The Reverence We Need

When designing a church, or a place of worship, a great deal of thought is done. There are some small but crucial details that are done in order to keep the sacred nature of the church.

One thing you will notice is there are no clocks. It is because the mass, the worship of God, is a time where we focus not on the passing time of this Earth, but we are called into eternity, God’s time.

Another thing you’ll notice is that Church’s are not designed like homes. There are furnishings for sitting and standing but even moreso a place for you to kneel in prayer.

All in all, a church is a place designed for the community of the people of God can gather and worship God together in the heavenly liturgy. Every design is to be conducive to that end goal.

Many of us maybe have memories in churches or adoration chapels in our lives where we have had these experiences of encounters of God in these places. A common theme throughout all these places is an emphasis on reverence or respect. This could be how much noise we make, what we are to wear, what our behavior is, what gestures we are to make out of respect for what is there. When this reverence is not there, everyone in the church begins to react sometimes with love and understanding, and sometimes strict harshness.

Most of the time, the reason for the lack of reverence that the sacred nature of this place is mostly because we don’t know.

We see today in the Gospel, Jesus acts in zeal and anger at what was happening in the Temple of God. Why did Jesus do this?

The temple was supposed to be a place of worship of God. It was a place where God dwelt. People would act, dress and carry themselves the way they did because they knew in whose house they were in.

This place was not only meant for the Jews but there was a place specific for the Gentiles to worship. They had organized in this place all the buying and selling of animals that they would sacrifice.

In doing this, they totally ignored the sacred nature of the place and used the location it for their personal gain which not only turned people away from worship but made it impossible for them to do so.

This is why Jesus acted the way that he did because he understood the holiness that was here resting on the altar. Because if anyone knew the sacred nature of the Temple, the House of God, He did.

When you come into the church, the worship space, remember a few things:

you are encountering Jesus, who is present in the flesh, who died for you so you can live for him.

you are encountering Jesus, who is a King, where we should come as we are, but also prepare ourselves in a fitting way to meet him. in our silence, our prayer, the way we dress and the way we act.

in the mass, it isn’t only Jesus present, but all the saints and angels surround the altar as the Holy Spirit comes down. it is so serious because it’s so pure, holy, and divine.

This church etiquette is not told to you as if God needed this from you. God is perfect and doesn’t make him any better by us offering it to him. Instead, it’s there for us so we can always remember that God is Present to Us, God is Holy, and we never want to forget that.

Today, we are called to dig deeper and ask the Lord, what is there in the Temple of my Body that needs to removed to help me worship God in my life in the Church and out. Amen.