Did Christ Worship the Trinity?

233 The Thomist 76 (2012): 233-72 DID CHRIST WORSHIP THE TRINITY? R. JARED STAUDT Augustine Institute Denver, Colorado T HE CATHOLIC TRADITION holds that the worship central to its liturgical life is grounded in the grace of Christ and conforms believers to this same grace. Such is the case, arguably, with regard to the latria, or worship of God, which Thomas Aquinas expounds within the context of the virtue of religion. Religion is a key moral virtue for Aquinas, one that builds upon the natural law and enters into the right supernatural ordering of the soul and all of its acts to God. The question remains, how does this moral virtue, building upon its natural foundation, rise to the level of a graced encounter with the true God? The answer to this question and the essential key to understanding Christian worship can be found within Christ’s own worship: Christ’s worship, in his humanity, stands at the heart of the Church by providing the basis for her worship of the Trinity in latria. This worship consists most significantly in the priestly offering of Christ’s own life on the cross, which is made present in the Church’s daily worship in the holy sacrifice of the Mass. Therefore, understanding the precise nature of Christ’s worship and of the Church’s participation in it is of utmost importance. In particular, this essay will examine the object of Christ’s worship: to whom did he offer worship? If the Church’s worship is a participation in Christ’s own, the object of Christ’s worship becomes the object of Christian worship. Did Christ worship the Trinity in such a way that Christian worship of the Trinity shares R. JARED STAUDT 234 1 Thomas Joseph White, “The Voluntary Action of the Earthly Christ and the Necessity of the Beatific Vision,” The Thomist 69 (2005): 527 n. 60. The criticism in its entirety reads thus: “I differ on this point from Matthew Levering (Christ’s Fulfillment of Temple and Torah, 92-93, 143), who attributes to Aquinas the idea that Jesus adores the three persons of the Trinity in his human soul. To the best of my knowledge there are not texts to support this view (which resembles Scotus’s doctrine) in Aquinas’s writings. Aquinas never ascribes either adoratio or latria to Christ as a subject, in relation to the Father as object or to himself as object. It seems, rather, that devotion in Christ receives a peculiar mode that is hypostatic. It is a recognition by the Son in his human nature of having the Father as the origin of his divine and human natures. As with obedience and prayer, therefore, it designates the procession of the Son from the Father in human terms, and demonstrates that Christ receives the impetus of all acts of providence from the Father’s will. H. Diepen (‘La psychologie humaine du Christ selon saint Thomas d’Aquin,’ 540), also envisages the prayer of Christ as directed to all of the three persons as objects, citing as his authority Thomassin, De Verbo Incarnato, l. 9, c. 11, and in this respect resembles Levering. Diepen’s inconsistency on this point with regard to his own teaching that there is no ‘psychological autonomy’ (535-56) of a unique human subject in Christ is evident. In my opinion the positions of both Levering and Diepen justly incur the objections of Weinandy concerning an implicit Nestorianism by attributing to the human Christ an adoration of the Word.” 2 Ibid. in his own? The question at hand can be broken into two distinct questions. First, did Christ offer worship? Second, did the second person of the Trinity in his humanity worship the entire Trinity, which includes his own person? The question of the object of Christ’s worship is not common and was not taken up explicitly by Aquinas. Most contemporary treatments of Christ’s prayer focus on the method of prayer that he taught or on the nature of his priesthood without engaging the Trinitarian implications of this prayer. I would like for the purposes of this essay to treat the question of Christ’s worship against the...