Our Lord said "Do this in remembrance of Me." He said this to the Church, and, as we shall see at greater length later, we are the Church. We are the Church by reason of Baptism. By the Sacrament of Baptism we were made one with Jesus Christ, and through him members one of another.

Since we are the Church his words are addressed to each one of us according to our various positions within the Church. We all have the duty of participating in the great action of worship which Our Lord has given us. He has given us himself to offer so that God can look upon our offering and say, "This is my beloved Son in Whom I am well pleased."

The true worship of God is the offering of an acceptable gift. Here we have Our Lord to offer, and the offering of him is the primary function of the Church—our primary function. The Mass, that is, is the expression of our membership of him and of one another.

St Paul said, "Ye are the body of Christ, and members in particular." Perhaps it is not straining the text too far to say that this implies a particular part in the exercise of that function for each of the orders of the Church. It is the business of this pamphlet to discover something of the special part the laity have in the offering of the Holy Sacrifice.

In many ways people take their attendance at [3/4] Mass for granted. That is to say they "go to Mass" dutifully and rarely realise that they have a special part to play. We are all engaged in obeying Our Lord's command. "Do this," but we must learn to distinguish the part that is our own.

We can begin by looking at the question broadly. Everyone has a particular part in the Mass, and it would be rash to say that one part was more important than another. As you know, the Mass belongs to the liturgy of the Church, so much so that it is sometimes called The Liturgy. This at once gives us a clue. The word "liturgy" comes from a Greek word which means something which is done as a duty by privileged people. It is a word that was used long before the Christian Church was founded. From the idea of an ordinary civic duty which some citizens were obliged to perform there developed the idea that worship was a duty, a liturgy. Thus when the Eastern Church came to form its special, or if you like, technical vocabulary, the word was ready to hand—and in the course of time the word spread into the Western Church.

When we come to Mass then, we are coming to perform a privileged duty, each one of us in a particular way. The Bishop, the priest, the deacon, the servers, the laity, all have their duty to perform. Probably the most familiar Mass is a Low Mass with just a priest, perhaps a server, and the people—but at least someone to be present with the priest, in order to represent the laity. There can be no Mass without a priest to do his duty and, except in very rare cases, without a [4/5] representative of the laity doing his duty. We will return to this point later on.

I think it is possible to divide the duties of the various participants in the offering of the Sacrifice into two parts, the ceremonial and the vocal. So let us look at the special part of the laity under these headings.

When we have excluded those ceremonial actions, crossing oneself, genuflecting, etc., which are common to all those taking part, what is left as particular to' the laity? The answer in our day is that there is not very much left. The only particular action of any importance is the putting of money in the plate. Yet this is the best point at which to begin for it sums up a great deal that is traditional as the part of the laity and it is through looking at the traditional background that we can enlarge our ideas for use in our own day.

Popularly speaking, the Mass starts at the Offertory, at the time in fact when you are putting your money in the plate. Unless the Offertory were made there could be no Mass. Without bread and wine there could be no Offertory. For many centuries and in many places the laity came up to the altar bringing their little phials of wine and their little loaves of bread. The wine was poured into big jars, the bread was collected into baskets. As much as was necessary was put aside for •the Mass, and the rest was disposed of among the poor and the clergy.

Now this bread and wine which the laity brought [5/6] had either come from their own home-grown wheat and grapes, or been got from someone else as an exchange, particularly in rural communities, for some other commodity or, later, for money that had been earned. The point is, the bread and wine offered in some way represented the labour of each Christian. It is tragic that this has been overlooked in successive centuries so that people have tended to forget that the money they put in the plate is the symbol of their work to earn or save enough to buy bread and wine to be offered.

As so often, our Book of Common Prayer can be a great help here. It is a pity that people do not know the Prayer Book anything like well enough. At the end of the Mass, amongst the rubrics most people never read, we find this direction: "The Bread and Wine for the Communion shall be provided by the Curate and Church-wardens at the charges of the Parish." They are, that is to say, the first charge on the collection you put into the plate. Thus, the bread is your bread, the wine is your wine, bought with your money.

In some churches, notably in France and Belgium, people stop to put a host into the ciborium and money into the plate either before the service or at the Offertory. This greatly helps to remind them of the significance of this immensely important part of the service.

From this simple ceremony of putting money in the plate, then, we are reminded of centuries of history and of the essential part of the laity in providing the bread and wine which are necessary for the Sacrifice.

[7] When we turn to our second heading, the vocal, we find that there is still a great deal for the laity to do. From the very earliest times we find a great emphasis on the fact that the Mass is a corporate action, and not something done for one. It was easier in the beginning, when everyone stood round the altar. There was not that sense of distance to which later church buildings have accustomed us. The Bishop was the normal celebrant, and he stood with his priests and deacons round him, behind the table with the people gathered in a semi-circle facing the table. There was no sense of distance then!

