Worship As A Lifestyle

27/7/2020

What is worship all about? No, not just praise and worship, but really the act of worshiping God. In Luke 4:8, it says that "you shall worship the Lord, your God, and Him alone shall you serve". Let's first explore CCC 2096 & 2097 for some answers and look at each sentence separately.

"Adoration* is the first act of the virtue of religion."
Diving deeper into the meaning of 'virtue' is "a firm disposition to do the good" as explained in CCC 1803 and the phrase 'virtue of religion' is mentioned in CCC 1807 as "justice toward God, a moral virtue of having constant and firm will to give their due to God". In other words, adoring and worshiping the Lord is the first action that we consciously choose to live as a justice towards God.

"To adore God is to acknowledge him as God, as the Creator and Savior, the Lord and Master of everything that exists, as infinite and merciful Love."
Acknowledging God is not just knowing Him, but really confessing that the knowledge we have of Him is true and believing in that. 'God as Creator' means that we are given as creation. He knows each one of us before He even created us. 'God as Savior' means that we really acknowledge that we need saving, from sins, lies, vices, brokenness and so on. 'Lord and Master of everything' also means that we can trust everything He says.

"To adore God is to acknowledge, in respect and absolute submission, the "nothingness of the creature" who would not exist but for God."
This nothingness of the creature refers to God creating us out of nothing (refer to Genesis). In every creation, there is always certain material that the creator will use so that the thing can exist on its own once the creator stops working on it. In our case, our material is nothing, and hence, it also means that because we continue to exist, that God is continuously working on us, that we are still being created. Because of His greatness and love fore us, we don't just want to admire Him from afar, but to really be close to Him and adore Him.

"To adore God is to praise and exalt him and to humble oneself, as Mary did in the Magnificat, confessing with gratitude that he has done great things and holy is his name."
In adoration, we are not just in a state of contemplation but we are to also praise God, to magnify His name, and to glorify Him with humility and gratitude. It is to reflect and to recognize the great things that God has done in our lives, which in turns gives Him glory and magnifies His goodness.

"The worship of the one God sets man free from turning in on himself, from the slavery of sin and the idolatry of the world."
Worshiping God is the answer to freedom; to keep our eyes fixed only on Him is not seen as submission to this Almighty God, but rather, it is seeing God as someone that is more ― more than ourselves and more than the world.

I end this post with a quote from Venerable Bishop Fulton Sheen,
"If you do not live what you believe, you will end up believing what you live."

*In the catechism, worship is often explained as adoration

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