On True Worship _ ZENIT - The World Seen From Rome

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"The Era of the Temple and Its Worship Had Ended"

January 07, 2009 | 3493 hits

VATICAN CITY, JAN. 7, 2009 (Zenit.org).- Here is a translation of the address Benedict XVI deliveredduring today's general audience in Paul VI Hall.

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Dear brothers and sisters,

In this first general audience of 2009, I want to offer all of you fervent best wishes for the New Year thatjust began. Let us renew our determination to open the mind and heart to Christ, to be and live as his truefriends. His company will make this year, even with its inevitable difficulties, be a path full of joy andpeace. In fact, only if we remain united to Jesus will the New Year be good and happy.

The commitment of union with Christ is the example that St. Paul offers us. Continuing the catechesesdedicated to him, we pause today to reflect on one of the important aspects of his thought, the worshipthat Christians are called to offer. In the past, there was a leaning toward speaking of an anti-worshiptendency in the Apostle, of a "spiritualization" of the idea of worship. Today we better understand that St.Paul sees in the cross of Christ a historical change, which transforms and radically renews the reality ofworship. There are above all three passages from the Letter to the Romans in which this new vision ofworship is presented.

1. In Romans 3:25, after having spoken of the "redemption brought about by Christ Jesus," Paul goes onwith a formula that is mysterious to us, saying: God "set [him] forth as an expiation, through faith, by hisblood." With this expression that is quite strange for us -- "instrument of expiation" -- St. Paul refers to theso-called propitiatory of the ancient temple, that is, the lid of the ark of the covenant, which wasconsidered a point of contact between God and man, the point of the mysterious presence of God in theworld of man. This "propitiatory," on the great day of reconciliation -- Yom Kippur -- was sprinkled withthe blood of sacrificed animals, blood that symbolically put the sins of the past year in contact with God,and thus, the sins hurled to the abyss of the divine will were almost absorbed by the strength of God,overcome, pardoned. Life began anew.

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St. Paul makes reference to this rite and says: This rite was the expression of the desire that all our faultscould really be put in the abyss of divine mercy and thus made to disappear. But with the blood ofanimals, this process was not fulfilled. A more real contact between human fault and divine love wasnecessary. This contact has taken place with the cross of Christ. Christ, Son of God, who has become trueman, has assumed in himself all our faults. He himself is the place of contact between human misery anddivine mercy; in his heart, the sad multitude of evil carried out by humanity is undone, and life isrenewed.

Revealing this change, St. Paul tells us: With the cross of Christ -- the supreme act of divine love,converted into human love -- the ancient worship with the sacrifice of animals in the temple of Jerusalemhas ended. This symbolic worship, worship of desire, has now been replaced by real worship: the love ofGod incarnated in Christ and taken to its fullness in the death on the cross. Therefore, this is not aspiritualization of the real worship, but on the contrary, this is the real worship, the true divine-humanlove, that replaces the symbolic and provisional worship. The cross of Christ, his love with flesh andblood, is the real worship, corresponding to the reality of God and man. Already before the externaldestruction of the temple, for Paul, the era of the temple and its worship had ended: Paul is found here inperfect consonance with the words of Jesus, who had announced the end of the temple and announcedanother temple "not made by human hands" -- the temple of his risen body (cf. Mark 14:58; John 2:19 ff).This is the first passage.

2. The second passage about which I would like to speak today is found in the first verse of Chapter 12 ofthe Letter to the Romans. We have heard it and I repeat it once again: "I urge you therefore, brothers, bythe mercies of God, to offer your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and pleasing to God, your spiritualworship."

In these words, an apparent paradox is verified: While sacrifice demands as a norm the death of thevictim, Paul makes reference to the life of the Christian. The expression "offer your bodies," united to thesuccessive concept of sacrifice, takes on the worship nuance of "give in oblation, offer." The exhortationto "offer your bodies" refers to the whole person; in fact, in Romans 6:13, [Paul] makes the invitation to"present yourselves to God." For the rest, the explicit reference to the physical dimension of the Christiancoincides with the invitation to "glorify God in your bodies" (1 Corinthians 6:20): It's a matter of honoringGod in the most concrete daily existence, made of relational and perceptible visibility.

