Posted By Fr. Christian Mathis on February 5, 2010
Continuing with discussions on Thomas Howard’s book, Evangelical Is Not Enough, we come to the chapter entitled, “Christian Worship”. If you haven’t had the opportunity to see the wonderful dialogue at Elizabeth Esther’s blog, which is the inspiration for this series of reflections, I invite you to do so. In this post I hope simply to comment on several subjects relating to Christian worship noted by Howard in chapter three of his book.
A Position for Prayer
Howard spends a good deal of time speaking about the proper position for prayer. He describes his journey to understanding the value of kneeling for prayer. As a Catholic growing up in the South I have always had to field questions about why we are constantly in motion during our celebrations of worship. We sit, stand, kneel…..sit, stand, kneel….genuflect, make processions, cross ourselves, etc. Our worship is a very physical act which again harkens back to the Incarnation of Christ. Christ did not come only to bring salvation to our spirits, or to our minds, but to our entire being. This includes the physical and so our prayer mirrors that. It is impossible to get around the fact that we are physical beings. We need to eat, sleep, exercise and do many other physical tasks in order to live. Our prayer mirrors this.
Posture in prayer is a powerful tool. Traditionally I can think of three primary postures that can aid us in prayer. The first posture is the most ancient which is standing. Standing with arms outstretched is the oldest posture of Christian prayer. It physically mirrors the image of Christ crucified. We use this posture today to communicate praise and thanksgiving. In our Catholic liturgy we see it most often used when we are singing, when we are addressing a prayer directly to God the Father, when the Gospel is proclaimed and in many countries for the praying of the Eucharistic Prayer. It makes sense to me that we would choose to stand upright when giving praise and thanksgiving to God. The second posture for prayer we often see is sitting. Sitting is a posture of reception, one that indicates a willingness to listen to God and to receive what he offers to us. In the liturgy we see this posture most readily in the proclamation of the readings from Scripture. We sit in order to receive the Word of God. The third posture is kneeling. Kneeling has long been seen as a gesture of penitence but also in our country has come to symbolize reverence, which is why in the United States we kneel during the Eucharistic Prayer.
From Attitude to Act
Howard notes also that,
Worship, in the ancient tradition, was not thought of as an experience at all, it was an act.
This past December our parish took on the challenge of what is being promoted by a group of Christians as the Advent Conspiracy. One of the four tenants of the Advent Conspiracy is the challenge to “Worship Fully”. This past year I have spent a good amount of time reflecting upon what it means to worship fully and my conclusion is that it involves offering our entire life fully to God. We gather each Sunday to give thanks to God for all he has given to us and we offer Him our lives. We place our triumphs and our failures upon the altar of sacrifice. Doing this each week should draw us each week closer to the God who gave Himself completely to us in His life, death and resurrection.
In Spirit and In Truth
One of the things that certainly tends to be a sticking point between the Evangelical churches and the more Liturgical ones is the use or non use of set prayers. We as Catholics use many set prayers, but not to the exclusion of spontaneous prayer. Our prayers used for worship follow a set pattern. We pray to God the Father, through God the Son, in God the Holy Spirit. There are many different words that we use throughout the liturgy and throughout the liturgical year, but they all come back to this set structure that the Church has followed from the early centuries of Christianity. Probably the most important reason we do this is to protect those of us who have received the faith from error. When looking at the history of the early Church it is easy to see that words matter. Changing one or two words like changing one degree of the compass when setting a direction can lead to disastrous results. This seems to be one area, in my opinion, where Evangelicals seem to follow a similar course. At least when it comes to the Bible, all Christians–Catholics, Orthodox, Protestants–would agree that we cannot change the words of the Scripture.
It also seems from my own observations that most Evangelicals do follow a pattern in prayer. Usually the prayer begins by addressing God the Father, it then moves into a section of prayer of thanksgiving or praise (we just praise you for your care for us), there is a petition (we ask you to watch over us with your care) and the prayer ends with the phrase, “in Jesus’ name we pray”. This doesn’t seem at all that different from the Catholic pattern that is described above.
Howard also notes something that he noticed with regards to repeated or memorized prayer by pointing out the beautiful tradition of hymns that have developed over the centuries in the protestant church. Hymns composed by the likes of John Wesley and learned by countless Christians have helped us to pray and to maintain our faith through repetition and song.
Attire
As a priest who often is seen wearing vestments while leading prayer, Howard’s comments on attire seemed right on target. It has often suggested to me that perhaps we Catholics have it wrong in dressing our clergy in special attire that is meant to draw more attention to them. It has always been my understanding that the vestments are meant to draw our attention away from the person wearing them. Catholic clergy first put on the white garment of baptism to remind us of the common call we share with all Christians. Then we wear vestments as a sign that it should be Christ who is speaking through us. This, in fact, is another reason for having set prayers for the Eucharist. In these most significant prayers it is the words of Christ that matter most, not my words or the words of any of my brother priests. We are, in a sense, to become invisible through the wearing of vestments so that that Christ can be made more visible.
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Thanks again to Elizabeth for beginning this book discussion. It has been very enjoyable and engaging so far and I hope many of you will continue the respectful dialogue which she has begun.
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Tags: Advent Conspiracy, Bible Belt, Catholic Church, Catholicism, Elizabeth Esther, Evangelical Christianity, hymns, Incarnation, John Wesley, kneeling, Liturgy, posture, prayer, sacrifice, sitting, standing, symbols, Thomas Howard, vestments, worship