As the Church grew, there were inevitable developments. The Bishop had to look after a wider area, so priests began to deputise for him when he could not be there. Churches began to be built as persecution ceased, churches capable of holding more people than a room in someone's house. Even then, though, the altar was usually central and, in any case, the celebrant still faced the people.

The result of this arrangement was that the laity were encouraged by the very geography of the place to take a full share in the Offering. They gave the bread and wine, and they joined in the offering of it. They made the few simple responses and the great Amen at the end of the Eucharistic Prayer.

Gradually, services in general and the Mass in particular, became more elaborate. Special singers sang the more complicated parts of the music, but still the [7/8] laity took their part in the simpler singing—probably most of all at the Sursum Corda, the great opening of the Eucharistic Prayer "Lift up your hearts."

In the Mass as it has developed up to our own time, we can trace the determination to bring priest and people together in the action of offering. There is the constant reiteration of "The Lord be with you. And with thy spirit.” In making the response, the laity are reminded that this is their offering, just as much as it is the priest's. If you will notice carefully, you will see that every new stage of the service opens with this salutation and response. Equally, it is the special part of the laity to ratify each prayer with Amen, "so be it." Again, this serves to make it quite clear that the priest is not saying prayers he has thought up for himself, but the prayers of the whole Church, of every individual member of the Body.

Since we have looked at some length at the intention of the Church to make it quite plain that the Mass is a corporate action, we can usefully go back to the earliest sources. The reason for doing this, and for grounding ourselves thoroughly in the origins «of the Mass is that there are people who suggest that the Mass as we know it is an invention made by the Church. It is true that the form of the Mass has developed since the first days; but it is important to insist that the essential idea remains unchanged.

We read in I Corinthians, Chapter 11, verses 23-25: "For I have received of the Lord that which also I [8/9] delivered unto you, that the Lord Jesus the same night in which he was betrayed took bread: And when he had given thanks, he brake it, and said, Take, eat: this is my body, which is broken for you: this do in remembrance of me. After the same manner also he took the cup, when he had supped, saying, This cup is the new testament in my blood: this do, as oft as ye drink it, in remembrance of me."

This indicates very clearly our corporateness with one another in him in the offering of the Holy Sacrifice. In verse 20 of the same chapter St Paul attacks the Corinthians for their failure to observe this corporateness. Further we see how the structure of our Lord's liturgical action has always been retained in the Mass.

He "took bread;" the Offertory. He "gave thanks;" the Consecration. "He brake it;" the Fraction. He gave It to them; the Communion. And Our Lord laid down that this was an action to be performed corporately. As another point of importance we can usefully recall that the bread and the wine of the Last Supper had been prepared by those who got the Passover meal ready. That is, it had been provided by the small community—almost the "family unit."

Up to this point we have been studying the origin of the part of the laity in the Mass and its development through the ages into the part we now recognise. We have seen that it has all been development but certainly not alteration. Some good things have become obscured and it is the admitted purpose of the Church [9/10] today to reinstate these things in their place of great importance.

Here we come to something which so many people overlook. We are apt to talk too glibly about "the Church," rather  as  though  we were talking about "they," the people who make us do things. The Church is not something to which we merely belong. It is us. We are the Church, and the corporate action of the Mass is one of the chief examples of our living unity with each other in Christ which constitutes the Church. When things that ought to be plain and everyday become obscured or special, then it is our fault. We have allowed that to happen. What has been called the "clericalisation of the Mass" came about because the laity did not insist on their privileges.

We know the obvious results of that from the things we have been considering. But there were other results which have tended to disappear and yet might occur again unless we are careful. As the laity ceased to play any direct part in the Offertory, it became looked upon as something the priest did. As they ceased to be interested in their vocal duty, something worse happened. The laity ceased to follow the course of the Mass at all and became preoccupied in private devotions. They were physically present at the Offering, but spiritually absent in individual piety.

There are, of course, a great many ways of following the course of the Mass but they are meant to keep us in touch with what is going on at the Altar. The other devotions literally got in the way. These [10/11] devotions varied from the use of private prayer books to the use of the Rosary during the Mass and they applied in their own particular degrees to all shades of religious opinion. Yet it must be admitted that many people do not find it easy to concentrate on the Service.

The business of concentration applies to all kinds of prayer and it is plain that our habits of prayer reflect the habits of our lives. If we normally find it difficult to concentrate, that difficulty will be carried into our prayer, whether private or public. It is in this connection that we can see the, great value of the public prayers of the Church. They do so much to help us to concentrate—if we will allow them to help us.

The Mass provides many opportunities for recalling our attention, if only we will co-operate with the action and not get lost in private devotion. It is worth while considering these opportunities in some detail. After all, we all think we "know the Mass" and yet it is the things which are familiar which we so often fail to recognise as important.