Conduct of this type is classified by Paul as "living sacrifice, holy and pleasing to God." It is here wherewe find precisely the term "sacrifice." In prevalent use, this term forms part of a sacred context and servesto designate the throat-splitting of an animal, of which one part can be burned in honor of the gods andanother part consumed by the offerers in a banquet. Paul instead applied it to the life of the Christian. Infact he classifies such a sacrifice by using three adjectives. The first -- "living" -- expresses a vitality. Thesecond -- "holy" -- recalls the Pauline concept of a sanctity that is not linked to places or objects, but tothe very person of the Christian. The third -- "pleasing to God" -- perhaps recalls the common biblicalexpression of a sweet-smelling sacrifice (cf. Leviticus 1:13, 17; 23:18; 26:31, etc.).

Immediately afterward, Paul thus defines this new way of living: this is "your spiritual worship."Commentators of the text know well that the Greek expression (tçn logikçn latreían) is not easy totranslate. The Latin Bible renders it: "rationabile obsequium." The same word "rationabile" appears in thefirst Eucharistic prayer, the Roman Canon: In it, we pray so that God accepts this offering as"rationabile." The traditional Italian translation, "spiritual worship," [an offering in spirit], does not reflect


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all the details of the Greek text, nor even of the Latin. In any case, it is not a matter of a less real worshipor even a merely metaphorical one, but of a more concrete and realistic worship, a worship in which manhimself in his totality, as a being gifted with reason, transforms into adoration and glorification of theliving God.

This Pauline formula, which appears again in the Roman Eucharistic prayer, is fruit of a long developmentof the religious experience in the centuries preceding Christ. In this experience are found theologicaldevelopments of the Old Testament and currents of Greek thought. I would like to show at least certainelements of this development. The prophets and many psalms strongly criticize the bloody sacrifices ofthe temple. For example, Psalm 50 (49), in which it is God who speaks, says, "Were I hungry, I would nottell you, for mine is the world and all that fills it. Do I eat the flesh of bulls or drink the blood of goats?Offer praise as your sacrifice to God" (verses 12-14).

In the same sense, the following Psalm 51 (50), says, " …for you do not desire sacrifice; a burnt offeringyou would not accept. My sacrifice, God, is a broken spirit; God, do not spurn a broken, humbled heart"(verse 18 and following).

In the Book of Daniel, in the times of the new destruction of the temple at the hands of the Hellenisticregime (2nd century B.C.), we find a new step in the same direction. In midst of the fire -- that is,persecution and suffering -- Azariah prays thus: "We have in our day no prince, prophet, or leader, noholocaust, sacrifice, oblation, or incense, no place to offer first fruits, to find favor with you. But withcontrite heart and humble spirit let us be received; As though it were holocausts of rams and bullocks …So let our sacrifice be in your presence today as we follow you unreservedly" (Daniel 3:38ff).

In the destruction of the sanctuary and of worship, in this situation of being deprived of every sign of thepresence of God, the believer offers as a true holocaust a contrite heart, his desire of God.

We see an important development, beautiful, but with a danger. There exists a spiritualization, amoralization of worship: Worship becomes only something of the heart, of the spirit. But the body islacking; the community is lacking. Thus is understood that Psalm 51, for example, and also the Book ofDaniel, despite criticizing worship, desire the return of the time of sacrifices. But it is a matter of arenewed time, in a synthesis that still was unforeseeable, that could not yet be thought of.

Let us return to St. Paul. He is heir to these developments, of the desire for true worship, in which manhimself becomes glory of God, living adoration with all his being. In this sense, he says to the Romans:"Offer your bodies as a living sacrifice … your spiritual worship" (Romans 12:1).

Paul thus repeats what he had already indicated in Chapter 3: The time of the sacrifice of animals,sacrifices of substitution, has ended. The time of true worship has arrived. But here too arises the dangerof a misunderstanding: This new worship can easily be interpreted in a moralist sense -- offering our liveswe make true worship. In this way, worship with animals would be substituted by moralism: Man woulddo everything for himself with his moral strength. And this certainly was not the intention of St. Paul.

