vice-versa but to be alone with God to be quiet with God to be in stillness before God and by his grace to be drawn more and more deeply into relationship with him to give one's mind and one's will over more fully in the life of personal quiet prayer this can be a profound way for the life of personal worship then and especially the life of liturgical worship father Michael we next have a question that I'm going to read to you from actually from one of our student leaders at the two mystic Institute chapter at the University of Kansas Maggie Werth who has sent this one in while we go to Mass firstly to worship God isn't the reception of the Blessed Sacrament part of this act of worship since its Christ's ultimate sacrifice it's a good question it's a little complicated because it's not always the case that we do receive Communion or are able to receive Communion and yet we can still fully participate in the worship of the mass you may know that even throughout history the reception of the Eucharist at Mass has not always been a common thing it's really only in in modern times that frequent reception of communion at Mass has become much more common so the two are definitely related but it's not as if the act of worship to God is in completes if one doesn't or can't receive sacramental communion for whatever reason one can give worship to God in all of the ways that we've talked about now there is certainly an absolute fitting this kind of most appropriate you know conclusion to the act of divine worship in being able to receive this gift it follows along what I mentioned earlier that our worship doesn't add anything to God and in fact it profits us so even at a further level in our own act of worship God gives himself to us gratuitously in a way that we are absolutely undeserving of but in His goodness he wishes to pour out divine life to us so because that is his will it's absolutely a most fitting and wonderful way to consummate the life of divine worship but in in some sense strictly speaking it's not absolutely necessary it meaning that the to give worship to God isn't dependent upon one's ability to receive Communion or not and interestingly st. Thomas sees the sacraments on the whole as being ordered to to divine worship he says that there are two reasons for Christ's instituting the sacraments the first is that they can perfect man in his life of worship in his life of religion that the sacraments themselves are ordered to this and secondly that they are a remedy for sin and the effects of sin in man's life so there is a kind of circular causality at work here that certainly the reception of the sacraments is an unsurpassed good and and it itself allows us to enter into divine worship more completely so father Michael now a question from Elena fyke and actually she her comment is similar to a number of others that that we've made so I'm that kind of bundle hers with with a few others she says thank you for an excellent talk also a question the leader of the Liturgy of the hours alone feels like it's lacking compared to praying it in community I'm not sure exactly what the difference is but is it is it different in terms of being more efficacious when it's prayed in common as compared to when it's prayed alone and a number of other comments or questions have asked about similar things like if we are making an act of our will but have no emotion in our you know we have no we know we have no sense of devotion how does that how does that work is that as efficacious sure efficacy is a it's a complex matter it can be difficult sometimes to to be able to parse out you know just what is efficacious what is more efficacious but with regard to the question of devotion and sensible feeling faith is what is is asked of us when we feel nothing you know to worship God in faith is absolutely efficacious and sometimes perhaps we can't know exactly but perhaps more efficacious than when we have sensible consolations with regard to the Liturgy of the hours we are incarnate beings and so there is something most satisfying most enriching about being able to pray together as a body but the church's theology st. Paul's theology of the mystical body of Christ's again is an opportunity for us to to exercise our faith that even if I'm sitting in a room alone by myself I'm not alone when I'm praying that the whole company of heaven Saints the angels in heaven are present that the mystical body of Christ the whole body of Christ is present in a mystical way that the Christian is not ever alone when he or she is at prayer this too requires faith supernatural faith and so there's something very very delightful and enriching about having the physical presence of our brothers and sisters to pray with it's something we can experience much more tangibly but all of these things can certainly be efficacious in ways sometimes we can't know how to compare but in God's economy of salvation he certainly gives grace to those who lift their minds and hearts to him

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Length: 59min 57sec (3597 seconds)

Published: Tue Apr 14 2020