What Is Worship? It Isn't Prayer.

What is Worship, from the perspective of God in the Bible? Do Catholics Worship Mary? Here I Explain, from Biblical References, What Worship is, What it Isn't, and Why it Should Matter to Us.

What is "worship"? Does prayer qualify as worship? People usually don't understand the nature of worship, believing that prayer—or just about anything that seems religious—is the worship of God. Protestants, for example, often say that Catholics "worship Mary." That, of course, is a misunderstanding of Catholic devotion to Mary. The allegation by non-Catholic Christians that Catholics worship Mary is not only incorrect, but is inherently flawed. The root of the error is their misunderstanding of what worship is—a belief that prayer is the same as worship. But it’s also a root to errors of belief and practice by many Catholics as well.

For most non-Catholic Christians, worship takes the form of prayer. As far as they’re concerned to pray "to Mary" is to worship her because, for them, prayer is worship. A manifestation of this error is seen in many Catholics who replace mass-attendance with private prayer. But prayer is not what worship truly is!

Prayer can only be called worship colloquially, not literally. It’s a type of “worship” (lowercase-w “worship”) but it isn’t the superior, absolute, supreme form of Worship that is oriented to God that we see laid out in the Bible. All prayer has life because of that supreme Worship. Let’s look at what Worship is, its biblical formula and history, how it differs from prayer, and why prayer is not a replacement for Worship?

Prayer is Not Worship

We commonly think of our prayer as worship of God. But while it is connected to a worship-act (more on that later), it technically is not uppercase-w “Worship”. Prayer is an act of adoration, praise, glorification of God, intercession. It isn’t, by itself, an act of Worship.

Before we go deeper it’s necessary to point out that in some books of many modern translations of the Bible we do see the word 'worship' being used to describe an act of prayer. For example in Exodus 34:8 when Moses meets with God up on Mount Sinai we see that "Moses bowed to the ground at once and worshiped. 'Lord,' he said, 'if I have found favor in your eyes, then let the Lord go with us…'" Clearly Moses is praying here, but the Bible appears to call it worship. We also see this seeming disparity in Matthew 2:1 when the Magi arrive at the manger after the birth of Jesus. In most modern translations, the Magi ask, "Where is the one who has been born king of the Jews? We saw his star when it rose and have come to worship him."

So are these translations wrong? Yes, and no. The original Latin Vulgate does not use the word “worship” in these contexts, but instead uses the word “adorans”, which means to adore. Even the translation used by the USCCB uses the word “homage”, not “worship”. Because the act of prayer is characteristically different from the act of Worship. Also consider that, in the Nativity narrative the Magi do not recognize Jesus as God, but merely as a King. So it would would be a mistake to believe they intended to literally worship him (as a god is worshiped), when clearly they merely intended to pay him homage, or to adore him as a King.

Though the word worship is occasionally used to describe an act of prayer in some editions and translations of the bible, it's clear that this is a misuse of the word, or at least is lacking precision. Prayer is not actually Worship. We know this because whenever we see worship being offered to God, or God requiring worship, it never takes the form of prayer. But then, what is Worship and what form does it take? For those answers, we have to understand worship from the perspective of God, as shown in sacred scripture.

The remainder of this article is taken from an earlier article I wrote on the restrictions on Mass attendance during COVID, religious freedom, and the nature of worship. It’s expanded a bit to make it more relevant and effective to this article.

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God is very clear in Exodus about the nature of worship. 

In Exodus 3:18 God says, 

“…And you and the elders of Israel are to go to the king of Egypt and say to him, “Yahweh, the God of the Hebrews, has encountered us. So now, please allow us to make a three-days’ journey into the desert and sacrifice to Yahweh our God.”

And again later,

“Go back to Pharaoh and announce to him, ‘This is what the Lord says: Let my people go so that they can worship me“ (Exodus 8:1)

According to God, the nature of worship is sacrifice.  It requires an altar on which to offer a sacrifice, and the sacrifice must be offered by a priest. Before the Golden Calf incident at mount Sinai (Exodus 24), all adult male heads of household could offer the sacrificial worship act. There was technically no ministry of priests yet. But after the Israelites sinned by worshiping the Golden Calf in Exodus, only men from the tribe of Levi could become priests and offer the sacrifice for the people. Ever since then it has only been priests who could validly offer worship for the people—offering a sacrifice to God from an altar.