It is, for example, usual to say the Preparation in a clear voice. Surely the meaning of that is to enable the people to use it as their own act of preparation. It is not inevitably necessary to say all the words aloud, but it is very useful to follow them as the priest and server say them. They are, after all, not just a private preparation of the priest and server. If they were, they would be said privately, and not in an audible voice. How moving and how impressive is the cry, "I will go unto the altar of God." There could hardly be a better [11/12]  reminder of that which we are about to do, priest and laity together.

Then there follow the Kyries, the Gloria in Excelsis (this is sometimes said before the Blessing), and the first great mutual salutation of "The Lord be with you" and its response. Here, admittedly we come to a difficult point. It is a point which involves the virtue of charity. When there are a number of people present at Mass it is difficult for them all to keep in time. What must be realised is that it is not essential to join in with a loud voice. A whisper will do during any long recitation like the  Gloria. With ordinary responses and Amens there is not much possibility of getting out of time unless one is determined to be different from, or inconsiderate of, everyone else. That is where charity comes in.

We go on to the responses at the Gospel, the recitation of the Creed, and then the partaking in the Offertory. Incidentally it is worth while learning the prayers used by the priest at the offering of the bread and wine. They are prayers said on your behalf, and even if you do not use them, it is important to know the sense of them.

This brings us to something else worth thinking about. It is not necessary to follow every word of every prayer, though many people find it valuable. It is, again, useful to follow the sense of the prayers. For example, we have arrived in our consideration at the great Prayer for the Church. You may find that there are additional intercessions which you wish to add to the [12/13] "official" ones. That is perfectly all right, so long as you are aware of the Church's responsibility for universal intercession for Church and State. Moreover, carefully read, this Prayer provides the headings necessary for our own private intercessions. Your Missal or other Mass-book probably divides this prayer into paragraphs. They are worth a little study. They cover pretty well everything that is material for intercession.

Then from the Sursum Corda, the great call to join in as perfectly as one is able in the Sacrifice, to the end of the Eucharistic Prayer there is the opportunity for a concentration which by reason of the importance of the action and the briefness of the time cannot be over-difficult for most worshippers. There are the responses before the Preface, the Sanctus and the great "Amen" at the very end—the "great Amen" because it is our setting of our own seal on what has been done. The Sacrifice has been offered and the Father has been well pleased to look upon his well-beloved Son.

Here we come to a further stage. The Mass is certainly dramatic. If only we watch the course of the Mass, if only we cease to take it for granted in the lazy as distinct from the good-habit way, we can find so much to help our attention and to stimulate our devotional love for God. We know that it is "the Mass that matters," yet it matters not only for our dogmatic salvation but for the day by day progress of our spiritual relation with God. That is to say, it is not only an offering we make to God, but a way in which we can discern the impact of God upon our lives.

[14] This brings us to the next important part of the Offering. Our spiritual relation with God is greatly revealed in the act of Holy Communion—the act which so soon follows the great Amen of the Eucharistic Prayer. Here is the moment at which our accepted Offertory, the offering of the bread and wine, is given back to us as the Body and Blood of Christ, as the Living Christ himself.

There is an important consideration involved here. We do not receive Holy Communion every time we go to Mass. Does this then impoverish our participation in the Eucharistic Offering? By no means. Holy Communion is always received, even if only by the Priest. We are there as communicants, as living, practising members of the Body of Christ. This is worth remembering. With every good intention there has arisen the idea that it is better if a lot of people receive Holy Communion at the same time. This idea, since it directly affects the part of the laity in the Holy Mass, demands some thought.

It is true that as an act of witness it is useful if a large number of Christians can be seen to be doing the same thing at the same time. But we must be careful that practical expediency does not lead to theological error. We come to Mass as communicants or, at the least, as intending communicants. That is to say, we are witnessing to something within which we live. If we make our own Holy Communion at one time or another the fact remains that we are doing it within the fellowship. When we come to Mass, the Communion is always [14/15] received, and we are all partakers by virtue of our membership. This Holy Communion in which the priest, and possibly others, partake is my Holy Communion for it is the same Holy Communion which I myself received say this morning or the other day. Christ is not divided.

This brings us back to the remark on Page 4. The Priest always receives Holy Communion at Mass, but unless you, the laity were there, except under very exceptional circumstances there would be no Mass and no Holy Communion.

After the Communion we return to the mutual salutation and the Thanksgiving, made aloud by the priest but made the laity's as well by their joining in the sentiments of the Prayer and in the ratification by their Amen.

It has been taught very often that without a priest there can be no Mass. Perhaps we have been able to discover in this pamphlet that without the laity there would be great difficulty. We have mentioned exceptional circumstances when the laity need not be represented, but these are not intended to give the priest an opportunity for private devotion. They are intended to give God honour because the multitude of the faithful desire that honour to be given. Truly the Mass depends very greatly on every member of the Church whether in Holy Orders or not.