CAPG's Blog 

Saint Catherine of Siena Catholic Church, Wake Forest, Raleigh Diocese, NC

"Mr. LePlay, a world-renowned scientist, who during many long years of close application made the study of social questions his special occupation, but a short time before his death tersely recorded in a single phrase the result of his investigations. "Nations," he wrote, "that observe the Commandments of God prosper; nations that transgress them are on the decline; while nations that openly reject them are dying out."

Now, the first and all important duty prescribed by the ten Commandments is that of divine worship: "The Lord thy God shalt thou adore and Him only shalt thou serve" were the words of our Lord addressed to the tempter. And why must we adore God? Because HE IS. For how, if His existence cannot be denied, are we to refuse Him the homage which His sovereignty demands? Moses was drawing nearer to the burning bush, where "the Lord had appeared to him in a flame of fire," and he was bid to stand back by the Almighty: "Come not nigh hither, put off the shoes from thy feet; for the place whereon thou standest is holy ground.... I am the God of thy father, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac and the God of Jacob." Moses hid his face, for he durst not look at God.

And when Moses was about to receive his mission, at the prayer of Moses God gave His own name, a name implying the eternity of His duration and the necessity of His existence: "I AM WHO AM,... Thus shalt thou say to the Children of Israel: "He Who IS sent me to you"... This is My name forever; and this is my memorial unto all generations."

God is the Supreme, self-existent and Necessary Being immutable from all and for all Eternity, for whom past, present and future are as the minute in which we live.

"But amongst the many claims that God has upon us: the very first of all is the claim of adoration or worship.  He is our God - our Creator. He is infinite in perfection, infinite in wisdom, infinite in power, mercy and love. The very first thing that God demands is that he should admit and recognize these attributes of God, and, recognizing them, that we should bow down and adore them. Therefore the Holy Ghost tell us in Scripture, that if any man wish to approach God the very first thing is how to know God as He is. This virtue is called religion, in which we recognize God in Himself, in His attributes, in His creatures; and the first act of religion is the act of adoration or worship.

"Now, the Psalmist who uttered the words "I have love, O Lord! the beauty of Thy house and the place where Thy glory  dwelleth" had not yet beheld the glory of God, the temple of Jerusalem. The temple was not yet built, but was to be the work of His son, the great and wise King Solomon. But David saw it not, and yet he said: "I have love, O Lord, the beauty of Thy house." He beheld it in the vision of his mind, he saw the stateliness of its grandeur, the majesty of its proportions, the richness of its material. He saw there the gold of Ophir, the scarlet twice-dyed of Tyre, and the costly marbles taken out of the hearts of the hills, and he rejoiced because all this was fitting for the house in which the glory of the Lord God was to dwell.

"But above all things he beheld in the vision then in his mind all the tribes of Israel coming to Jerusalem to worship in the temple and adore their God. He beheld the beauty of adoration surpassing all other beauties of the House of God. He saw as the vision extended before his prophetic eyes the successive generations of true Israelites worshiping there, and he rejoiced; until at length he beheld the Virgin leading in that Child, who was God, into is own house. Then it was in the fullness of his prophetic heart he exclaimed: "O Lord, I have loved the beauty of This house and the place where Thy glory dwelleth; for lo! the Lord God has sent down His only Son into His own mansion;" and then the vision extended until the prophet saw the fading glories of Jerusalem pass away. He saw the veil rent and the holiness depart from the house of God, until the abomination of desolation was there. He saw the mercy-seat empty, but again he saw rise from out the ruins of the one temple of Jerusalem ten thousand temples surpassing each other in beauty and loveliness. He saw the ten thousand temples of the living God spring up under the sky, and everywhere the altar of sanctification, the tabernacle of the Divine Presence. And the latter glories far exceeded the former, and then it was that he again exclaimed: "I have loved, O Lord! the beauty of Thy house and the place where Thy glory dwelleth." (The beauty of Divine worship, Fr. Thomas N. Burke, OP vol 3, page 414)

