What is worship?

Well, in English, the origins of worship denote the respect someone gives to another, their worthiness. We still do this in modern times, particularly in government and judicial systems, i.e. The Honorable Secretary, (towards a judge) Your Honor. British governance has even more ostentatious wording towards their magistrates, and monarchy, i.e. My Lord, My Lady, Your Highness. These are titles given to someone based on their worthiness. However, religious worship is called Latria. 

Latria is the worship and adoration due to God alone. Worship, in terms of what is due to God, and God alone, has certain requirements that extends beyond the terminology that a person uses, in either song, prayer, or position (such as kneeling for a monarch, or standing for the flag (or national anthem) both of which are forms of reverence given to someone or something other than God). Dulia on the other hand is used to show reverence or respect to other people and things, such as the Saints the Holy Bible, churches, altars, etc. Hyperdulia is the highest of respects given to the Blessed Virgin Mary for the graces in her life, by the eternal meriting of Jesus' sacrifice on the Cross, and the privilege of being the Mother of God, and proto-dulia is that which is given to St. Joseph as he was the foster-father of Jesus Christ. These dulia terms are synonymous with the English term "worship", or according to their "worth". When it comes to true worship, or proper biblical-worship, i.e., Latria, there are two components found in Old Testament worship, and are still found today in the Catholic Mass and Orthodox Divine Liturgy (the Orthodox term for the Sacrifice of the Mass).

Biblical Worship - 

In the Bible you find that worship has two components: Prayer/praise and Sacrifices/offerings. It is four things all together but they are two of the same type of action in each category. The nature of Prayer contains the nature of Praise, and the nature of Sacrifice contains the nature of offering. In Scripture, the Jews would offer sacrifices several times a year at the Temple in Jerusalem (where sacrifices were offered on a daily basis), this was pretty far for many to travel, but was necessary as dictated by the Mosaic and Levitical laws for the yearly Passover, Feast of Weeks, and Festival of the Booths. As then, so today, the faith practiced once, or thrice, a year was easily forgotten, which God warned Moses and Joshua would happen. This is why there were synagogues through out Judean lands, such that the person can learn from the Word of God. It was here where the faithful Jews would come together to read the Sacred Scriptures, sing or chant the Psalms (like during the Liturgy of the Hours, Cf. Prayer in Action: Devotionals), here they offered their praise and prayers to God, while learning from the teachers of Scripture.

However, at the Temple in Jerusalem, sacrifice of animals, and offerings of bread, wine, oil, and incense were given to the Lord our God. In the Old Testament, the shedding of blood from an animal could remit one of the guilt of sin, restoring their purity before the Lord, according to the Mosaic and Levitical laws, these were called sin and guilt offerings. The blood of animals were offered in the place of the blood of sinners, these were called holocausts, that is the death of many animals as a sacrificial offering. The Sacrifices were also offered in the form of burnt offerings, cereal offerings, peace offerings, wave offerings, each of these types of offering were also present in other forms of sacrificial acts, such as a thanksgiving, free-will, or even the moments of ordination required a variety of sacrifices. These offerings were not restricted to any specific time of the year, but according to the violations of the law by the Israelite, regarding either moral or purity violations (there was no distinction between the two as a moral impurity was a ritual impurity, and vice-versa). In addition to the the yearly observance of the feasts, these sacrifices were conducted on theses days in great multitude as a great multitude of Israelites were present, and were necessary acts for any observant Jew.

The priests would wear liturgical clothing called vestments, as described in the book of Exodus. And carried out their duties in the tabernacle, and later temple, as described in Exodus and Leviticus. 

You can see here the vestments of the priests for going into the tabernacle, and the incense carried as they incense is used to sanctify the offerings. The priests also had a variety of ministers who would continually read scripture and sing before the tabernacle, but ultimately had only one class of minister through whom the sacrifice was offered. The Levitical families, the descendants of Levi, tended to all the matters of the tent of meeting, and the temple duties such as singing and reading scripture, whereas Aaron and his sons (who were Levites, but especially set apart for their duties) alone were that of the Priestly heritage. Only the Priests themselves could attend to God in the tent of meeting and in the Holy of Holies in the Temple, for anyone else to do otherwise warranted death. One of the reasons for this is because they, the priests, are set apart from everyone else. They the priests were given the duty to minister directly to God, whereas the others were given the duty to minister to one another. To shirk your God-given duty, was to sin, against the Law as given, and thus against the Lord, who is the Law-giver. This caused the offender to be a sinner, and those who were stained with sin, could not come before the Lord, lest they die (this applied to the priests too). 

This duality in the partitions of worship is also seen in the Mass itself. The Mass has two sections. A Mass of the Catechumens where Prayers and Praise are said and sung, respectively. And then you have the Mass of the Faithful, where the Sacrifice of our Lord Jesus Christ is re-presented to God the Father. One thing to mention, is the similarity of those stained with sin going before the Lord. The stain of Mortal Sin, that which separates you from God through your own volition (you choosing to sin, separates you from God, because you chose sin over Him), also leads you to a type of death, deepening of your spiritual death, as you willingly chose to partake of the Body, Blood, Soul and Divinity of our Lord Jesus Christ, doing so, as St. Paul warns, brings judgement upon yourself (so go to confession before receiving our Lord in the Eucharist) I will go more in detail with the next couple pages on the Mass specifically. You may be surprised to see the similarities of Biblical Worship, and it's continuity in Catholicism.