WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE

I doubt not then but innocence shall make false accusation blush, and tyranny tremble at patience.

Divine Worship: What the World Needs Now

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The Holy Eucharist, the Sacrament of Sacraments, is celebrated in many distinct and beautiful ways. 

Catholics are familiar with the Ordinary Form (Novus Ordo). Fewer are familiar with the 1962 Latin Mass (Missa Antiquior). Our eastern Catholic brethren offer the Divine Liturgy (Byzantine, Ukrainian Greek), the Raza (Chaldean), the Holy Qurbono (Maronite, Syro-Malankara), the Holy Qurbāna (Syro-Malabar), the Badarak (Armenian), and more. In the personal ordinariates created by the apostolic constitution Anglicanorum Coetibus, the Mass is known as Divine Worship.

The names we give to the sacred Liturgy say something about the nature of the Eucharist, our orientation to God, and the Church's mission.

Of course, we also know the Liturgy as the Eucharist (εὐχαριστία), meaning 'thanksgiving'.

'Mass', a nickname of sorts derived from the Latin word for dismissal in the Mass—'ite missa est' (Go, it is the dismissal. Go, you are sent.)—refers to the mission of the Church to save souls. We are sent, dismissed, to proclaim the Gospel. God through the Latin Rite of the Catholic Church has inspired many missionary orders to share the Good News of Jesus Christ with people of every nation. Preachers, teachers, scientists, builders, healthcare providers, martyrs, and more, are the ones who receive the call. From the plumber to the physicist, and yes, even those who may be injured, missing a limb, mute, deaf, or cognitively challenged, are called to serve the mission of the Church in charity and truth.

That those names for the Sacred Liturgy exist and convey something of the nature of the Liturgy and the Church requires the obligation to render fitting honour to the Liturgy by celebrating it with the utmost care so that its true nature is revealed. The signs, symbols, gestures, furnishings, vessels, and music used in the Liturgy - need it be said? - should be of the finest quality to function as an analog, an icon, through which the glory of the Gospel is revealed. God loves us! Prepare a feast!

Human beings need beauty, the beauty only God can give. Beauty is the air we breathe that forms in us the necessary purity of intention that allows us to cooperate with the Lord our God.

Human beings need the truth that only God can give. Truth is the light that illuminates the disciple, the learner, who conformed to the truth of God becomes a window through which God shines into the lives of others. He is the light of the world (St John 8:12). Jesus is the way, the truth and the life (St John 14:6).

When the Mass is celebrated in a less than dignified manner, truth and beauty are obscured, not entirely hidden, just veiled from those who are in most need of God's mercy and goodness.

The phrase 'worship the Lord in the beauty of holiness' is often heard in Ordinariate communities. The phrase from Psalm 96:6 informs our understanding of true worship—worship we enter into through the Son. To “worship God in the beauty of holiness” means to come before God in worship that reflects His own radiant holiness—with reverence, purity of heart, and a sense of awe at His majesty. It is both a description of God’s beauty and a call to our manner of worship.

  • Beauty of holiness. Scripture presents God’s holiness not merely as moral purity but as something beautiful, radiant, and awe‑inspiring. Psalm 96:9 calls worshippers to recognize that God’s holiness is itself a splendor.
  • Worship with reverence. The phrase is an invitation to approach God with a heart aligned to His purity: humility, repentance, sincerity, and devotion.
  • Sanctuary imagery. Psalm 96 links holiness with the beauty found in God’s sanctuary—His presence is the source of all true beauty.
  • Holiness as attractive. Commentators note that genuine holiness has an inherent attractiveness; if “holiness” lacks beauty, it is not true holiness.

Psalm 96 builds outward in widening circles—Israel, the nations, then all creation—calling everyone to worship the Lord because:

  • He is the only true God (contrasted with idols). 
  • His presence is majestic and beautiful (“strength and beauty are in His sanctuary”). 
  • His holiness is not cold or distant but glorious, life‑giving, and worthy of joyful reverence.

Thus, to “worship God in the beauty of holiness” is to enter worship recognizing that God’s holiness is not merely fearsome—it is lovely.

  • Purity of heart. Worship offered with integrity, repentance, and sincerity.
  • Awe and reverence. A posture that acknowledges God’s majesty.
  • Joyful adoration. Because God’s holiness is beautiful, worship is not grim but radiant.
  • Christ-centered holiness. As Matthew Henry notes, we worship God “as God in Christ, reconciling the world unto Himself.”

Holiness as the soul’s ascent into beauty

Patristic theology often frames the spiritual life as an ascent toward divine beauty. Ephrem the Syrian speaks of the soul being purified so it can perceive divine beauty. Saint Augustine famously describes God as “Beauty ever ancient, ever new,” linking holiness with the soul’s reorientation toward God. For the Fathers, worship is beautiful when it is pure, reverent, and offered by hearts transformed by grace.

Character of a space conditions relationships.

A beautiful space shapes in us a willingness to move out of insecurity or a privation of devotion and experience into the wider context of relationships between believers - the people of God, made in the image of God - and God. Beauty that reflects the love of God teases us out of narrow preoccupations into the risk of openness to God's grace.

Divine Worship the Liturgy, then, is the arena in which worshippers encounter the living God in the beauty of holiness. The world, i.e., human beings, need the opportunity to offer themselves to God in a communion of truth, goodness and beauty, to overcome the banal and soul-killing toxins of the unredeemed world of sinful pride, of indifference and materialism.

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