The Worship of God

· Fr. Andrew Stephen Damick


Both parts of my talk “The Worship of God” are now available via Ancient Faith Radio here and here as part of the Roads From Emmaus podcast.

My approach in this talk reflects one of my ongoing concerns—preaching the Gospel of Jesus Christ, of the Holy Trinity, in a world that increasingly is either totally ignorant of its Creator or only takes a sort of intellectually deistic approach to Him. The question I asked myself in working on this talk is how I would begin with the assumption that listeners were not Christians at all or only had minimal Christian knowledge. I move from there to the height of Christian worship—the Eucharist.

I believe it’s impossible to move with reason alone to the Holy Trinity, though I suppose one could get to a sort of deism. The line one must cross to get to the Father, Son and Holy Spirit is the Incarnation of Jesus Christ. That is, we do know not the Trinity because of reason, but because of revelation. Ultimately, that means conversion and communion will require an encounter with that revelation, which can come in a lot of forms. Its perfection is found in the Eucharist, in which the revealed, incarnate God makes Himself available to us as food. Mystical union is only possible if there is revelation. Otherwise, we and the rest of creation remain forever detached from the Creator.

Anyway, I’m not sure if this talk is one of my better works, but it’s certainly one of my favorites so far.

3 comments:

  1. Father Andrew,

    I keep very on top of when they release the next in the series, because I am eager to hear your exposition of these themes.

    What shattered my old view was the very things you bring up in the most recent portion on the Eucharist. As you noted toward the end… “How could you come to any other conclusion?” (my paraphrase) was exactly what hit me like a ton of bricks.

    But isn’t it interesting that many do read the Fathers and somehow they see them through their current view, or else simply make them (the Fathers) out to be heretics themselves.

    I have become increasingly more saddened as people shrug off the witness of the early Christians. People of today sometimes value their own modern opinion over that of the Historical record of the faithful even as they did from the start.

    I also wanted to report that we had our newborn daughter “Churched” as of last week, and Sunday was my official first divine Liturgy. I was blessed to be a part of it even if only partially.

    Thanks as always for your work. May Christ our God bless you, your family and flock! Please pray for me.

    Yours in Christ Jesus,
    -g-

  2. Greetings Fr. Andrew,

    Bless!

    I absolutely love this podcast. The series on worship is definitely my favorite. However, I am writing in about a earlier statement you made in reference to the famous St. Augustine quote: “Roma locuta est; causa finita est.” Rome has spoken, the case is closed. Michael Whelton in his book “Two Paths” on pp. 28-29 has this to say: “Augustine made no such comment. The origin of this remark is supposedly drawn from sermon 131:10 which is as follows: ‘Already two councils have sent to the Apostolic See concerning this matter, and rescripts have come from hence. The case is concluded; would that error soon cease…’ Augustine is stating hat two African Councils have rendered a judgement against the Pelagians and they were sent to Rome, ‘from thence rescripts have come; the cause is finshed.’ The African church and Rome have condemned Pelagius and that is the end of the matter.”

    This context definitely makes for a more Orthodox interpretation of the matter. What’s your opinion on this, Father?

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