Jesus, help me faithfully practice true worship of God. I want to understand how small I truly am and how magnificent you are through true worship. Lord you alone are perfect, full of wisdom, all-knowing, all-powerful, and merciful. Through your deep love for us and with deep humility, you came down from heaven to accompany us and to show us the Father. You are with us always, coming down from heaven to feed us and heal us in our bodies, minds, and souls. Please let me offer you true worship in the Mass. Let me humbly submit to the Father’s will for my life and not fall into the temptation of desiring carnal things. I want to feel your presence in the sweet silence of my days and be moved to act in accordance with your quiet nudging. I want to know that you are God and humbly submit to whatever you ask of me.
Eternal Father, Help me offer my works, my daily prayers, and the love I have for my family as a spiritual sacrifice acceptable to you. Please help me be righteous. I want to please you through my spiritual sacrifices every day. I wish to offer true worship by being a living tabernacle of love that carries your Son, my Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, into the world to love and serve those in need.
Holy Spirit, you know the weakness of my mind. I hesitate, delay, and sometimes ignore your quiet nudges. I know I am called to fulfill my duties to God and the people I am entrusted to love. I ask forgiveness and fully repent for all the times I knew I was called to act and failed to do so. Please forgive me of my lack of courage, my selfishness, my spiritual disorientation, and my lack of love of God over the carnal things of this world. Holy Spirit, you are truth, and you guide me toward all righteousness. Let me be brought low so that I will be willing to go where the Lord wishes to send me, loving and trusting his providence and seeking his wisdom over my own selfish desires.
Lord, grace me with the virtue of true worship of God so that my heart is conformed to desire your will. I want to serve you today and the remaining days of my life. Let me assent to your will and be truly happy in life, trusting in your goodness and unconditional love, and knowing that you will never abandon or forsake me even in when I experience the dark night of the soul.
AMEN.
The laity, dedicated as they are to Christ and anointed by the Holy Spirit, are marvelously called and prepared so that even richer fruits of the Spirit may be produced in them.
For all their works, prayers, and apostolic undertakings, family and married life, daily work, relaxation of mind and body, if they are accomplished in the Spirit—indeed even the hardships of life if patiently born—all these become spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through Jesus Christ. In the celebration of the Eucharist these may most fittingly be offered to the Father along with the body of the Lord.
And so, worshipping everywhere by their holy actions, the laity consecrate the world itself to God, everywhere offering worship by the holiness of their lives.
End Corruption with True Worship of God
On the whirlwinds engendered by the Devil's persuasion
by St. Hildegard von Bingen
Alas for me, a pilgrim! How can I survive among these dangers? And what happens when the Devil’s persuasion invades me, saying, “Is a thing good which you do not know and cannot see and cannot do?” and again, “Why forsake what you do know and do understand and can do?”
What shall I do then?
Full of sorrow, I will answer:
“Ach miserable me! for harmful poisons were instilled into me through Adam, when he disobeyed God and was cast out into the world and joined his tabernacle to carnal things. For in the taste of the fruit he knew by disobedience, a harmful sweetness poured itself into his blood and flesh, producing the corruption of vice. And therefore I feel the sin of the flesh in me, and intoxicated by this sin, I neglect the Most Pure God.
But I must not follow the taste my tabernacle has in it. For since Adam was pure and honest when God created him and he first appeared, I fear God, knowing that I too was created pure and honest. But now, through the evil habits of vice, I dwell in disquietude. Oh, in all these ways I am a pilgrim!”
Therefore the whirlwinds tell me lies in many voices, which rise up within me, saying:
‘Who are you? and what are you doing? and what are these battles you are fighting? You are indeed unhappy, for you do not know whether your work is good or bad. Where will you go, and who will save you, and what are these errors that are driving you to madness? Are you doing what delights you? Are you escaping what distresses you? Oh, what will you do when you know this and are ignorant of that? For what delights you is not lawful for you, and what distresses you God’s precept compels you to do. And how do you know whether these things are so? It would be better for you if you did not exist!‘
And after these whirlwinds have risen up thus within me, I begin to tread another path that is hard for my flesh to bear, for I begin to practice righteousness.
