An amateur art collector picked up a lot of jade in China for $20. He later found that one of the bowls was worth $1.5 million. Similarly, a man had a painting hanging on the back of his office door for years. One day he had it appraised and found it was a Diego Rivera original worth $800K. And then there is the story of a woman who had a vase for much of her life. She let her children use the base as a goal post when they played soccer. Someone later recognized it as a Jardiniere vase worth $820K. Sometimes the familiar around us has much more value than we realize. And it can happen that we become so familiar with the way we worship that we lose sight of its real value.
Worship – we do not get anything out of it! It is boring! I have heard these a few times as a priest. Why can’t we just pray to God our way? Isn’t my prayer as good as ‘formal’ worship in God’s eyes? These are great questions!
When we worship God, something quite profound takes place: we stand naked before our Creator. Worship helps us to recognize reality and face ourselves at the deepest level --- that we are not equals with God, but his creatures, made by Him, for him. In worship, the perfect bright light of God’s love shines into our being. It makes us realize that God and we belong together. Ultimately, worshipping God in the community of faith is the privileged place where we allow God to heal and continue creating us to be who we are destined to be. Here we have decisions that we have to make. Turn towards God or away? Follow God’s way or our way?
This is the context of why we are asked by God to worship at Mass each week, in-person or, during Covid, online. It is not a rule as much as an invitation, the greatest of opportunities. At Mass, as we enter into the presence of God and stand before Him at the Last Supper and at Calvary, he makes us his sons and daughters worth more than all the things of this world.
Something worth investigating!