Glorify Me

Glorify Me

Rev. Thomas Kuffel

The traditional dismissal for Mass: Ite Missa Est,  (The mass is ended, go in peace”) is quaint phrase which offers peace and blessing as we go forth from the conclusion of our worship. Yet the impact of these words ought to cause pause. The old translation differs from the  authentic translation. “Go, It is sent.” What is sent? Not the people perse, but the message the people received during Mass. Christ now dwells within your being.

This Message, the Evangelium, proclaims Christ pardons our sins, saves us from eternal death, then gives us eternal life through reading the Word of God, proclaiming the Creed, and receiving the Holy Eucharist, giving us his body, blood, soul, and divinity. Sent to proclaim this message no longer do we live lives of desperation, overwhelmed by sin and death. Rather, we live believing Christ destroyed sin. Death lost its sting. They lost because Christ conquered and broke their bonds swallowing them up though his resurrection. Leaving Mass, we proclaim this message to the world. Christ is alive in me!

Another popular dismissal choice: “Go in peace, glorifying the Lord by your life,” respects the traditional dismissal, but enhances it. Sent in peace, glorifying the Lord entails rightly ordering our lives to God, worshiping Him and Him alone. Peace comes when we know we are doing God’s will, making Him the rule and measure of our life. All our actions and thoughts are done for the sake of God, not ourselves, nor our loved ones. Whatever happens does not disturb because peace comes from God, not another nor a circumstance. He is the order of life, the common denominator. He alone determines our choices, maturing our traits, characteristics, and values. As denominator, He divides us from behaviors that disgrace, leading to divorce, separating us from his will. Glorifying the Lord also protects us from the Enemy, the devil, who also divides. He divides us from the Evangelium: Christ dwelling within. He promotes self-glorification writing our own gospel, not adhering to the Gospel Christ preaches.

The common popular phrase states, “I need to do this for me.” In reality, self-glorification expecting others to honor my personal decisions perverts the Gospel. Yet, many people adhere to this false gospel called relativism. It repudiates concupiscence those selfish addictive desires that feed egoism. Relativism also diminishes sin to a mere faux pax, a superficial mismatch. Yet, as St. John Paul II explains.

“Evil exerts a frightening power of attraction which causes many types of behaviour to be judged "normal" and "inevitable". Evil then grows, having devastating effects on consciences, which become confused and even incapable of discernment” (Audience 8.25.1999).

Evil cancels God. Yet cancelation is subtle, not brazen. Not outrightly do we reject God, rather we replace Him, putting ourselves first. This egoism cancels anyone who contradicts our desires. Children cancel their parents when parents intervene, especially as their children get older and deny God’s ways, one of the greatest sins of our era. Christians undermine Scripture and Tradition reinterpreting them to bolster their confused consciences. Governments and politicians declare rights for their citizens which are human centered—not divine. To combat the cancel culture, St. John Paul II explains:

The New Evangelization “must work to ensure that people recover the awareness that in Christ evil can be conquered with good. People must be taught a sense of personal responsibility, closely connected with moral obligations and the consciousness of sin” (Audience 8.25.1999).

The word glorify comes from the Hebrew word, Kavod which means to embellish, adorn, and explain. It is the holy weight of God’s presence that fills everything it touches, the connotation is to beatify. Such praises order our lives so that we do not worship ourselves, but worship God and Him alone as the first commandment teaches us. In worshipping God, He glorifies us with his presence filling us with his Holy Spirit, the Sanctifier, “Who is the guarantee of our inheritance until we acquire possession of it, to the praise of his glory” (Eph 1:14).

The Fourth Commandment also uses the word Kavod. Properly translated, it states: “Glorify your father and mother.” The translation which tells us to obey rather than glorify changes the texture of this commandment. Obedience connotes restriction; glorify elevates. It is expansive. It displays love opening up vistas in the relationship to explore its height, depth, and breath of God’s glory. It sees beyond the discipline gazing into the beauty of love rightly ordering our lives: giving of ourselves as a sincere gift to another first to our parents then to God.

Glorifying the Lord by the way we live is a commandment, not a quaint dismissal. St. Paul tells us, “For this slight momentary affliction is preparing for us an eternal weight of glory beyond all comparison” (2 Co 4:17). And “Whether you eat or drink or whatever you do, do it all for the glory of God” (I Cor 10:31). In Romans he writes, “So that with one mind and one voice you may glorify the God and Father” (Rom 15:6). Finally, Jesus tells us, “Let your light shine before others, that they may see your good works, and give glory to your Father in Heaven” (Matt 5:16).

Jesus also tells us, “He who loves father or mother more than me is not worthy of me” (Matt 10:37). Subtly, Jesus proclaims Himself God. Only one commandment was greater than loving your parents. That is to love God, with all your heart, soul, and strength. Loving God and our parents above all reject the evil of self-worship, the source of all evil. Lucifer, personified evil, stated Non serviam (I will not serve), putting himself above God (GS # 2). Putting ourselves first, encouraged by the Enemy, our selfish desires create malice, whereas when our lives worship God first and our parents in light of God’s command, creates beauty.

Beauty cancels evil. Its clarity sees the disorder contained within evil. Its harmony recognizes the dissonance caused by the discord evil brings. Finally, it has the integrity in which God glorifies me.

 [FK1]