Citizen Columns
Question
Every faith has a number of set formats for worship. What is the role of such ceremony in our relationship to God?
Answer
Ceremonies are just as crucial in the relationship with God as they are in
day to day human relationships. Human beings are creatures of habit (just
look at how students find the same place in a classroom from week to week).
The predictable routines of daily life are stress reducers. Imagine our
collective anxiety if we had to reinvent our morning routine every day, or
decide which side of the road we were going to drive on. Our personal
relations are governed by hundreds of little conventions that make life
smoother.
So in our relationship with God it is not surprising that set forms of
worship have developed everywhere. The Orthodox churches are well known for
ancient and elaborate forms of worship. These ceremonies are meant to make
the actual worship of God easier by liberating us from the tyranny of
passing feelings and from the need to create something new each time we come
together for worship. Paradoxically, they allows us to enter more freely
into the worship of God, with less self-consciousness, in the same way that
our lungs breathe freely when enclosed in a firm rib-cage.
So much that is confusing and hopeless is made clearer by this time away
with God in worship. He has a way of mysteriously clarifying our thoughts
and giving us joy and peace and gratitude through these rituals. They create
space for us to "lay aside all earthly cares" while giving us strength to
return to precisely those same cares with renewed faith.
Can we do this on our own? Isn't personal prayer enough? Not for most
people. Worship can become meaningless without active cultivation of an
inner life; but the inner life dries up without the community of worship.
God knows that we need each other. A candle on its own is easily blown out,
but when bundled together with others its flame quickly relights.
Father John Jillions
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