By Nicholas Soellner
Connecting Liturgy and Life
Editor’s note: For 2026, the weekly “Connecting Faith and Life” column has been renamed “Connecting Liturgy and Life.” The column consists of reflections on Part Two of the Catechism of the Catholic Church (CCC), which focuses on the Liturgy and the Sacraments.
cf. CCC 1145-1158
Recently, my wife and I were watching an episode of “The Chosen,” specifically, the one focusing on the story of the woman with a hemorrhage (cf. Luke 8:40-47, Mark 5:21-34) and the raising of Jairus’ daughter. It’s one of my favorites. Just as in the scriptures, a desperate woman with extraordinary faith, who had been bleeding for 12 years, weaves through the crowd to touch only the fringe of Jesus’ garment. When she succeeds, she is healed, and Jesus asks, “Who touched me?” The disciples are baffled, as Jesus has been pressed from all sides by the crowds, but Jesus continues to demand an answer, stating that he felt power go out from him. What was unique about this woman’s touch?
Likely dozens of eager people were fighting to get close to Jesus in that moment, most probably being far more physical than just touching the fringe of his garment. By comparison, “the woman … came in fear and trembling and fell down before him, and told him the whole truth.” (Mark 5:33). The difference was her faith and reverence. Jesus was so sacred to her that she did not dare to try to touch him, but only the most remote article of his clothing. What we do in the presence of Christ certainly matters. But how we do those actions matters as well.
Every week when we go to Mass, we are not passive spectators of the liturgy or mere recipients. “In Christian tradition, it (liturgy) means the participation of the People of God in the work of God” (CCC 1069). The lay faithful participate in the work of God through their bodily postures, the use of their voices in song and response, times of intentional silence, the uniting of their sufferings and joys to Jesus on the cross in the offertory, and certainly in receiving the Eucharist. When accompanied with faith, our liturgical actions become life-giving, as “the symbolic actions are already a language, but the Word of God and the response of faith have to accompany and give life to them, so that the seed of the Kingdom can bear its fruit in good soil. The liturgical actions signify what the Word of God expresses: both his free initiative and his people’s response of faith” (CCC 1153). If liturgy is rightly understood as participation in the work of God, then reverence is the proper disposition of how we participate.
As St. Thomas Aquinas described in his Summa Theologiae, religion is a virtue of justice, in which we give God what is rightfully due to him: worship. Reverence is related to the virtue of religion, as it is the internal, respectful disposition that motivates our external acts of worship. We recognize God is holy and present in the tabernacle, so we genuflect at church before sitting. If you’ve caught yourself accidentally genuflecting at a movie theater, the internal alarm bells go off when we recognize our mistake! Reverence is never about appearing “holier than thou,” but rather adopting the right attitude before God, who is greater than we can ever imagine, yet loves us beyond all comprehension.
So where do we start? Decide the next time you go to Mass: “I’m going to respond every time, say every word out loud, sing every word of every song.” No, it might not sound great. But I’ve heard it said by a few Catholic speakers, “God gave you your voice. If you don’t like the way it sounds, give it back to him!” We see in the“Constitution on the Sacred Liturgy,” “Mother Church earnestly desires that all the faithful should be led to that fully conscious, and active participation in liturgical celebrations which is demanded by the very nature of the liturgy.” As for the reverent disposition, I won’t sugarcoat it. This can be hard for many valid reasons.
But in the same way we make efforts to leave our baggage at the door to be attentive to someone we love, even on our worst days, God is all the more deserving of our attention and affections. Better yet, God wants our baggage. When Jesus says, “Come to me, all you who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest,” he means it. Some days, it feels like there just isn’t much left to give. We feel impoverished by our suffering. But remember how Jesus praised the widow at the temple, “she out of her poverty has put in everything she had, her whole living.” (Mark 12:44). Giving whatever you have left, holding nothing back, is exactly what Jesus desires.