This worship we owe God is not, then, merely interior and personal. Far from it. The Holy Council of Trent reminds us that is must also be outward and public: "Man, in fact, being so constituted that it is but with difficulty, if outward signs be wanting, as he is body and soul, that he can raise his thoughts to Heaven and consider the things that are of God. Wherefore Holy Church, like a tender mother, has instituted certain rites and varied ceremonies, mystic blessings, lights, incense, sacred vestments and a number of other outward practices based on Apostolic teaching and Tradition." Or, in the words of the illustrious Dominican: "The very nature of man requires this; for such is the intimate union of souls and body in man, that it is impossible to reach the soul save through the senses of the body; if you wish to influence the mind of man, and touch his heart either for good or for evil, you must appeal to his bodily senses. God Himself respects His own divine disposition in this regard, making the sense the ordinary channels of His highest graces; and the Church of God - the only true interpreter of His Will - whose mission it is to raise fallen man up to God, to purify and to preserve his soul, and to make him perfect by charity, makes uses of everything that strikes and captivates the senses, in order thereby to reach man's soul, to touch his heart, and offer to God the homage of the entire creature, as well of the body as of the soul." This will explain to us why the Catholic Church uses so much of external grandeur in her ceremonies. The lights and ornaments of the altar, the vestments of the priests, the smoke of incense, the pealing notes of the organ, the lofty dome, the graceful arch, the pictures and statues - all these things are intended by the Church as means whereby to reach the hearts and souls of her children, by instructing, ennobling, touching and captivating their senses.

"Now, the mission of the Church in this world is to win man to God; in order to do this, she must take him as he is, and treat him according to his nature, leading him up from natural things to supernatural - from the things that are made to the invisible things of God, and to a knowledge of "His eternal power and divinity." She must turn to God all the powers of man's soul, all the affections of his heart; and therefore she seizes upon all that is beautiful in this world, and makes it subservient to this end.

"Hence, the fine arts have always found their most generous protection, as they found their highest inspiration in the Catholic Church. Painting and sculpture were exclusively hers until the heretical spirit of this world, and then they fell, nor found in their wretched imitations of Paganism anything that could make up to them for the fair Christianity which they had abandoned.

"But painting and sculpture, after all, can hardly be called the offspring of the Church, though she consecrated, refined and exalted them. They flourished in ancient times, and Greece and Rome beheld them in all their glory. But there is another of the fine arts which God seems to have consecrated in a peculiar manner to the services of the sanctuary, and  which may be said to be especially the child of the Church, and this is music." (Music in Catholic Worship, Fr. Thomas N. Burke OP, Vol 1 p345)

Though we have borrowed already largely from the great Irish orator, we cannot bring ourselves to omit the development of this last thought, which we find in another part of the first lecture from which we quoted: "If He (Christ our Lord) had intended to appeal only to the mind of man, He would have stopped at the tradition of the word; but the intention of Our Lord Jesus Christ in founding the Christian religion was to go farther and deeper than the mere intelligence. It was to strike home to the heart. It was to penetrate the spirit and to obtain possession of the whole man; and therefore He did not stop at the mere granting of the word, creating light and faith, but He furnished His Church with every means by which she can appeal to the heart, move the spirit, bow down the head, and chasten and purify the body as well as the soul of man; and amongst the means with which God furnished His Church to reach the heart and to strike the spirit of man in His worship, one of the most direct, one of the most powerful is the appeal which is made by the music of the Church to the ear, and though the hearing to the heart of man.

  Church music, the voice of praise lifted up in melodious chords; the swell and the pealing of the organ bearing aloft the loud hosanna of adoration to God; the soft, low, tender notes that steal through the senses into the heart of man, and draw us away from ourselves until we are altogether before God; a mild strain that falls like the breathing of God's angels in its soothing influence on the trouble spirit, until we are truly called, lulled into that state of sacred rest that is necessary in order to hear the voice and realize the presence of God; the storm-rushing notes that proclaim in voice of praise, some strong emotion of joy, some delightful surprise of revealed truth, some mighty mystery giving us triumph over the enemies of God - all this interpreted by the Church's music forms one of the most powerful appeals which she makes in her worship to man, not only to his intelligence but it rouses the heart of man to the preacher, proclaiming revealed truth as on appeal to the mind."

So much for the necessity of outward ceremonial and splendor in the worship man owes to his God. But there is something more of which we must not lose sight. God did not create man to, as it were, an isolated or solitary being, to live apart or estranged from this fellow-men. On the contrary, He created him for companionship with these his fellow-mortals. Both reason and infallible Church demand that God's worship be not outward and personal only, but that it be public and social. For, as the individual is wholly dependent on his Creator, so society depends on Him for its existence and preservation; and without the public recognition of God's supreme sanctioning authority, society would suffer dissolution, and the reign of barbarism or anarchy would be the inevitable outcome.