But the question persists: Then how should we interpret this "reasonable spiritual worship"? Paul alwayssupposes that we have come to be "one in Christ Jesus" (Galatians 3:28), that we have died in baptism(Romans 1) and we live now with Christ, through Christ and in Christ. In this union -- and only in this way-- we can be in him and with him a "living sacrifice," to offer the "true worship." The sacrificed animalsshould have substituted man, the gift of self of man, and they could not. Jesus Christ, in his surrender to


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the Father and to us, is not a substitution, but rather really entails in himself the human being, our faultsand our desire; he truly represents us, he assumes us in himself. In communion with Christ, accomplishedin the faith and in the sacraments, we transform, despite our deficiencies, into living sacrifice: "Trueworship" is fulfilled.

This synthesis is the backdrop of the Roman Canon in which we pray that this offering be "rationabile," sothat spiritual worship is accomplished. The Church knows that in the holy Eucharist, the self-gift of Christ,his true sacrifice, is made present. But the Church prays so that the celebrating community is really unitedto Christ, is transformed; it prays so that we ourselves come to be that which we cannot be with ourefforts: offering "rationabile" that is pleasing to God. In this way the Eucharistic prayer interprets in anadequate way the words of St. Paul.

St. Augustine clarified all of this in a marvelous way in the 10th book of his City of God. I cite only twophrase: "This is the sacrifice of the Christians: though being many we are only one body in Christ" … "Allof the redeemed community (civitas), that is, the congregation and the society of the saints, is offered toGod through the High Priest who has given himself up" (10,6: CCL 47,27ff).

3. Finally, I want to leave a brief reflection on the third passage of the Letter to the Romans referring tothe new worship. St. Paul says thus in Chapter 15: "the grace given me by God to be a minister of ChristJesus to the Gentiles in performing the priestly service (hierourgein) of the gospel of God, so that theoffering up of the Gentiles may be acceptable, sanctified by the holy Spirit" (15:15ff).

I would like to emphasize only two aspects of this marvelous text and one aspect of the uniqueterminology of the Pauline letters. Before all else, St. Paul interprets his missionary action among thepeoples of the world to construct the universal Church as a priestly action. To announce the Gospel tounify the peoples in communion with the Risen Christ is a "priestly" action. The apostle of the Gospel is atrue priest; he does what is at the center of the priesthood: prepares the true sacrifice.

And then the second aspect: the goal of missionary action is -- we could say in this way -- the cosmicliturgy: that the peoples united in Christ, the world, becomes as such the glory of God "pleasing oblation,sanctified in the Holy Spirit." Here appears a dynamic aspect, the aspect of hope in the Pauline concept ofworship: the self-gift of Christ implies the tendency to attract everyone to communion in his body, to unitethe world. Only in communion with Christ, the model man, one with God, the world comes to be just aswe all want it to be: a mirror of divine love. This dynamism is always present in Scripture; this dynamismshould inspire and form our life. And with this dynamism we begin the New Year. Thanks for yourpatience.

[Translation by ZENIT]

[The Pope then greeted the people in several languages. In English, he said:]

Dear Brothers and Sisters,

At the beginning of this New Year, I offer all of you my cordial good wishes! In the coming months, mayour minds and hearts be opened ever more fully to Christ, following the example of Saint Paul, whose lifeand doctrine we have been considering during this Pauline Year. Today we turn to the meaning of "trueworship" as highlighted in Paul’s Letter to the Romans. In uniting us to himself, Christ, a temple "notmade with human hands", has made us a "living sacrifice". Paul thus exhorts us to offer our own "bodies"– meaning our entire selves – as a "spiritual worship": not in the abstract, but in our concrete daily life. Atthe same time, this true worship does not come about merely through human effort. Rather, through


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baptism, we have become "one in Christ Jesus" (Gal 3:28), who took upon himself our human nature andhas thus "assumed" us into himself. Only he has the power, by joining us to his body, to unite all people.Thus, the goal of the Church’s missionary activity is to call everyone into this "cosmic liturgy", in whichthe world becomes the glory of God: "a pleasing sacrifice, sanctified by the Holy Spirit".

I am pleased to greet all the English-speaking pilgrims and visitors present at today’s Audience, includingthe groups from Finland and the United States of America. Upon you and your families I willingly invokeGod’s blessings of joy and peace throughout the new year!

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