SUPPOSE a rich man builds a hospital, staffs it with doctors and nurses, and then no sick people ever go to it. What's the use of it? It does the people no good. The work of that rich man needs their co-operation if it is to profit them. Suppose another rich man builds a great library and fills it with thousands of wonderful books - only to find that nobody ever goes there to consult those books. What's the use of it? It would be sheer waste of money and effort. If it is to be any use to anybody, then people must use it. It needs the co-operation of the people if it is to profit them.

In ancient Greece such actions of public benefactors like these were once called "liturgies"; and these men were called "liturgists". But after a while these words were restricted in their meaning to designate only men and actions of this type done by them in the religious sphere. A "liturgist" came to mean some man who did something that had to do with religion - something which, though done by him, was done for others, and which needed the collaboration of those others if it were to have any effect. The religious action thus done was called a "liturgy".

The greatest liturgy ever done was the saving and sanctifying work of Christ our Lord; for though this was done by Him, he did it for others (for us); and it needs the collaboration of those others (that is, of us) if it is to have its effect. Christ is the Great Liturgist.

He first did His liturgy at a particular date in history; and He did it through the instrumentality of His physical body. But He continues it through all' time "in mystery", carrying it on now through the instrumentality of His Mystical Body.

But it is still liturgy; and so it still requires the collaboration of those on behalf of whom it is done.

That means us; for it is for us that our Great Liturgist now continues His liturgy, just as it was for us that He did it in the first instance.

"The sacred liturgy," says the Pope, "is the public worship which our Redeemer, the Head of the Church, renders to the heavenly Father, and which the society of Christ's faithful renders to its founder, and through Him, to the eternal Father" (Mediator Dei, n. 20). Which is the same as saying that "the public worship which the Redeemer . . . and the society of Christ's faithful render to the eternal Father is liturgy".

The public worship, therefore, requires the collaboration of those who worship. They must do something - they must take their part in the liturgy. "The faithful assemble in church," wrote Blessed Pope Pius X, "for no other object than that of acquiring the true Christian spirit from its primary and indispensable source, which is active participation in the most holy mysteries and in the public and solemn prayer of the Church."

Now of all these holy mysteries the sacrifice of the Mass is the chief. It is the supreme worship of the Mystical Body in general, and of that body of the faithful in particular who, on any given occasion, are there to offer the Mass at a given altar. It is the worship of a community.

This is the point I want to emphasise now. It is one act of worship by a body of people; it is not, there fore, a mere sum of the individual acts of worship of a lot of individual people who happen to be present in the same church at the same time.

To see this difference, imagine that you enter a church to make a visit to the Blessed Sacrament. Two other people are also making visits. You notice a third person saying the Rosary at our Lady's shrine; a fourth is praying before the statue of St. Joseph; a fifth is moving quietly and devoutly around the stations of the cross; a sixth is outside the confessional making preparation for, or thanksgiving after, confession.

All these people are worshipping simultaneously and in the same church. But nobody would dream of asserting that they are worshipping as a community. They are - very rightly and properly - busy with their private devotions as individuals; and the mere fact that they are all praying in the same church at the same time does not turn their private devotions into community worship.

What, then, is community worship? It is worship which derives its communal nature not merely from the fact that a number of people are present at the same time, but from some other factor which unifies these individuals into a community. This factor is the co-ordination of their activities (which still themselves may be diverse) into one predetermined pattern having one intrinsic and specific purpose.

Neither the pattern nor the purpose are determined by these people; both pre-exist ; but they are accepted and appropriated by these people who voluntarily co-ordinate their own (possibly varied) activities into that pattern, directing their minds and wills to that one purpose which specifies the pattern.

An example might be public Rosary. In that, not only are all the people present together, but all are saying the same words and thinking the same thoughts at the same time. In this instance, however, there is no diversity of activity.

