Argument from Church Services I: Incarnation

Another Unorganized Argument

Catholic services are deeply incarnational. Each sense is engaged in a way that leads us up and into fellowship with God and His people. Images of Christ and the saints remind us of our origin and history of love with God. The smell of incense recalls our connection to Israel’s worship, and being covered in its sweetness we literally become “the aroma of Christ among who are being saved and among those who are perishing.” As it rises, John the Revelator’s words come to mind: “The smoke of the incense, together with the prayers of God’s people, went up before God from the angel’s hand.” We listen to beautiful music that carries not only our prayers but our souls to God, and in traditional services Gregorian chant affirms our historical continuity with ancient Israelite worship. And the Word, both read and preached, reaches those with ears to hear. With our bodies we kneel, stand, sit, make the sign of the Cross, beat our breasts, and, at the reading of the Gospel seal mind, mouth, and heart with three small crosses, recalling the Trinity. Greatest of all, we taste Our Lord in the Eucharist. 

I love Protestant church. We sing exuberantly, and you will hardly find a sermon preached where someone is not taking notes, reading along in their own Bible, or annotating their Bible following the preacher’s analysis. I have never seen any of these happen in a Catholic service. But this coin has two sides. We are so attentive to the intellectual dimensions of church because, frankly, there is not much else. Our services are oriented almost exclusively around hearing, since they typically consist of music and preaching. When we do take communion, we have such a low view of it that it is not seen as very significant—it may happen as seldom as four times in a year. It is no wonder we have struggled to convince people to come back to church after the Pandemic. What can local congregations offer that someone somewhere in the world streaming their own services cannot do better, without the inconvenience of getting a family up and moving? More to the point, what are we doing with our bodies during a Protestant service? Singing is the only thing that comes to mind. Most of the service could function just as well if we had no bodies at all. The way we “encounter” God in Protestant services is real and genuine, but could just as well be enjoyed by angels. We have been given the gift of embodiment, and in Catholic services, God honors His own creation by coming to us bodily.

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