WHY WORSHIP?
If the average man reads some advertisement which says that a certain car has a body designed on a kecharitomenous principle, with a holosphuretic radiator in front, an anaskeuazic boot behind and a skiatrophic roof on top, he forthwith rushes off brandishing a cheque book in one hand and a fountain pen in the other to place an immediate order with the nearest distributing agency. (If this is not so, why do car advertisements abound in mysterious words of this type?)
Yet if the average Catholic picks up some book or periodical such as Worship or Liturgy, and reads on its inside cover that it is "devoted to the liturgical apostolate", he promptly puts it down again. If it said that it dealt with Theopneustic Euchology (which, as a matter of fact, it does) he would not merely put it down but would drop it as if it were red hot.
Why do strange long words attract him if printed in The Motor but repel him if printed in Liturgy? Surely because he is interested in the subject dealt with by The Motor but not interested in the subject dealt with by Liturgy. The average man doesn't know what "anaskeuazic" means; but he realises it has something to do with cars. And he is interested in cars. The word makes him feel there is something about the advertised car which he doesn't know. And, because of his interest in cars, he isn't happy till he has found out what it is. When the average Catholic sees a word like "liturgical" he also doesn't know what it means. But he feels no compelling urge to find out because he doesn't even realise what it has to do with. It does not, so far as he is aware, have anything to do with anything which has to do with him. And so the average Catholic is not interested! And he doesn't read Liturgy.
And that is where he is wrong. He is just about as wrong as he could be! For the word "liturgical" has to do with worship. Precisely what it has to do with worship we shall see later. The point at issue now is that worship is far more important than motor cars. Not everybody is concerned with cars. It is possible in some circumstances to lead an entirely satisfactory life while having nothing to do with cars. But it is not possible in any circumstances whatever to lead a satisfactory life while having nothing to do with worship.
Cars concern some people: worship concerns everybody. If some people are interested in cars, everybody ought to be interested in worship. With cars we "go places" in this world: and it is usually possible to get there by alternative means such as trains or horses. But with worship we reach our goal in the next world, and there are no means whatever alternative to worship. And we aren't bound to go anywhere in this world, but we are all bound to go somewhere in the next world. Which all goes to show that the subject of worship is vastly more important than the subject of motor cars.
Let us start, then, by trying to see what it is all about. If we begin from the fact that man is God's creature, we see that man must take due notice of that fact and behave accordingly. But already we are dealing with the very elements of "religion". That, after all, is what religion amounts to: "taking due notice of God and behaving accordingly".
You will notice that there are two elements here (a) "taking due notice of God" (which is what we call worship) and (b) "behaving accordingly" (which is what we call morals). The peculiar thing is that one sometimes finds people who seem to be doing (b) without doing (a); while others look as if they are doing (a) without being particularly shining examples of (b)! Yet obviously (a), if done properly, could hardly help producing (b).
Let us first have a look at those people who seem to be "behaving accordingly" even though they do not "take due notice of God". They are the people who say they don't go in for any religion, yet on the whole they are decent to their fellow men, they "do nobody any harm", they are generous, truthful, loyal, brave . . . they do a whole lot of things which, as a matter of fact, God does want them to do. Such naturally good people are not unknown - I expect we all know somebody like that. Yet does their behaviour make sense? Is it really enough to be as they are?
Surely not! For they are like children who are pleasant with brothers and sisters and schoolmates, who work well at school and get good marks, who in fact, do all sorts of things which their father wants them to do. But they take no notice of their father. True, they refrain from kicking him on the shins, or emptying tins of used sump oil into his bed, or sprinkling powdered glass into his dinner. They don't do anything against their father. But they just leave him alone. They do not "take due notice" of him; they never talk to him or thank him or praise him; they just ignore him. Would he regard them as satisfactory children? No! Then neither would God regard as satisfactory creatures men who, even though well-behaved, just ignore Him and take no notice of Him whatever.