Contrast this with "May Crowning" of the statue of our Lady when different people do different things. Some walk in procession; some carry the crown; one puts the crown on; others sing predetermined hymns or pray specified prayers. But these different activities all contribute to one pattern which those present did not themselves determine, but which they all do accept and appropriate by voluntarily co-ordinating their own activities for the one purpose - the honouring of our Lady - which specifies the ceremony as a whole. This "May Crowning" is a communal act - that is, one thing - just as much as a public Rosary is one thing, even though different people have different parts to play.

Now the Mass, because it is by its essence community worship, is likewise one thing. It is offered by many indeed, and among these there is diversity of activity (as in May Crowning); but its oneness depends on the co-ordination of diverse activities into one pre-determined pattern having one intrinsic specific purpose. It is one thing, just as a drama is one thing or an opera is one thing.

Within the unity of an opera there are many different people having different activities. There may be a hero, a heroine, some lesser characters, and a chorus; there will be a conductor and an orchestra, a stage manager and scene-shifters. Each has something to do - his own part; and this is not the same as somebody else's part but is a "set part" predetermined for him, designed to contribute to the unity of the whole.

The actors and singers cannot themselves decide what notes or words they will utter; the members of the orchestra cannot decide for themselves what tunes they will play. If everybody sang or played just what he liked whenever he liked and how he liked, then the result would not be an opera but an uproar.

So also in the Mass there are a lot of people with their own parts. At solemn High Mass there is the priest as the principal human minister without whose specific activity there would be no Mass at all. But also there are the deacon, the subdeacon, the acolytes, and the thurifer; there is the choirmaster and his choir and maybe an organist; and there is the "community of Christ's faithful". Each of these has a set part to do, which contributes to the whole and completes its unity. If anybody does not do the prescribed part, or does just whatever he likes, this spoils the whole.

And the pity of it is that nowadays there is nearly always something which does spoil the whole-some-body not doing the prescribed part but doing instead something different, according to his own preference.

Those who are in the sanctuary normally do their parts well enough. But when it comes to the choir's part and the people's part there is frequently disorder. The choir have got certain parts which belong to them; these are the choir's business and consist of the introit, gradual, offertory verse and communion verse. The choir's job is to sing these at the proper times. Yet many choirs tend to shirk them. Either they leave them out (which is absolutely forbidden by the Church's laws) or else they recite them in a perfunctory manner on one note, or just to a psalm-tone, instead of using their skill and musicianship to sing those parts to their own proper music. Choirs don't seem to want to do their own job.

And the people? They, too, have their own parts. These are the responses, and the Kyrie, Gloria, Credo, Sanctus and Agnus Dei. All these are people's parts and not choir's parts. The people should sing them. Yet so often they just won't. They sit there absolutely dumb and do precisely nothing. Not a chirp out of them. The priest greets the people by turning to them and singing "Dominus vobiscum" - but the people pointedly ignore him. Their only rejoinder is stony silence. Though, of course, they don't mean it that way, the fact is that their behaviour is, objectively, rude in the extreme. So the choir make the reply instead.

And the same goes for the other people's parts - Kyrie, Gloria, Credo, Sanctus and A gnus Dei. The people who should sing them remain dumb. So the choir take them over. And often, instead of treating them as prayers to be sung for God's glory, they treat them as operatic choruses to be sung for the entertainment of themselves and of the people. They turn the church of God into a concert hail; they use the Mass as a background for the display of their virtuosity as a kind of sacred glee-club. Yet the Mass is supposed to be sacrificial worship, and not a concert.

The reforms so long needed in this matter were begun by the Blessed Pope Pius X in the Motu Proprio of 1903 which I have already quoted. It is a long document with many precise instructions but what it all amounts to is that these performances by sacred glee-clubs to congregations of dumb-mutes ought to stop, and both choir and people ought to do their own jobs and do them properly.

Of course the Pope expressed it more politely than that, but hardly less emphatically. "We do therefore publish, motu proprio and with certain knowledge, Our present instruction . . . and with the fullness of Our Apostolic Authority do give it the force of law, and by Our present hand-writing We impose its scrupulous observance on all . . . These things We command, declare and sanction, decreeing that this Apostolic Constitution be now and in future firm, valid and efficacious, that it obtain full and complete effect, all things to the contrary notwithstanding."

