According to St. Thomas Aquinas, in his Summa Theologiae, “A thing is received according to the mode of the receiver”. This means that our interior disposition will determine to what degree we shall appreciate or value what is imparted to us. For example, if we were to receive a gift from someone, we may express appreciation for the gift, to a greater or lesser degree, depending upon the mood (or mode) we are in. In a sense, the higher a value we place upon a gift, the higher the value that may be actualized for that gift. Conversely, if we were to place a lesser value or appreciation upon the reception of a gift, a diminished value for that gift would be actualized. This principle is also at work in our dispositions and the manner in how we receive the free gift of God’s grace. We receive according to the mode of our receptivity.
In our Catholic liturgy we orient our interior dispositions with ceremonial actions. These actions are not just ceremonial, but are acts of religion. As acts of religion, they are the virtue of religion in action. The virtue of religion, which is related to the virtue of justice, is the virtue by which we pay to God the honor and service that is due to Him in justice. In our worship of God, for example, we use visible signs as a means to express our worship in a reverential manner. In the Mass we kneel, we bow our heads, we genuflect, we make the sign of the cross, we observe reverential silence, use incense and bells, sing religious hymns and even dress our “Sunday best”. In a strict sense, God does not need these external signs, but rather, we need them. The external or sacramental signs that we use in our worship are like the bricks in the structure of our faith. If we were to remove these external signs, the structure of our faith would weaken and possibly crumble.
As persons, we are all composites of both soul and body. As God’s creatures, we worship Him with the powers of both soul and body. Is it not true, that in our fallen nature, we commit sins throughout our lives with the commision of not only our intellect and will, but with our body? Why else are the members of our body anointed with holy oil in the sacrament of Anointing of the Sick? If after all, there is not a sin that we commit without the use of not only our intellect and will, but of our body, why would we think that we should not use the same powers of both soul and body to give God His due worship? For these reasons should we be mindful of our external actions in our public worship to desire to give God our best, so that by offering Him signs of external glory, for His greatest possible glory, that we may receive from Him, in great abundance, the torrents of grace He desires to pour down upon us to receive.