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What the Fathers say
Eastern Fathers
John Chrysostom
"God is a Spirit." He declareth nothing else than His incorporeal Nature. Now the service of that which is incorporeal must needs be of the same character, and must be offered by that in us which is incorporeal, to wit, the soul, and purity of mind. …
Basil of Caesarea
The "worship in the Spirit" suggests the idea of the operation of our intelligence being carried on in the light, as may be learned from the words spoken to the woman of Samaria. Deceived as she was by the customs of her country into the belief that worship was local, our Lord, with the object of giving her better instruction, said that worship ought to be offered "in Spirit and in Truth," plainly meaning by the Truth, Himself. …
Irenaeus
Those who have become acquainted with the secondary (i.e., under Christ) constitutions of the apostles, are aware that the Lord instituted a new oblation in the new covenant, according to [the declaration of] Malachi the prophet. For, "from the rising of the sun even to the setting my name has been glorified among the Gentiles, and in every place incense is offered to my name, and a pure sacrifice;" as John also declares in the Apocalypse: "The incense is the prayers of the saints." Then again, Paul exhorts us "to present our bodies …
Western Saints
Hilary of Poitiers
We see that the woman, her mind full of inherited tradition, thought that God must be worshiped either on a mountain, as at Samaria, or in a temple, as at Jerusalem.… The prejudices of both confined the all-embracing and illimitable God to the crest of a hill or the vault of a building. God is invisible, incomprehensible, immeasurable. The Lord said that the time had come when God should be worshiped neither on mountain nor in temple. For the Spirit cannot be shut up, as if in a cabin, or confined. …
Thomas Aquinas
Then he shows that the third type of worship is appropriate from the very nature of God, saying, God is spirit. As is said in Sirach (13:19), "Every animal loves its like"; and so God loves us insofar as we are like him. But we are not like him by our body, because he is incorporeal, but in what is spiritual in us, for God is spirit: "Be renewed in the spirit," of your mind (Eph 4:23). …
Bonaventure
"God is Spirit," not a body, as you believe: Isaiah 40: "To whom have you likened God? Or what image will you set up for him?" "And those who worship him must worship in spirit and truth:" so that they may be conformed to him, that they may be in spirit, not in the flesh: Romans 8: "Those who are in the flesh cannot please God": that they may be in truth, not in pretense: Wisdom 1: "The Holy Spirit of discipline will flee from the deceitful."
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