But then I doubt as to whether or not the Holy Spirit has given this to me, and I say, “This is useless.” And I wish to fly above the clouds. How? I wish to fly above my faculties and start things I cannot finish. But when I try to do these things, I only stir up great sadness in myself, so that I do no works, either on the heights of sanctity or on the plains of good will; but I bear within me the disquietude of doubt, desperation, sadness and oppression in all things.
And when the Devil’s persuasion disturbs me then, oh, how great a calamity overtakes me! For I am overcome in my unhappiness by all the evils that are or can be in blame, malediction, mortification of body and soul and shameful words against the purity, healing and loftiness that are in God.
And then wickedness suggests to me that all the felicity and all the good which is in Man as well as God will be to me harmful and oppressive, offering me death rather than life.
Ach! How unhappy is this struggle, which forces me from labor to labor, from sorrow to sorrow, from discord to discord, depriving me of all happiness.
Scivias, Book 1 Vision Four Paragraph 5
Week 33 of the Virtue Meditations Series
End Corruption with True Worship of God
Reflection:
St. Hildegard perfectly captures the battle of the mind in this passage. Can you recognize the devil’s temptations in your own mind? Do they sound like this passage?
Lying Spirits Tempt us with Corrupt Thoughts
For many of us, the temptations we receive from lying spirits are imperceptible compared to our own thoughts. Sometimes we are deceived due to pure ignorance.
The devil knows our weaknesses of the mind and all the virtues we lack. You might have ignorance about how to worship God, and so the lying spirit offers you sweet temptations that comfort your ego, and so you gladly accept them and are kept from intimacy with God.
Maybe you are someone who has a lot of knowledge and understanding about the faith, and so the lying spirit gives you wicked suggestions in your mind to actively promote discord in the Church, and you cause division through scurrility.
But the worst kind of deceit by the lying spirit will hit you when you are down. This spirit convinces you that God cannot possibly love you, that your sins cannot be forgiven, and God has abandoned you. This is the spirit of despair.
How Corruption Leads to Bad Worship
We recently learned about true piety, which comes from a pure heart that has not been corrupted and hardened by the sins of the mind. Without a pure heart, we cannot have true worship.
The corruption of our minds leads to bad worship because it isn’t based in the truth. We find ourselves doing it for the wrong reasons. Most of the time our reasons are selfish and our relationship with God is transactional toward him rather than authentic love for him. People who expect things from God will grow resentment when they do not get these things.
In our minds and hearts we instinctively know this. We know when we are not worshipping God the right way. Our conscience tells us. We have guilt, although our ego makes us push it down and we often just ignore the inward feeling and carry on, sometimes with outward signs of hypocrisy that others may or may not see. St. Hildegard shows us in the passage above how the corruption of our minds causes us to wander from God’s loving embrace and ends up making us spiral further into darkness. This darkness hinders our ability to offer true worship of God. We see in St. Hildegard’s passage above that the sins of the mind are rooted in pride and lead to disobedience and doubt and ultimately a rejection of the truth that we once fully accepted.
How to Overcome the Sins of the Mind
How can I truly surrender to God when I secretly desire to have my vices? How can my worship become a sweet aroma if my mind constantly justifies my worldly desires and keeps me chained to my sin? I know when I have evil thoughts, yet I justify them and give excuses for them to supply my ego with a false sense of my own righteousness.
This is all corruption. Any evil inclination toward another person, whether that person is above me or beneath me is also a form of corruption. The Catechism teaches us that we cannot adore God without loving all men [CCC 2069]. My apathy to live a holy lifestyle is corruption.
So how do I end corruption in my mind?
We do this through true worship of God. We do this by receiving Jesus in the Eucharist with a pure heart.