That is what Blessed Pope Pius X ordered fifty years ago. But as for its "full and complete effect" that is hardly more visible than its "scrupulous observance!" Someone (I think it was Fr. Gerald Ellard, S.J.) has said that this is the most evaded and ignored decree ever issued by the Apostolic See. How right he is!

All that is about High Mass. But all is not well with Low Mass either. Low Mass is just a simplified form of High Mass with the music left out, and the priest speaking the prayers of the absent deacon, subdeacon and choir. But there are still people at Low Mass, and their parts remain. But normally they get done by a small boy while the people do nothing.

The practice is fortunately growing whereby the people all say their parts instead of leaving them to the server. This is called "dialogue Mass" and is certainly a step in the right direction. Various forms of it have been approved by many bishops, both in the United States and in many other countries. It should be encouraged in every possible way, and the people should join in as heartily as they can. Because all this helps to make the Mass, even in its outward form, correspond to its inward reality, namely, communal worship.

Priests who want their people to take their own part - whether by singing at high Mass or by reciting the answers at low Mass - often get mighty little co-operation from their people. In fact, they meet with a whole lot of opposition. That is so because many people have no idea of the Mass as a "liturgy". They have the wrong spirit - the individualist spirit - instead of the collaborative and communal spirit which should be that of members of the Mystical Body of Christ.

Such people are unwilling to co-ordinate their own activities into the predetermined pattern which constitutes the Mass as an act of communal worship. Instead they "want to say their own prayers". Which shows how little they understand the Mass or their position as members of the Mystical Body.

Once upon a time the whole of Europe was Catholic. Everybody believed not what he pleased, but what the Church taught. Everybody accepted not a moral code of his own choosing, but what the Church declared to be right or wrong. And everybody worshipped God not according to individual fancy but (at least in public worship) in the way the Church desired and arranged. Then, in the course of time, there came abuses and revolts and finally schism and heresy; Protestantism arose, tearing whole nations from the unity of the Church.

The fundamental principle of Protestantism is what is called "the principle of private judgment". Protestants say a man has a right to decide for himself what he will believe; he can choose this or that religion just as he thinks fit. They object to the Catholic Church "dictating" what is true or false, what is right or wrong. That is why they reject the Catholic Church - they "protest" against it. They say they will believe, they will behave, and they will worship as they think fit, not as somebody tells them. The "principle of private judgment" is the very essence of Protestantism.

Of course not everybody became Protestant; the majority of European Catholics, in fact, remained true to the Church. They rejected this principle of private judgment and continued to accept the guidance of God's Church in matters of faith and of morals. The spirit of Protestantism - the principle of private judgment - did not undermine their creed or their code.

But it did have some effect. It affected their cult - their worship. Gradually - surrounded as they were by Protestants with this spirit of private judgment by the individual - Catholics became infected with this spirit in the sphere of their worship. They began to worship not in the Church's way - communally, as a body, co-ordinating their activities into the Church's pattern, all doing their own proper parts - but rather "in their own way", each individual exercising private judgment about what he would do at public worship.

And that spirit of individualism has descended even to our own day. We still find enormous numbers of Catholics who will not worship communally as the Church desires, but who, during public worship itself, "prefer to say their own prayers".

This very Protestant attitude is often found most deeply rooted in seemingly very "pious" Catholics. They "like to say their own prayers"; they won't join in the Mass. They won't sing at High Mass and they won't answer at dialogue Mass. They say "it distracts them from their prayers". Yet they ought not, during public worship, to be at "their prayers"; they ought to be giving their minds and hearts to the community's prayers - to the Mass.

But they won't; they exercise their private judgment as to what pleases them; instead of joining in with those parts which the Church allots to them, they "say their own prayers".

And the result is fantastic. In an opera, various people have various things to sing, but all those things are prescribed for them by the composer - they are not what they choose for themselves. All those things are designed to fit together to make one intelligible whole. Now suppose somebody came to the front of the stage and began singing "Rule Britannia" while somebody else went to the right and began singing "Tipperary"; at the same time somebody is at the left singing "Clementine" while a fourth person is at the back of the stage singing "Roll Out The Barrel".

