Catholicity in Worship

There is such a thing as catholic worship, nothing to do with popery, but meaning worship suitable to be offered to God by all people, in every part of the world, in every age.

How can that be? Well, it’s for two reasons. The first is that God, to Whom the worship is offered, is unchanging, always and ever the same. If it was pleasing to Him a century ago or a thousand years ago, it is still pleasing now. If it pleases Him when offered in Antioch, it still pleases him when offered in Brazil or the North Pole.

The second reason worship can be catholic is that human nature hasn’t changed either, since the Fall. Our souls are all the same, everywhere and at all times. And it’s from that level true worship is offered to God.

We do indeed use sensory things to assist us, and each plays its own role. But if we think we need to adapt to various (corrupt!) cultures, or keep up with modern trends, or make church more “fun”, or manipulate people’s emotions, then we are only playing around at the surface. That’s fun, yes, sometimes even thrilling, but only for a while. In the end, those serious about God and yearning for the depths will find “contemporary worship” no better than their other used to be. Because it isn’t being done by the human spirit, only the body, together with its mind and/or emotions. (Yes, mind and emotions still belong to what St. Paul terms “the flesh”, the natural self, not the spirit.)

But in our culture (or lack thereof), people have forgotten, if they ever knew, what that means, or how to reach the level of our spirit. They assume emotions are about as deep as we can get.

The things of the spirit indeed do have emotional concomitants, but that is overflow, side effect, not the whole show. And the emotional effect is something entirely natural and spontaneous, proceeding from deep within, not needing to be artificially hyped up from outside of us by a praise band or an organ or choir or oratorical devices or anything else. And the emotional accompaniment is not something we wish to heed much, either, as to do so and spoils it all. Worship is meant to be offered from a level deeper (or higher, pick your metaphor) than emotions.

Not that I advocate the various denominations going back to their traditions. Today, the rapid shrinkage of most denominations is eloquent testimony to the fact that whatever they used to do didn’t really engage people’s spirit. What most people say is, it didn’t work for me. Not that worship should be addressed to them, but they’re saying it was meaningless. They couldn’t relate to it. Imagine! Worshipping the God of all the Universe(s), boring, meaningless!!?? Of course that can only signify it wasn’t true worship in the first place, for true worship is the very opposite of boring or meaningless; it involves the sum of everything important there ever was, the ultimate meaning of absolutely everything. Whatever you do from your spirit is brimful of importance and significance.

I don’t know how to explain what the human spirit is, for those who seldom or never have known it. All I know is, it’s in you. “The Kingdom of God is in you.”

But if you come to an Orthodox church long enough (assuming it’s a well-functioning, healthy parish and your heart is open), you will begin to become aware of your spirit, your deeper self. You will hear music which, although it may not tickle the ears, aims at and reaches all the way into your spirit. You will see icons that do the same thing. They are not attempts to please your eye, but to reach your soul. You will hear prayers and hear doctrine that your soul will receive with joy and tears (once you get over being bewildered!), Your heart will know them to speak truth, and your soul will leap at them, as John the Baptist , still in the womb yet with his spirit discerning the presence of the Lord, also leapt. And gradually, you will become more and more aware of your spirit as you learn to exercise it; and although you still won’t have words for it, you will begin to know what that ineffable depth in you is – and what catholic worship is, offered not primarily in body, mind or emotion (though it involves them all), but “in spirit and in truth”.