Now let us look at the people who seem to "take due notice of God" by worshipping Him, and yet do not "behave accordingly". Again I expect we all know somebody like that: somebody who goes to church, yet won't pay a decent wage to his employees (or won't do an honest day's work for his employer); somebody who says his prayers, yet is notorious for his venomous and lying tongue. Their behaviour also doesn't make sense. They are like children who talk to their father, praise him, thank him for all he has done, "take due notice of him" in fact; and yet they don't do what he wants; they play truant from school, throw stones at the windows of his house, pour sand into the sump of his car. Will their father regard them as satisfactory children? No! Then neither would God regard as satisfactory creatures men who, though they seem to "take due notice of Him" by worship, do not "behave accordingly" by doing what He wants. What are wanted are both elements of religion: there must be worship and behaviour.
Yet I think everybody will agree that, of the two, worship is more fundamental. If worship is genuine and sincere it must produce good behaviour. If children genuinely love their father and are sincere when they praise him and thank him for all he does for them, they cannot fail to do the things which please him. So also if men are fully conscious of what they are doing when they worship God, and if they really mean what they say in their prayers, then they are sure to lead lives pleasing to God.
We conclude, then, that good behaviour does not always lead to good worship; whereas good worship must always lead to good behaviour. (If it does not, it is not good worship but sham worship.) To express the same thing in a slightly different way: if only men will worship God properly (which means intelligently and sincerely) they will behave themselves. When they behave badly it is either because they worship badly (unintelligently or insincerely) or else they don't worship God at all. Hence there is nothing more important in the whole world than that men should worship God properly - in sincerity and in truth.
Everybody will agree that at present the world is in a perfectly shocking state. There is no end of cruelty, tyranny, hatred, injustice, dishonesty, lust, jealousy, selfishness, cynicism, hypocrisy and every other vice one could name. And these are not merely impersonal evils. It means that some individual man or men are being cruel, some specific persons are acting as tyrants, some definite human beings are hating or swindling or lusting or whatever it may be. And in every single case it is true that they are not "taking due notice of God" - they are not worshipping God, in sincerity and in truth. That neglect of God is the basic evil of which all the other evils are but a symptom. Getting rid of symptoms never cures a disease. One must eliminate the root-cause.
Hence it is not enough to campaign against all these vices. The only cure is to eliminate godlessness. Those who are, as a matter of fact, creatures of God are ignoring the fact that God is their Master. In proportion as they come to recognise this - in proportion as they worship God - so will the lot of mankind, even here below, improve. That is why there is nothing so important in the whole world as that men should worship God in sincerity and in truth.
"That's all very well," you may say, "but what has it got to do with me? I can't make the whole world worship God properly." No, you can't. But you can help. You can look to your own worship. I have no doubt that as a Catholic you do a fair amount of worshipping. You come to Mass on Sundays; you say your daily prayers; maybe you do even more than that.
Fine! But what of its effect? Does it overflow into your daily life? Does it really make you behave better than the fellow next door who, as a non-Catholic, doesn't go to Mass and perhaps says no prayers yet seems a decent enough chap? For it should! If he, who takes no notice of his Father in heaven (I'm not blaming him - perhaps he knows no better) nevertheless behaves himself well, then surely you who profess to know and love your Father who is in heaven ought to be behaving yourself still better!
We Catholics ought to be noticeably better people than those outside the Church are. We ought to be quite outstanding for our charity, justice, truthfulness, generosity, purity, unselfishness, honesty and all the other virtues. Some are or have been: and those are the saints (both the canonised and uncanonised). But not all of us are like that. Yet we should be. "Be ye holy as your heavenly Father is holy!" said Our Lord. "This is the will of God," said St. Paul, "your sanctification!" So we ought to be saints! Then why aren't we, in spite of the fact that we do our worshipping?
The answer is surely that when the saints worshipped God it was no mere external performance. It meant everything to them. But when some of us worship, it amounts to little more than an external performance. It doesn't mean enough to us. If only we were fully conscious of what we are doing and why we are doing it and what it all means, then surely our worship would have far more effect on us, and overflow more into our daily lives.
And that is what the "liturgical apostolate" sets out to do for you. Never mind the words - we'll explain those later. It is what's behind them that matters. The liturgical apostolate sets out to help you in your worship - to make you fully conscious of what you are doing, and why you are doing it - to make it mean a lot to you and be interesting and truly helpful; to turn it from something you have just got to do into something that you will love doing; to lift it up from the status of a mere duty and transform it into a privilege and a joy. And surely that is a proposition worth investigating.