In the Old Testament, in the books of Ezekiel and 2 Chronicles, we see the return of the Glory of God to the temple. In both stories, the Bible clearly lays out the need for the people to turn from their sins so that the Glory of God can return. When we allow the devil’s persuasion to corrupt us in an unholy way, we also bring sin into the temple and are no longer able to experience the glory of God in our lives.
This is still true today.
Our Bodies are Tabernacles where Jesus Christ Dwells
As Christians, we know that Jesus came to justify us. St. Hildegard chooses the tabernacle as a symbol for our hearts. Have you wondered why? Think about what St. Hildegard said. Jesus came to restore us after Adam and Eve joined our tabernacles to carnal things. This is a Biblical reference. We see it in Revelation 21:3 and 1 Corinthians 3:16. Our “tabernacles” are our hearts and our hearts are supposed to contain the heart of Jesus, just like the Tabernacle at the altar in the Church. But we still struggle like Adam and Eve. We still attach our hearts to carnal things and our love is divided and corrupted.
St. Paul the Apostle also tells us that our bodies are temples:
“Do you not know that your body is a temple of the holy Spirit within you, whom you have from God, and that you are not your own? For you have been purchased at a price. Therefore, glorify God in your body” [1 Corinthians 6:19].
It is our duty when we come to offer true worship to God that we offer ourselves as worthy dwelling places for the Lord [1 Corinthians 11:27-29]. This means we come with a clean heart full of love for God and we receive Christ with reverence and the desire to be a holy place for him to dwell.
When we reject all forms of spiritual pride and offer to God a sweet sacrifice, which is our good works and our virtues, we overcome the corruption of our minds. Then we begin to experience the Holy Spirit actively in our lives. He burns in our hearts and he fills us with joy.
Paul also teaches us to recognize how small-minded we are so that we can appreciate and assent to our Almighty God with true deference and a desire to serve with a pure heart.
“So I declare and testify in the Lord that you must no longer live as the Gentiles do, in the futility of their minds; darkened in understanding, alienated from the life of God because of their ignorance, because of their hardness of heart, they have become callous and have handed themselves over to licentiousness for the practice of every kind of impurity to excess” [Ephesians 4:17-19].
We need to be willing to suffer for the sake of love, to give our lives away as a gift. This is divine love. We are called to empty ourselves and be filled by Christ. This is what happens when we receive Christ in the Eucharist worthily and then go out into the world to bring him to others. This is what the lives of the saints were all about, and we are all called to be saints.
Going Further:
If you want to do ‘extra’ you may spend some time meditating on Ephesians Chapter 4, verses 10-23. You may want to prayerfully write your response about what touched your heart. Then listen in silence for the Lord’s response.
Let us Pray:
Now that we understand the virtue of true worship of God, let’s begin with a prayer of petition for it.
Virtue of True Worship of God
Prayer of Petition
Eternal Father, I am the work of your creation, made in your image and likeness but too weak to conquer the devil by my own power. I ask you for the grace to grow in virtue, surrendering all my thoughts, words, and deeds to you. Please help me resist the devil and all his tricks. Jesus says that whoever believes in him will do the works that he does and that whatever we ask in Jesus’ name he will do so that You may be glorified. Heavenly Father, you sent us your Son to show us what it means to have perfect virtue in life. Jesus is fully human and fully divine and has perfect virtue. Father, have mercy on me and please give me the grace I need to grow in the virtue of true worship of God so that I might grow in holiness and imitate Christ in my thoughts, words, and deeds. AMEN.
Now let’s contemplate the Lord by listening to him speak to us in the Gospels. Slowly meditate on the following passage, reflecting on his virtue of true worship of God. Take your time. Pause over a word or phrase that speaks to your heart. Reread the passage again, and then ask Jesus to show you how you can have the virtue of true worship of God and fight the vice of corruption. Choose a word or phrase from this passage to write in your journal, and add your thoughts. Go back and prayerfully re-read it throughout the week.
