Priest: “Let us give thanks to the Lord our God.” People: “It is right and just.” – Preface Dialogue to the Eucharistic Prayers.
“It is truly right and just, our duty and salvation, always and everywhere to give you thanks …” – Eucharistic Prayer 2
“It is truly right to give you thanks, truly just to give you glory …” – Eucharistic Prayer 4
We have heard these words so many times that they probably go in one ear and out the other. In this article, I would like to circle back to the virtue of justice.
Recall that justice is one of the four cardinal virtues defined as the constant and firm will to give their due to God and to neighbor.
“Render to Caesar the things that are Caesar’s, and to God the things that are God’s.” – Mark 12:17
Cries of justice fly about every day in our news, and it’s sometimes easy to figure out what injustice was done. But what does it mean to “give their due to God,” or what is due to God? We know that God needs nothing but desires everything.
Everything? There are various expressions, but the Shema says it best: “Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God is one Lord; and you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your might.” – Deuteronomy 6:4-5
We express this love of God in a participatory manner when we love our neighbor, when we care for the environment, when we participate in our society to make it better, etc. We best express justice to God in our praise and worship through the holy sacrifice of the Mass.
The Catechism of the Catholic Church has much to say on/about the Mass. I wish to highlight from paragraph 1329: “The Eucharistic assembly (synaxis), because the Eucharist is celebrated amid the assembly of the faithful, the visible expression of the Church.”
St. Thomas writes, “The chief purpose of the whole external worship is that man may give (internal) worship to God … (M)en who worship Him are corporeal beings, and for their sake there was need for a special tabernacle or temple to be set up for the worship of God.”
Why is this important? We need to go back to the book of Exodus. In his book The Great Story of Israel, Bishop Robert Barron speaks to the relationship of God and Israel.
He writes, “(A) principal preoccupation of the author of Exodus is the delineation of those practices and beliefs by which the people Israel defines itself, or better, is defined by the God who liberates them. Law, covenant, right worship, sacrifice, ritual, sacred meal, etc. are all explored in the course of the narrative.”
Bishop Barron speaks of “right worship” 11 times in his book. Why? He writes, “How and where God is to be rightly worshipped, (is) a preoccupation of the Bible from the very beginning.”
What is “right worship” in the Church? “Right worship” was important from the earliest days of the Church. The Didache, also called Teaching of the Twelve Apostles, is one of the oldest Church documents. The document deals with, among other things, Church practice and presents instruction and initiation into the Church.
Also, the Catechism of the Catholic Church in paragraph 1345 quotes St. Justin Martyr who wrote to the pagan emperor Antoninus Pius around the year 155, explaining what Christians did at the Mass. You would probably find it very familiar even occurring 2,000 years ago.
Today, the General Instruction of the Roman Missal promulgates “right worship.”
One of the “controversies” today is over the Tridentine (Latin) Mass. More than a few people wish “right worship” would revert to the Tridentine Mass or at least return to “Ad orientem” (toward the East). Perhaps there are lessons to be learned there. Perhaps more catechesis needs to be dedicated to what constitutes “right worship.”
Justice to neighbor. Naturally, there is a balance. For there to be justice to God there needs to be justice to neighbor. Isaiah highlights this necessity in Chapter 58. Also, Jesus chastises the Pharisees who were “famous” for their “right worship” but just as “infamous” for their lack of justice to their neighbor in Matthew 23.
“Right worship” is not only about the things we do, but also about how we go about doing them. Justice is not an either/or but a both/and; it is both to God and to neighbor.
