“Come let us worship”?

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AmericanRose

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For the Good Friday service, for the procession of the cross/ before the people came up to kiss the cross, father Jim sang the “behold the wood of the cross, on which hung the savior of the world” bit, and then the choir and people responded, “Come let us worship?” Can someone explain this to me? The cross isn’t God??? I’m so confused and it made me uncomfortable
 
In our parish, the response is “Come, let us adore.” Is it possible you misheard?
 
My parish does the same thing even though the missal says, “Come, let us adore.” Not sure why.
 
AmericanRose said:
“Come let us worship?” Can someone explain this to me? The cross isn’t God???
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I understand the problem. We are worshipping and adoring the savior of the world, who hung upon the cross. We venerate the wood of the cross because it is there that He gave His life for the sins of the world.
 
“Come let us worship,” were the words before 2011. That’s what we sang too. Our choir has not learned a lot of the new Roman Missal responses.

With the intercessions we also sang “We pray to the Lord: For the sake of your Son, have mercy Lord,” after each intention. I’m not sure that that’s in the Roman Missal, although it was in the Sacramentary. It’s not included in my St. Joseph Missal.
 
It’s the typical Catholic shorthand of tradition (says the old lady).

When we look at the Cross, we associate Christ on it, even when the Cross is being carried ‘empty’. In fact, some Protestants accuse us of "Keeping Christ on the cross’ instead of showing an empty cross because, "He isn’t there anymore’.

But when we look at the sacred (holy) wood of the Cross (which is sacred/holy because it carried His Blessed Body upon it), we are worshiping the Christ who offered Himself on that cross.

NOT worshiping the cross itself as a god. The cross is worthy of respect (worth-ship, the quality of being worthy), but latria, the quality of worth-ship, worthiness, and worship due to God alone, is so much more.

Thing is, our world gives so little respect and acknowledgment of worth to those things which have worth–including the unborn, the elderly, the ill, etc., that giving respect to a sacred OBJECT is so ‘strange’ an idea to many that they just can’t wrap their heads around it. What, respect a CROSS? Respect a ‘fetus’? Respect some 'old person" that’s just 'useless"? respect a ‘baby’ that ‘does nothing?’ respect a WOMAN? Respect some 'dumb man?" Etc. etc. No wonder we keep narrowing down and narrowing down and having less and less to offer God, ultimately.

We need to ‘open up’ and broaden and rediscover the ‘sacred’ so that we can open up, broaden, and give more glory to God by giving glory to what He has sanctified and made holy.
 
Thank you, now I can relax and not worry about, “oh my goodness have I broken three different commandments” 😂
 
No. I thought maybe father had just decided that “worship” sounded better or something and changed it. I’ve heard of priests around where I am reforming the liturgy to fit them, like our last priest did. Granted he had dementia but still.
 
Our parish side-stepped the translation issue entirely and just went with the Latin. Our Triduum is already bilingual (actually trilingual for the Vigil where they add Vietnamese), so why not add some Latin in there too 😉
 
I would absolutely love that if my parish did. We sang one verse of the Pange Lingua last night in Latin, and it was beautiful.
 
And it’s a fair assumption for some priests (NOT that I am criticizing priests). Gosh, we have several who are still saying “cup” instead of chalice during the consecration (as well as “for all” instead of ‘for many") because they are just trying to ‘make it clearer’ to the people what the REAL meaning is. "Rubrics? I don’t need no stinkin’ rubrics!"
 
I myself would also be alert to being idolatry, making sure that I worship God only, not the cross. I could be slightly sensitive to the word “worship”. “adore” sounds better to me. Not sure if it is your concern.

However, as a ceremony, I wouldn’t mind too much.
 
When my mom was young (in the 30s when dinosaurs ruled the earth) they sang the Pange Lingua for Holy Thursday and the Vexilla Regis on Good Friday.
 
Vexilla Regis was written by Venantius Fortunatus (530-609) and is considered one of the greatest hymns of the liturgy. Fortunatus wrote it in honor of the arrival of a large relic of the True Cross which had been sent to Queen Radegunda by the Emperor Justin II and his Empress Sophia. Queen Radegunda had retired to a convent she had built near Poitiers and was seeking out relics for the church there. To help celebrate the arrival of the relic, the Queen asked Fortunatus to write a hymn for the procession of the relic to the church.

The hymn has, thus, a strong connection with the Cross and is fittingly sung at Vespers from Passion Sunday to Holy Thursday and on the Feast of the Triumph of the Cross. The hymn was also formerly sung on Good Friday when the Blessed Sacrament is taken from the repository to the altar.
 
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