As for the principal effects of outward ceremonial or sensible signs in divine worship, instituted, we must remember, by the Savior Himself and perpetuated by His legitimate Spouse, the Holy Catholic Church, show of all oratorical ornament, they may be stated as follows:

- The great liturgical prayer - for such would be the correct appellation of divine worship enhanced by the many holy rites which accompany it - raises up the hearts of the faithful to the consideration and contemplation of spiritual and divine things; it constitutes the most perfect and most striking of all professions of faith; it unceasingly reminds us of our great duties; it forms the most powerful of social ties; in a word, as a master mind in such matters has put it, "it is above all divine; it is at one and the same time milk for the little ones and the bread of the strong, in this, that like unto the miraculous manna of the desert, it assumes every savor according to the taste of those whose nourishment it becomes." (The Liturgical Year, Don Gueranger, T.T. p. 16)

It cannot certainly escape our observation that the greater the pomp and splendor which surrounds the worship given to God by His Holy Church, the more do the wonderful effects we have enumerated manifest themselves, and all the greater exuberance. For no other reason has the Church, as we have seen, from the very beginning, even in the hidden recesses of the catacombs, and the dim windings of subterraneous Rome, endeavored to impart to divine worship all the grandeur, solemnity and beauty at her command, circumstances of time and place being taken into account. Never has she hearkened for an instant to these imitators of the Iscariot, who have lived in every country and in every age, and who in our own days more particularly persist in crying out: "To what purpose is this waste? For this might have been sold for much and given to the poor." Let us not be dazzled by their specious objections,and let us bear in mind that if Jesus Christ, our God made Man, who of all the poor ought to be dearest to us, were honored and surrounded as He should be with becoming splendor in His tabernacles and in His temples, all of His suffering members, the indigent, the blind, the halt and the weary, would be the better for it, and that from that hour waning zeal and charity growing cold would be fanned into flame in the heats of the faithful, and good works would flourish and bear fruits in abundance.

Let those on whom God has lavished the goods of this world, surrounded without stint with the comforts of this life, endowed with all the resources of wealth, rejoice in being able to rear temples and shrines befitting the august, the infinite majesty of the living God. The "eye of the needle" will be expanded to the proportions of Heaven's great portals thrown open to receive them, and their mansion will be all the grander and more sumptuous for eternity.

Let those who have caught from some faint echo of celestial melody the true inspiration of heavenly song enrich the repertory of the Church's music;
or, in a lesser degree, according to the talent they have received from the Master, contribute to the sweetness and majesty of her chant or accompanying harmony.

Let those who have snatched from the bow which spans the heavens the secret of blending, not with tawdry effect or meretricious coloring, its evanescent hues and of fixing them on groined arch or willing canvass, lend their skill to the decorating of God' sanctuaries.

But let all our beloved Apostles of Prayer, by whom the great LITURGICAL PRAYER should be held in such high esteem and reverence, energetically battle against lukewarm piety, the growing evil of the day, which dims the splendor of divine worship. It is in this particular that the sterner sex especially should make a greater effort to add, by their presence, solemnity to our feasts and sacred ceremonies, and lend their influence to make them more imposing.

As for the devout sex, women and Christian maidens, let them continue from day to day to swell the membership of such excellent associations as tabernacle societies or workers for poor churches, and lay under contribution their  innate taste and deft fingers for the ornamentation of the altar in the many divers ways the love of God's holy places alone can suggest. And when all else is wanting and the God of all majesty is adored in the poor nude chapel, recalling the penury of Bethlehem's crib, let the altar line be at least spotless and of immaculate whiteness, for there one is to rest Holiness and Purity itself, for who is there who is too poor or too lowly not to be able to assist in maintaining cleanliness in whatever is consecrated to God's service? Nothing is too good or too costly to be devoted to Him, neither is there any office to be considered menial when performed for the God of Glory.

(...) May our prayer be, that divine worship may again become what it was in the most glorious days of the Church: "the light of the learned, the book of the lowly and the joy of nations."

Source: The Canadian Messenger of the Sacred Heart, Vol 4, page 81. 1894

O! Holy Virgin, powerful Help of Christians, we entreat thee, come to our aid. Come quickly with the celestial army, especially the intrepid Archangel Michael. Kindle in all hearts, especially in the hearts of Priests, the sacred fire of most ardent zeal. Place thyself at our head, august Mother of the God of hosts, and lead us to the battle. Sustain us by thy prayers; encourage us by thine eye. Scatter before us these new infernal legions, as the wind scatters the clouds. Powerful Help of Christians, give us victory, give us triumph and peace; obtain for us a holy life and a holy death. Amen.