Virtue of True Worship of God
Jesus is the Bread of Life
from the Gospel of John Chapter 6
[Jesus said] “It is written in the prophets: ‘They shall all be taught by God.’
Everyone who listens to my Father and learns from him comes to me. Not that anyone has seen the Father except the one who is from God; he has seen the Father. Amen, amen, I say to you, whoever believes has eternal life. I am the bread of life. Your ancestors ate the manna in the desert, but they died; this is the bread that comes down from heaven so that one may eat it and not die. I am the living bread that came down from heaven; whoever eats this bread will live forever; and the bread that I will give is my flesh for the life of the world.”
The Jews quarreled among themselves, saying, “How can this man give us [his] flesh to eat?”
Jesus said to them, “Amen, amen, I say to you, unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood, you do not have life within you. Whoever eats my flesh and drinks my blood has eternal life, and I will raise him on the last day. For my flesh is true food, and my blood is true drink. Whoever eats my flesh and drinks my blood remains in me and I in him. Just as the living Father sent me and I have life because of the Father, so also the one who feeds on me will have life because of me. This is the bread that came down from heaven. Unlike your ancestors who ate and still died, whoever eats this bread will live forever.”
Let us Pray:
Jesus, Let me love you with a pure heart so that I can overcome the corruption in my mind and be full of virtue. Let me replace pride with humility, doubt with faith, despair with hope, and let me offer true worship to God at every Mass.
I ask all this in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit, AMEN.
Virtue of True Worship of God
A Prayer for an Increase in Virtue for Others
Lord Jesus Christ, you say that when two or more are gathered in your name, you are with us. Jesus, in your name I lift up every person who has joined this prayer challenge or will join it in the future. I ask you to give us all the grace we need to grow in virtue and holiness so that we may love and serve you in our lives and through the people we love and care for. Help us in our thoughts, our words, and our actions. Guide us all by your Holy Spirit and give us the strength to overcome every temptation from the evil one. We ask all this in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit, AMEN.
Together as a group we will pray for each other and strive to make good resolutions and keep them. Remember, it’s your heart that God wants to capture. Your efforts are out of love for him and a desire to imitate him as best you can in holiness.
If you fail, do not quit trying. Just take it one day at a time, and stay in the present moment with Jesus, especially in the moment you are tempted. Being virtuous is a process. No one is perfect, so just start anew every time you fail.
How do I Practice Virtue?
You’ve learned about the 33rd Virtue, and you’ve prayed for God to give you grace. Now what? Let’s take a look at the Catechism for some guidance on how we can make Week 33 a successful effort.
The Eucharist is “the source and summit of the Christian life.”
The other sacraments, and indeed all ecclesiastical ministries and works of the apostolate, are bound up with the Eucharist and are oriented toward it. For in the blessed Eucharist is contained the whole spiritual good of the Church, namely Christ himself, our Pasch.
The Eucharist is the efficacious sign and sublime cause of that communion in the divine life and that unity of the People of God by which the Church is kept in being. It is the culmination both of God’s action sanctifying the world in Christ and of the worship men offer to Christ and through him to the Father in the Holy Spirit.
Making Resolutions
Take a moment to reflect on the virtue of true worship of God. What are the ways you can freely practice this virtue this week? Ask the Lord to give you opportunities, and when you feel the Holy Spirit prompting you, take action. Write down your resolutions for this coming week in your prayer journal. Remind yourself to complete these resolutions daily for this entire week, and as the Spirit prompts you, feel free to write about your experiences with this virtue throughout the week.
In My Thoughts:
Jesus, this week I promise to take time daily to conform my thoughts by… (make your intention).
In My Words:
Jesus, this week I promise to take time daily to conform my words by… (make your intention).
In My Actions:
Jesus, this week I promise to take time daily to conform my actions by… (make your intention).
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Week 34 Mental Prayer Meditation
Replace My World Weariness with Heavenly Joy
“Replace My World Weariness with Heavenly Joy” – join us for our 35th meditation on the 35 virtues of St. Hildegard of Bingen.