We are Created and Called to Worship.
A few weeks ago, we reflected on “the GPS of our parish”, which is, God, People and Service. Our community of faith is constituted and called to service; the service of God and of his people. These two ways of service are inseparably united. However, in this reflection, we would like to focus attention on serving God through worship.
The highest service that human beings render to God is worship, particularly, adoration. This includes words and actions of reverence, devotion, and love directed to God. The Gospel according to Matthew tells the story of the wise men, the Magi, who came from the East to see the newborn king of the Jews, Jesus Christ. As it is written, “on entering the house they saw the child with Mary his mother. They prostrated themselves and did him homage. Then they opened their treasures and offered him gifts of gold, frankincense and myrrh” (Matthew 2: 11). They recognized God in the child they saw and worshipped him. Wise men and women in every age worship God.
The Bible does not indicate the distance that the Magi traveled to get to Jerusalem, but for a number of reasons, one can say that it was a difficult journey that they made. Then, there were no easy means of transportation and good access roads as we have them now, they had no clear idea of their destination, and a trip guided by a star means it could have taken place mostly at night when stars are mostly visible. Moreover, when they eventually arrived Jerusalem, they had trouble locating the newborn king.
Today, the journey to find and worship Jesus has been made a lot easier for us. We no longer make long physical trips to find Jesus. We have a community of faith that gathers on regular basis to worship, and we have a place of worship. Jesus assured us that “where two or three are gathered together in my name, there am I in the midst of them” (Matthew 18: 20). This promise is a guarantee of his real presence when we gather in his name particularly in our place of worship.
We have an added assurance of the presence of Jesus in the Eucharist. In our Church, we have Jesus truly present in the Sacrament of his Body and Blood. This is a privileged presence which the Catholic Church enjoys. This brings to mind the words of Moses to the Israelites when he asked them, “For what nation is so great that has its gods so close to it as the Lord, our God, is to us whenever we call upon him?” (Deuteronomy 4: 7). If this could be said of the people of the Old Testament, how much more of us? As regards the assurance of divine presence, we are the most privileged of all people on earth.
As a community, we gather daily for communal worship in the context of the Eucharistic celebration, and Sundays are our peak worship day. To ensure that everybody has the opportunity of worship, different times are provided for the celebration of the Eucharist
beginning from the evening of Saturday. Getting ready to come to Church, driving or walking to the Church, praying, singing, standing sitting are all part of our worship. It is a thing of joy seeing us gather to worship.
We thank God for creating and calling us to worship him. We thank him for counting us worthy to appear before him to serve him. Let us commit ourselves to serving God through devoted worship. Let us make our worship the best that it could be.
-Fr Bona