Would you call that an opera? Of course not - it would be confusion and nonsense. People singing what they want, when they want and how they want instead of singing their own parts designed for them by the composer!

But something very like that so often happens at Mass. The priest is putting the meaning into the gifts at the offertory. The composer of this work - the Church - means him to have a sort of supporting chorus of the people all putting their meanings into the gifts. But that doesn't happen. Mr. A. doesn't join in that. He "prefers to say his own prayers". He likes "The Thirty Days Prayer" and gets on with it. Mrs. B. won't join in either - she is making a novena to St. Sacharina. Mr. C. prefers something that doesn't involve any trouble - he says a lot of "Hail Mary's". Mrs. D. is a very devout soul . . . she likes to feel good, and immerses herself in a most touching meditation book she has discovered. It is called "The Heart Throbs of the Languishing Spouse for Her Celestial Lover".

The net result is a travesty of what the Mass should be - it is a riot of individualism, a fantasy of the Protestant spirit of private judgment, everybody doing just what he or she likes instead of doing what the Church desires as a contribution to that unified and communal action which is the Mass. One wonders whatever almighty God makes of it all!

What should they be doing? The Pope makes it clear enough in Mediator Dei:

"They must not be content to take part in the Eucharistic Sacrifice by the general intention which all members of Christ and children of the Church must have; they ought also, in the spirit of the liturgy, to unite themselves closely and of set purpose with the High Priest and His minister on earth" (n. 110).

"To unite themselves closely and of set purpose" means that they ought to tell God they are sorry for their sins when the priest tells God he is sorry for his sins; they should cry for God's mercy when the priest cries for God's mercy; they should praise God when the priest praises God; they should listen to God's word when the priest announces God's word to them; they should put the meaning into the gifts when the priest puts meaning into the gifts; they should believe and wonder and admire when the priest, by the power of God, turns the gifts into the Victim of Calvary; they should offer this divine Victim to the Father when the great High Priest and His human minister are offering the divine Victim; they should receive the return-gift of God when the priest receives the return-gift of God.

That is what they should do. They should do it by singing their parts when singing is to be done; or, at low Mass, by speaking their parts when these are to be spoken, or expressing themselves in their own words or in words from a suitable prayer book or in the Church's own words from the best book of all - the Missal. Those are the things they should be doing in order to "unite themselves closely and of set purpose" with communal action.

Wherefore they should not be praying to Our Lady when God's message is being announced to them; they should not be praying to St. Anthony when the priest is putting the meaning into the gifts; they should not be making a novena to St. Maria Goretti when the priest is offering the Victim; they should not be praying for the souls in purgatory when the priest is receiving or distributing the return-gift of the sacrifice.

Behaving like that brings confusion and disorder into the unity of the act of worship; it turns it from the communal action which it ought to be into the simultaneous performance of a lot of disparate individual devotions. All the things which these people are doing may be good in themselves; it is good to pray to our Lady, to the saints, and for the souls in purgatory. But these private prayers should be done in private time, not during the public celebration of the community-sacrifice.

If only people saw the unreasonableness of these practices, if only they would forgo their personal preferences for the communal good and the glory of God, then the Protestant spirit of private judgment would be replaced by the "true Christian spirit" of which "active participation in the most holy mysteries" is the "primary and indispensable source". Then those priests who "strive to make the liturgy a sacred action in which, externally also, all who are present really take a part" (Mediator Dei, n. iii), would meet with less opposition when they exhort their people to sing at high Mass or respond at dialogue Mass.

And then "if this be happily brought about, there will no longer be any need to lament the sad spectacle in which the people do not respond at all, or only in a subdued and indistinct murmur." (Pius XI. Divini Cultus, 1929). And there would be some prospect that the Mass will become in fact that which it is in theory - namely, the communal offering of all members of the Mystical Body, united in mind and will, to the honour and glory of God.