God was very clear in Exodus. He orders Pharaoh to free the Hebrew people so that they can leave Egypt for three days in order to worship him.  If “worship” was merely prayer or supplication, it wouldn’t have been necessary for the Jews to leave Egypt in order to do it. They could have done that from within Egypt. And surely they were doing that anyway. But when God called them to do something more than prayer, he called them to worship through sacrifices  He required that they be released from Egypt so that they could build an altar and offer sacrifices on it. 

“Then the Lord said to Moses, “Tell the Israelites this: ‘You have seen for yourselves that I have spoken to you from heaven: Do not make any gods to be alongside me; do not make for yourselves gods of silver or gods of gold. Make an altar of earth for me and sacrifice on it your burnt offerings and fellowship offerings, your sheep and goats and your cattle.” 
-Exodus 20:22-24

What we see in Exodus is not a new or novel form of worship when it pops up there. We see it before Exodus—chronologically speaking, long before the Exodus. We first see it as early in the sacrifices of Cane and Abel (Genesis 4), who most likely learned it from Adam’s example.

“In the course of time Cain brought an offering (a sacrifice) to the LORD from the fruit of the ground, while Abel, for his part, brought the fatty portion of the firstlings of his flock. The LORD looked with favor on Abel and his offering, but on Cain and his offering he did not look with favor. So Cain was very angry and dejected.”
-Genesis 4:1-5

We also observe the sacrifice formula and practice from Noah, Abraham and Jacob.

Then Noah built an altar to the LORD, and choosing from every clean animal and every clean bird, he offered burnt offerings on the altar.
-Genesis 8:20

The LORD appeared to Abram and said: To your descendants I will give this land. So Abram built an altar there to the LORD who had appeared to him.
-Genesis 12:7

God said to Jacob: Go up now to Bethel. Settle there and build an altar there to the God who appeared to you when you were fleeing from your brother Esau
-Genesis 35:1

While here we see no reference to a sacrifice, or the word “worship”, but only the mention of an altar, that does not mean this altar was intended to be merely a monument to God. It was most certainly used for worship. So why this this peculiar absence of the total formula—a priest, altar, sacrifice—in those passages?

We don’t see the words “sacrifice” or “worship” in some cases, such as those, only because the full meaning is already understood by the expected reader (Jews). A Jewish reader would know that to “build an altar” was for the worship of God by offering a sacrifice on it. It didn’t have to be spelled out for Jews. “…and build an altar there to God” was enough. Where you see “altar”, the words “worship” and “sacrifice” are necessarily implied. An altar serves no other purpose anywhere in the Bible than for the worship-act of offering a sacrifice to God.

Whenever we read that someone “worshiped” God, the form that worship act takes and the nature of that worship is that they build an altar and offer a sacrifice on it. By the time of Exodus, this was well established. It was how God was worshiped because it was how He demanded worship. Note that while Cane and Abel both offered sacrifices to God, God only accepted Abel’s sacrifice, demonstrating that God has a standard for how he is to be worshipped (i.e. ‘THIS is right worship, and THAT is not’).

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A Catholic Conclusion

So how do Catholics worship according to God’s standard? Our worship-act is the sacrifice (Jesus, the Lamb of God) being offered by the priest (the celebrant) on a consecrated altar and the worship is oriented to God (…not to Mary). Does this formula sound familiar? Worship is what happens at Mass!

The Catholic Mass is not a gathering, a meeting, or even a meal. It is literally the form of worship that we see in the Bible, defined and called-for by God, fulfilled in Jesus on the Cross, re-presented at every Mass during the consecration of the Holy Eucharist (article continues below)

For Catholics prayer by itself is not Worship, but it is connected to Worship, and has effect because of that act—prayer has effect because of the the holy sacrifice of the Mass. All graces given to man flow through the Mass. Even the prayer of Protestants, if said in good will and in the name of Jesus, has at least some effect because of the Catholic Mass.

But prayer is not the worship that God demands. Prayer is not a replacement for worship, just as fruit was not a replacement for livestock (Cane and Abel). If you’re unable to go to Mass for good reasons (disability, illness, etc.) prayer can certainly connect you to the worship being offered at Mass. And if you’re not able to go to mass, then you’re not committing a sin anyway. So be at peace, offer your prayers, and know that God accepts them with love. But for those who are perfectly able to attend mass, but instead choose to pray at home rather than to render to God the worship he demands by going to Mass, I think you should check the Confession times at your local parish.

Ave Maria, Virgo Fidelis!