Worship: A natural function

According to Conventional Wisdom; most people do not attend Church these days. That’s certainly true of the vast majority of the people I know personally. I do not know why, and I am supremely reluctant to ask them, for fear of opening the proverbial “can of worms.” Aside from wanting to avoid such a smelly result, there’s another reason I cannot, will not, ask such questions: I consider myself singularly unfit or ill-equipped in terms of temperament to make such inquiries. From experience, I know that I tend to become aggressively argumentative in such situations. Also, I believe that the best possible “argument” is that of example. If it should seem to them that church-going has had a pronouncedly good effect on me, that I was becoming a demonstrably better person, a kinder one, a more charitable one, etc., etc as a result of my church-going, then, who knows - perhaps it might occur to them that they could also benefit from such attendance.
I am pretty certain that the reasons why people in such growing numbers do not go to church are great in both number and complexity. Nomenclature itself can be a problem! Words, just in and of themselves, can become trigger mechanisms, arousing instant and unquestioning rejection. The word “Church,” by now, has become a buzz-word, inviting swift and sometimes angry negativity and derision. I think the word, “God,” has not yet reached that level of rejection, but I fear that it might do so in the not too distant future. At the mention of this word, some will react negatively, having some unpleasant association with it. I feel rather sorry for them. When I think of the great satisfaction I derive from the act of worshipping God, I pray that they will someday soon partake of this pleasure.
Something happened recently which brings this up. As I said before, I never bring up the subject for reasons given, but in this instance, the question was put to me! And I rather surprised myself with the answer I gave. The words “nature,” and “natural,” came to me almost instantly. That’s what it really all boiled down to; I go to Church, I said, because it is in my nature to do so. Of course, it’s also in my nature to use many words whenever few will do, so the answer I gave my friend was a good bit more extensive than that!
But looking back on that conversation, the naturalness of worship seems to me a critical reason why a person would go to Church. Everyone takes it as granted that God cannot be cooped- up in some building, no matter how large it is and everyone knows that God is just as much to be found in the stillness of a forest as he is in any building. In fact, he is utterly inescapable, as Francis Thompson’s Hound of Heaven so beautifully expresses it. So the people who stay home, rake the leaves, etc on Sunday mornings and do not go to Church, would seem to have a point. Indeed they have a good point. But I think most people would admit, there is something about bagging up a bunch of leaves that doesn’t quite do the trick.
Worship satisfies an appetite, much like food satisfies hunger. Humankind, in all of recorded history seems to have had this appetite and have attempted to satisfy it in a multitude of ways. It seems to me, reading about some of the ancient and no longer extant versions, as well as the three or four major religions of today, worship has involved the whole person. For me, this is an essential element. For me, the knee wants to bend, the body wants to bow and kneel in profound acknowledgment of God. It would not be sufficiently satisfying for me to sit for an hour or two and just listen to music and, worse yet, listen to an overly long sermon…where the only activity is to reach for the wallet at collection time!
I think that played a great role in my conversion to Catholicism; I saw people worshipping with their bodies, not just sitting and listening to someone. For worshipping is an activity, involving the whole person. And Church is a place for attending to God, not a place for a lecture, not a classroom in which to learn things. So, today, when I enter a Catholic church, contrarian though I am, it gives me actual pleasure, to dip my fingers into the holy water, to genuflect toward the Blessed Sacrament, to kneel while watching the ministrations of the priest at the altar.
I am impressed with the way Muslims, when in their temples, prostrate themselves, facing Mecca, touching their foreheads to the ground; this is such a powerful physical expression of worship! This must give the individual such a strong sense of worshipping his God. Some of the Buddhists I know, have special rooms in their homes, where they keep an altar, at which they assume a special pose of worship, lighting sticks of incense…the wisps of smoke representing their prayers. I’ve never been inside a Buddhist temple, but I would welcome the opportunity to do so, to see how these brothers and sisters worship the same God I worship. It could not but be a source of blessing for me.
This building, this church, now so much less visited, is dedicated to the purpose of worship, designed especially to guide our minds and hearts to a more formal acknowledgement of God either alone or together with our brothers and sisters…from the spire(s) on the top. to the altar up front, everything focuses us more intensely toward the Lord God of all Creation. And in doing this, we are responding to some deep instinct within ourselves. Inside this special place, the knee wants to bend in genuflection, the body wants to bend, for here and for now, God is especially present and we want to acknowledge Him in profound worship.