What is Reverence?

I realize saying I'm looking for a reverent Mass does not mean I will get recommendations that are aligned with what I'm looking for.  I've been to churches that came recommended, and I had no idea how they were considered any more reverent than any others. So I will have to depend on my own personal criteria, and to do so, I'll need to figure these out first.

I also realize now that I may have been associating the graces God has bestowed on me through certain expressions of the Christian faith via my senses and personal preferences with reverence.

For instance, I have associated kneeling with reverence. But in the Orthodox tradition, kneeling is specifically associated with repentance.  There are times repentance is appropriate, and there are times it is not.  If I associate something with reverence, I'll assume it's always appropriate.

I also have gotten hung up on the host as a physical representation of the Eucharist, and Eucharistic Adoration as a means to grow in faith in Jesus's real presence in the Eucharist. 

But my Orthodox siblings in Christ have pointed out that for the Orthodox Christian, the Eucharist is not a thing unto itself, as it were.  It is a part of a larger whole - the Divine Liturgy itself.  And as such, it is the entire Divine Liturgy that ought to permeate of God's presence.  

And as for practical ways to grow in faith in the Real Presence of Jesus in the Eucharist, the Orthodox again have reminded me how far our Novus Ordo Mass has fallen from the Tridentine Mass tradition.  Not only is the liturgy itself watered down, but practices surrounding it have likewise fallen by the wayside. 

 Orthodox are instructed to fast from midnight on before receiving Holy Communion.  They are encouraged to go to Confession regularly, and since the parishes tend to be quite small and intimate, there is no getting around the priest noticing if one hasn't been in a while.  

The final tip I got can just as easily be applied to Catholics (and any denomination claiming Jesus is present in their Holy Communion), and that is to practice acts of charity, because if we can see Christ's image in our neighbor, we can much more easily see Christ in the Eucharist/Liturgy.  And here I was actually thinking that believing in the Real Presence was what was to lead people to see Christ in their neighbor.  I had it backwards!  

Perhaps, dare I say it...?  Have Catholics turned the Eucharist into an idol?

I recently heard Catholic Bishop Barron explain how God Himself can be turned into an idol, which blew my mind!  But he explained that basically, if we make God into an image that we have ourselves conjured up, then we have reduced Him to a mere idol.  If we start attributing human frailty and limitations onto God, then we are no longer thinking about God Almighty but a caricature of God.

In that same vein, have we Catholics turned the Eucharist into such an idol?  Yes, Jesus is really present in the bread and wine after the consecration, because He said He would be.  But why did He say to do this in remembrance of Him?

What exactly are we supposed to remember about Jesus when breaking bread and sharing the cup?  Are we merely supposed to cower down before His holy presence?  Did He expect His disciples to do as much?  No!  He expected His disciples to pick up their cross and follow Him.  He told them to gather together, break bread and share a cup, and these would become His body and blood.

The next day, His physical earthly body was indeed broken on the cross, and His physical earthly blood was indeed shed.  The Last Supper is a foretelling of the Crucifixion.  In Catholicism, we believe that the Mass is how we are able to be transported to be present on Calvary.  Of course, with the watering down of the liturgy in the Novus Ordo, I think I've only ever seen one person, a priest, behave as though he were in the presence of Jesus on Calvary.  

In Orthodoxy, the focus of the Divine Liturgy is not on the crucifixion but on the resurrection of Jesus.  I still have to reconcile how the Eucharist fits into this view of the liturgy.  If Divine Liturgy is about Jesus's resurrection, then what was the Last Supper about?  When Jesus said, "take and eat, this is my body given for you" and again, "take and drink, this is my blood poured out for many" - was this pointing to His resurrection?  

In a very real sense, we do have to admit that there would be no resurrection without the crucifixion, but there could very well have been a crucifixion without a resurrection.  So we have to go through the crucifixion, through the consuming of Jesus's body and blood, in order to rise with Him on the other end, victorious.