Embodied Faith: How Structured Worship Heals

Anxiety, Modern Worship, and the Exhausted Soul

Author's note: Dear reader, I'm coming out of the gate with a heavy topic. With heavy topics come the need for some higher-level thinking and writing. They deserve it. Suffering lasts but for a time, and eventually there will be joy again. But even after the suffering is gone, the effects of it are lasting. My life experience with those frayed threads will not go unused. God gave me the tools to continue to weave them back into the tapestry of my life, and I want to share them with you over the next few days. So, take a breath and settle in. Not all future posts will be so heavy or academic. Let's go.

I have lived with anxiety for as long as I can remember.

There was a season in my life, one marked by prolonged stress and a trauma that I was immersed in day after day for months, when my body never learned how to stand down. Even after the danger passed, my nervous system stayed on high alert, locked in what is called “fight or flight”. I couldn’t sleep. I startled easily. My concentration evaporated. My body was exhausted, but it didn’t know how to rest. In fact, in an act of survival, in need of a win, I trained for and completed a triathlon while also completing my certification as an advanced autism specialist. My constant adrenaline had to be used for something, and those two feats gave my mind and body a steady rhythm to grab onto while surrounded by chaos.

What I knew, even if I didn’t yet have the language for it, was that I needed healing.

Coming away from that time, I began trying to find a new church home. Sunday mornings were not peaceful. I would sit in pews fighting off panic attacks. My heart racing, breath shallow, sweat running down my back; trying to appear composed while my body was sounding every internal alarm to run away. I knew I was not in danger, but I couldn’t convince my body otherwise.

I wasn’t uninspired.

I wasn’t spiritually lazy.

I wasn’t disconnected from God.

But in worship spaces that relied heavily on emotional engagement or personal inspiration, it was easy to assume something was wrong with me. When I didn’t feel moved, uplifted, or “fed,” the quiet conclusion was that my faith was lacking.

Many Christians today carry a similar burden. It’s not because they lack devotion. It’s because faith has been reduced to something the mind and emotions must constantly generate.

Modern worship culture often prioritizes novelty, emotional intensity, and self-expression. While these elements are not inherently wrong, they can unintentionally place the weight of spiritual experience on the individual. If I don’t feel connected, inspired, or moved, I assume something is broken either with me or with God.

For anxious nervous systems, this model can be unbearable.

Scripture reminds us that God does not primarily meet us through stimulation, but through presence. Elijah encounters the Lord not in wind, earthquake, or fire, but in “a still small voice” (1 Kings 19:12). Yet many of us have been formed, spiritually and psychologically, to associate God primarily with intensity.

When worship becomes something we feel responsible to produce, anxiety thrives. When worship is rightly ordered toward God and grace is something we receive, healing begins.

What Do We Mean by “Liturgy”?

Before going any further, it’s important to pause and define a word that may feel unfamiliar or even intimidating.

Liturgy simply means the shared, structured prayer of the Church.

It is the way Christians have worshiped God together for centuries through Scripture, prayer, song, posture, silence, and sacrament.

In the Catholic Church, liturgy most often refers to the Mass, but the concept itself is not uniquely Catholic. Any form of worship that follows an intentional pattern is, at its core, liturgical.

Somatic Safety: Why the Body Matters in Worship

Neuropsychology teaches us that the human nervous system is constantly scanning for safety. We are no longer surviving in the woods, hunting for food, and avoiding becoming the bear’s dinner. Our nervous systems don’t know that because God created us with that protective system. Predictability, rhythm, and repetition help regulate the body. Those rhythms communicate to the nervous system that we aren’t in danger at the moment. We receive the signal that it is safe to rest, listen, and connect.

This is where structured worship, what the Church calls liturgy, becomes profoundly therapeutic.

The Catechism of the Catholic Church teaches:

“Liturgy… engages the whole person.” (CCC 1073)

This means worship is not only something we think about. It is something we do with our bodies.

This means worship is not only something we understand. It is something we enter into physically.

Standing, kneeling, bowing, responding, listening: these actions mattered when my body could not settle on its own. They gave me something steady to participate in when my thoughts were scattered and my heart was racing.

The USCCB explains that in worship:

“Christ is present… in his word, in the sacraments, and in the assembled people.”

Presence is not abstract. It is encountered through the body.

When worship followed a consistent structure, when prayers were familiar, when my body knew what came next, my nervous system could finally exhale.

Worship was still offered to God. But the grace given through that worship no longer depended on how calm, focused, or inspired I felt.

Repetition Does Not Mean Dead Faith

One of the most common objections to structured worship is that repetition makes faith lifeless or “rote.” But repetition does not drain meaning, it deepens it. It allows for meditation over the words that are said; a pondering of the meaning conveyed.

