Word of the Week
Baptism of Our Lord
Worship: Proskuneo (Gk.): meaning, “to kiss the hand of another as a token of reverence”. This kind of obeisance was often seen in the orient where an individual would fall upon their knees and touch the ground with the forehead as an expression of profound reverence. It can also be tied to supplication and prayer.
Worship is the adoration and honor to God, which is the first act of the virtue of religion (CCC, 2096). Proper worship of God abides in humility and gratitude and turns the human person from slipping into any idolatry of the world (CCC, 2097). Because “Lifting up the mind toward God is an expression of our adoration of God (in) prayer of praise and thanksgiving, intercession and petition” (CCC, 2098), the celebration of the Paschal Mystery of Christ, in the celebration of the Liturgy, is the summit of all worship as it is the source of our salvation (CCC, 1067).
The Greek proskuneo appears sixty times in the New Testament; the bulk of them appearing in the gospel of Matthew and the book of Revelation (this is no surprise in that the book describes a vision of a liturgical banquet). I will pay particular close attention to Matthew and his account of the adoration of the Magi. In the visit of the wise men from the East to the manger, Matthew places an emphasis on their desire to pay homage to the infant child (Mt.2:2, 11). Interestingly, he contrasts the Magi’s nobility in their quest to worship the newborn verses King Herod’s utilitarian quest to find and “apparently” worship the newborn (cf. Mt.2:8). So the magi’s star-led pilgrimage landed them in Bethlehem, a manger of humility, and upon arriving at their destination “they rejoiced exceedingly with joy…and fell down and worshipped him” (cf. Mt.2:10-11). There are a couple of key pieces here to note. First, their finding was caught up in the joy of our Lord; the wise men were “giddy” with their finding of the baby Jesus (their joy should never be reduced to the “joy” one might experience at the end of a long and arduous journey). Second, tied to the first, upon their finding of the newborn king, they fell prostrate to the floor and paid homage that was due to the King of kings. The experience of the magi ought to point all readers to a very important piece concerning the life of a Christian: when we find Jesus anew each day—fall down on bended knee and praise God for his goodness!
The Solemnity of the Epiphany brings rise to an important question regarding how we worship. As noted, the Magi ‘fell down and worshipped him’ (Mt.2:11). The Magi prostrate in adoration before the infant king, because posture was an outward expression of a much deeper cultic (worship) reality. In other words, posture is an outward sign of how God moves us to worship! Pope Benedict XVI, in Spirit of the Liturgy, remarks on the importance of physical disposition when worshipping God: “The bodily gesture itself is the bearer of the spiritual meaning, which is precisely the act of worship. Without the worship, the bodily gesture would be meaningless, while the spiritual act must itself of its very nature…express itself in the bodily gesture” (Benedict, 190). Essentially, humility by virtue is always accompanied by an outward disposition which renders itself to the divine.
“Marian devotion also encourages adoration of the Father and the Holy Spirit in those who practice it according to the Church’s spirit. In fact, by recognizing the value of Mary’s motherhood, believers discover in it a special manifestation of God the Father's tenderness. The mystery of the Virgin Mother highlights the action of the Holy Spirit, who brought about the conception of the child in her womb and continually guided her life.”
--John Paul II
Primary Texts Consulted
- Catholic Bible. Suggested trans. Revised Standard Version, Catholic Edition.
- Catechism of the Catholic Church, 2nd Edition, 1997.
- Cardinal Ratzinger, Joseph (Pope Benedict XVI). The Spirit of the Liturgy. San Francisco: Ignatius Press, 2000.
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