We’ll start with David in Estero, Florida, watching on YouTube Live.
David, you are on with Karlo Broussard.
Hello, Karlo and Cy, I have to be honest with you, this wasn’t a challenge, it’s just
a question I have.
Sure, no problem my friend.
But it could be a challenge, and I think it could be a very challenging thing for a Protestant
to answer if…but the question is: does God, or does the Bible, specifically say how he
would like us to worship him?
In other words, they frequently refer to their services as “worship services,” and whatnot,
but I think that…is the new covenant essentially a “worship” of God?
Yeah, well, the answer to that question would be: indeed it is a worship of God, that’s
the most important thing we could possibly do as human beings, just from a philosophical
perspective, but also from the perspective of revelation.
We are called to worship him in order to achieve perfect and complete human happiness.
The question that comes up is the manner in which we worship him; how are we to worship
God?
And I think, David, this all boils down to—thanks be to God, for Jesus leaving us an authoritative
voice to teach us how to appropriately worship him, because we can know for certain the appropriate
manner in which we are to worship God, and the way in which we do that is through the
holy sacrifice of the mass.
Now we can give some biblical reasons to support the Church’s teaching on that.
I think when you look, David, at the last supper, Jesus wants what he’s doing at the
last supper in the upper room to continue, particularly because he tells the apostles,
as I mentioned in the first hour, “Do this in remembrance of me.”
Which would indicate it’s a sacrifice, which fits within biblical tradition and the Jewish
tradition of the Old Testament.
How do we worship God?
We offer sacrifice.
So how are we gonna worship God in the new covenant?
We’re going to offer sacrifice—not just any old sacrifice, but THE sacrifice; namely,
the sacrifice of Jesus Christ that he made present under the appearance of bread and
wine.
And he commands the apostles to continue that.
He says, “Do this.”
Do what?
Change bread and wine into himself, offering it to the Father; so that that sacrificial
offering—the ONE SAME sacrificial offering—would continue throughout all generations, alluding
back to the prophet Malachi, where he talks about how God’s name will be great among
the Gentiles, and how a pure sacrifice will be offered to God.
And that’s fulfilled in the new covenant with the holy sacrifice of the mass.
And even, David, you know, St. Paul; we can look to St. Paul’s theology on the Eucharist,
and we can—we can see implied there that the last supper and the offering of the holy
sacrifice of the mass was continued.
For example, in 1 Corinthians 10:16-17, St. Paul’s writing about participate—“The
bread which we break, is it not a participation in the body of Christ?
The cup which we bless, is it not a participation in the blood of Christ?”
And he talks about partaking of the cup and the bread at “the table of the Lord,”
which is loaded with sacrificial imagery there.
So St. Paul understands the Eucharist to be the new covenant sacrifice, the sacrifice
of Christ, which is the primary means by which we worship God: offering that one sacrifice
to the Father.
And then he would go on to write more about it in the very next chapter, in 1 Corinthians
11:23-24, which he already called a tradition, St. Paul gives us the words of the institution
narrative, which implies it’s continuing; he says “What I have received, I deliver
to you,” so the institution narrative is being said, it’s being prayed, the mass
is being celebrated.
And then he goes on in verses 27-29 to talk about the severe consequences, such as, like,
damnation, judgement—“going to Hell” type of thing—for eating and partaking of
the Eucharist in an unworthy manner.
So we see from St. Paul’s writings that the Eucharist was continued among the Christian
community, and was a means of worship of God, because he understands it to be a sacrifice.
In fact, in 1 Corinthians 5:7-8, St. Paul would talk about how, since “Christ, our
Passover lamb,” our Paschal sacrifice, “has been sacrificed,” he says, “let us keep
the feast.”
What feast?
The feast of unleavened bread which Jesus instituted at the last supper and changed
bread into his body and blood.
So St. Paul understands that the Eucharist continues, and that’s the way in which we
primarily worship God.
Now of course, we’re gonna worship God in other ways as well.
Romans 12:1, St. Paul talks about offering our bodies to God “as a living sacrifice.”
There’s various ways in which we can worship God, but the primary way, what we see in first-century
Christianity, is offering the Eucharist.
In fact, in Acts 2 and other passages, they meet on the first day of the week—namely,
Sunday—to do what?
To break bread.
So that was the primary form of worship.
Is that helpful, David?
Very helpful.
Can I have a follow-up question, then?
Okay, fire away, we’ll try to tackle it quickly.
Related to this, though.
Yeah.
What they do, then, at say a Protestant service that does not have the Eucharist, is that
worship?
Yeah, I mean, I would say it’s worship in the sense that they’re adoring God, they’re
offering their hearts and minds to God, which is the essence of prayer, it’s the essence
of adoration, it’s the essence of worship, right?
Where we acknowledge Him as the Creator and the Lord, the giver of life, right?
But it’s not the highest form of worship, David, because the highest form of worship
is offering the holy sacrifice of the mass, which the priest does, and that we participate
in.
Thank you very much, David.