How are things with you now? Be honest with yourself! Take your Mass, for instance. You go every Sunday as all practising Catholics do. But supposing you didn't have to go? Supposing the Pope issued a new decree which said: "Nobody in future need go to Mass more than once a year unless he wants to." Just think of that! You could lie abed Sunday morning, not go to Mass, and it wouldn't be a sin at all. You would wake up on a Sunday morning and say to yourself, "No work today! I can please myself. I can go to Mass if I like. But I'm not bound to go. I can stay in bed if I like. No sin at all. Not even a venial sin." Well, what would you do? . . . You would? I'm not surprised! So would most people, I think! Yet what a pity that is! For it shows that most people go to Mass chiefly because they are bound to go - not because they want to go!
There are people who would still get up and go to Mass even if they didn't have to go. They are the people who love it. Many have come to this love through getting to understand a lot about the Mass. They are people who have acquired what is called a "liturgical outlook" on their worship, who vividly realise what they are doing and why they are doing it, and not only rejoice to go to Mass on Sundays when they've got to, but also are delighted if they find it possible to go on weekdays too.
Now you are bound to go as things are, because the Pope has issued no such decree as the one I have imagined. And the betting is that he won't. Hence you face fifty-two Sundays every year when - unless some quite serious reason prevents you - you must force yourself out of your bed and get along to the church and be there for a whole Mass. And if you are one of those who wouldn't go unless he had to (and those are numbered by the million, so you needn't be ashamed to admit being among them), then that means you face fifty-two periods of boredom.
Maybe it's only mild boredom, and out of loyalty to your Faith you are quite willing to endure it. But the fact that you rarely go unless obliged to, shows that you are bored. But if, by a bit of reading, you could get a point of view that would turn that boredom (however mild) into interest (even moderate interest), then wouldn't that bit of reading be worth while?
Some reading is necessary in order to acquire what is called "the liturgical outlook". You need to regard your worship from the point of view of certain "basic ideas". This book is an attempt to lay them before you in an intelligible manner, and to help you to fit them together in your mind. These ideas are not just "catechism stuff" - they go much deeper than that, and are much more interesting. Some of them take a bit of thinking about, but if you will take the trouble, you will find it very much worth while.
For when you have acquired some grasp of these main ideas which go to form a "liturgical outlook", you will discover that they make a wonderful difference to your worship. You will find that all sorts of things, which meant nothing to you before, begin to have a meaning. There will be things that you never noticed before but which now arouse your curiosity, and you'll find considerable pleasure in satisfying that curiosity. There will be other things which you'll find yourself wanting to do. You'll begin to see your whole Faith in a new light. It won't be just a list of obligations . . . things you've got to do or else; things you've got to believe or else; it will be something for which you will thank God continually, with joy and gladness in your heart. That's what the "liturgical outlook" does for people's faith. That's what it can do for you if you will take the trouble to master these "basic notions".
The first of them is the importance of worship, which I have endeavoured to explain above. But I haven't by any means exhausted the notion. I have dealt only with that worship which people should give to God from the fact that they are God's creatures. But there is something else, much more wonderful, that can be added, though there is no room to explain it in this chapter. It is the fact that some of us are no mere ordinary men. Ordinary men can worship God with one manpower. They can put into their worship all the force that is in their human nature - but no more than that. Some of us, however, can do more than that. We can exceed the powers of human nature because we have been turned, as it were, into supermen and enabled to worship God with one Godpower!
How does that happen? The answer lies in those familiar words in which the Church ends so many of her prayers - "through Christ Our Lord!" Our Lord was not only man, but also God. He was indeed a man, just as much as you and I are men. But when He worshipped God His Father, He was not limited to what we might call an "output of one manpower".
Being God, He could put into His worship all the power of His Godhead, and thus worship with "one Godpower".
And there are ways in which that worship of His can become our worship. Then it is not merely we who worship, but He who worships in us. We can surpass our own limitations because of the transformation (to be explained later) which Christ Our Lord has worked in us; we worship not merely by our own power, but by His power. Thus it is that we, though merely human, can nevertheless worship God with "one Godpower". That, of course, applies only to those of us who have thus been transformed and given powers which are beyond merely human powers. But you, being a Catholic, are one of these; you can worship God in this superhuman way, and can enjoy doing it if only you know how. That, and a number of connected points, is the "good tidings of great joy" which the liturgical apostolate will endeavour to communicate to you.