Jesus Himself gave us a prayer meant to be prayed again and again:

“When you pray, say…” (Luke 11:2)

The Psalms repeat phrases constantly. Heaven itself is depicted as ongoing, ordered worship (Revelation 4).

John Henry Newman understood that faith is not formed primarily through argument, but through habit, what we return to again and again with intention and reverence. Belief, for Newman, shapes the whole person slowly, not instantly.

Theologian Dr. Timothy O’Malley emphasizes that worship forms us not by information alone, but by participation. Over time, structured prayer teaches us how to worship before we fully understand why.

Dr. Scott Hahn defines the Mass as heaven touching earth; he describes an eternal act of worship that we step into repeatedly. Repetition does not dull the mystery; it trains us to recognize it. For me, when I’m in Mass, at certain points I anticipate, “Oh there it is. Heaven is touching Earth.” Because of repetition I know when to expect that. How lovely and comforting it is.

From a psychological standpoint, repetition builds trust.

From a theological standpoint, it builds devotion.

Dead faith is not caused by repetition. It is caused by disengagement in that repetition.

Receiving Grace With the Whole Self

Perhaps the greatest gift of structured worship is that it restores grace to its proper place.

Grace is not something we manufacture through emotional effort, theological precision, or spiritual performance. Grace is something God gives.

The Catechism states:

“The sacraments are efficacious signs of grace… by which divine life is dispensed to us.” (CCC 1131)

Notice the movement.

Worship is offered upward to God.

Grace is given downward to us.

Author Mark Kelley describes worship as a posture of receptivity with humility. In worship, we offer praise, confession, and thanksgiving, and in return we are given what we cannot produce for ourselves.

St. Paul reminds us:

“Faith comes from hearing” (Romans 10:17)

The body hears.

The soul receives.

When worship is structured, embodied, and shared, it carries us when we are tired, distracted, or anxious. It prays for us when we cannot find the words. Every Mass I’m surrounded by a community of believers uplifting the same prayers and responses to the Lord. On days that are a struggle, the flow of those voices sweeps me back into the current of His presence.

For someone whose body has lived too long in fight or flight, this matters. The body hears before the mind understands. The soul receives before the emotions stabilize.

A Faith That Holds the Whole Person

Embodied faith does not reject emotion, intellect, or personal encounter, rather it integrates them.

Structured worship teaches us that God is worshiped not only with the mind, but with the body. Not only in moments of spiritual clarity, but in seasons of survival. Not only when we feel strong, but when we are quietly holding ourselves together in a pew.

For those of us whose nervous systems have been shaped by trauma, loss, or prolonged stress, this is not restrictive. It is merciful.

Worship is offered to God alone.

Grace is what we receive.

And sometimes, that grace looks like simply being held in the presence of the Father until healing begins.

Source: personal photo; Sacre-Coeur Basilica, Paris, France

References & Sources

And recommended further reading!

Sacred Scripture

• The Holy Bible, Revised Standard Version – Catholic Edition.

1 Kings 19:11–13; Luke 11:2; Romans 10:17; Revelation 4.

Catechism of the Catholic Church

• Catechism of the Catholic Church. 2nd ed. Vatican City: Libreria Editrice Vaticana, 1997.

§§ 1073, 1131.

United States Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB)

• United States Conference of Catholic Bishops. General Instruction of the Roman Missal.

• United States Conference of Catholic Bishops. The Mystery of the Eucharist in the Life of the Church.

• USCCB. “The Presence of Christ in the Liturgy.” usccb.org.

Theology & Liturgy

• Newman, John Henry. An Essay in Aid of a Grammar of Assent. London: Longmans, Green, and Co., 1870.

• O’Malley, Timothy. Liturgy and the New Evangelization: Practicing the Art of Self-Giving Love. Collegeville, MN: Liturgical Press, 2014.

• O’Malley, Timothy. Becoming Eucharistic People: The Hope and Promise of Parish Life. Notre Dame, IN: Ave Maria Press, 2017.

• Hahn, Scott. The Lamb’s Supper: The Mass as Heaven on Earth. New York: Doubleday, 1999.

• Kelley, Mark. The Prodigal Church: A Gentle Manifesto Against the Status Quo. Notre Dame, IN: Ave Maria Press, 2015.

Neuropsychology & Embodiment

(I had to read these in small doses; if you have faced trauma, these can be emotional but insightful reads.)

• Porges, Stephen W. The Polyvagal Theory: Neurophysiological Foundations of Emotions, Attachment, Communication, and Self-Regulation. New York: W. W. Norton & Company, 2011.

• Van der Kolk, Bessel. The Body Keeps the Score: Brain, Mind, and Body in the Healing of Trauma. New York: Viking, 2014.