Throughout Part I of this book, and in the first five chapters of Part II, I have been attempting to give an elementary explanation of the main principles and doctrines involved in the Church's liturgy. I have addressed myself in imagination to "beginners" - people who are new to the "liturgical point of view". And my first purpose was to give them a new angle on the practice of their religion in the Mass and the sacraments. But a second purpose was to help other readers who, though they really knew about these things before reading the book, were nevertheless seeking for illustrations and ways of expounding them to others.

With the discussion of the Mass as "a liturgy", as one unified action of a sacrificing community, I believe I have covered all the main points needing treatment for the fulfilment of those two purposes. Wherefore I might very well stop here and write no more, considering my task as completed.

But there is something I want to add; it is something mainly directed to the second class of readers, and yet I hope and believe that those of the first class will be able to follow it. For if they have absorbed the viewpoints expounded so far, they are, at this stage, no longer mere "beginners".

That which I desire to add concerns what is known as the "liturgical movement". This is the sum total of the efforts made by all those who have learned to understand the spiritual riches of the liturgy in their attempts to bring that same understanding to others. They desire that God be worshipped as perfectly as possible by all the members of Christ's Mystical Body; and they want all these members to be enriched as much as possible by the graces which flow from Christ the Head of the Body.

Now the liturgy itself is the means to both of these ends; for by the liturgy God is worshipped, and through the liturgy the souls of men are enriched with grace.

The liturgical movement, therefore, is concerned directly with fundamentals - the glory of God and the sanctification of man. It is not directly concerned with externals, such as the style of vestments, the beauties of Gregorian chant, the dignity of ceremonies, and so forth. But it has to be concerned with them indirectly, because it is these things which give shape to the liturgy through which God is glorified and man is sanctified.

The "practical liturgist" - he who is actually striving to bring men to God by means of the liturgy - cannot evade pre-occupation with these things, even though they be not in themselves his ultimate objective. They are, however, his tools: so he must understand them and know how to use them.

He uses them in the pursuit of the first practical objective of the liturgical movement - that which was enunciated in the famous words of Blessed Pius X:

"The primary and indispensable source of the true Christian spirit is the active participation of the faithful in the holy Mysteries and in the public and solemn prayers of the Church."

In other words, the first practical task of the liturgical movement is to get the people actively to participate in the liturgy. Without practice it is all theory; if the liturgical movement is to move, then things have to be done. Active participation is both "primary and indispensable".

Active participation might be internal (of the mind and will) or external (of the bodily powers - movement, senses, voice). It is the internal participation which is essential; if the mind and the will are active in worship, then the worship is genuine. If only the bodily powers were active - with no corresponding activity of the mind and will - then the result would not be worship but mere external ritualism.

The ideal participation involves both. For, as man consists of soul and body, activities of the soul tend naturally to express themselves externally. Thus, if a man is just bursting with happiness, he is likely to break forth into blithe song. But the converse also holds true; external activities tend to engender the corresponding internal dispositions. Thus, if a man who is feeling depressed joins in some cheerful song, he is likely to cheer up.

So the active participation sought for the liturgy is to be perfect - that is, it must be internal and also external. The external participation is needed because it is a means to the production of the internal participation aimed at as essential; and also because without it man is not wholly, but only partially engaged in his worship.

When the Pope speaks of active participation he is obviously including the external, for, in the Motu proprio from which the phrase is taken, his main subject is singing the Mass. And Pope Benedict XV, likewise demanding active participation, refers to "prayers, rites and chants" ; Pope Pius XI says the people must not be as "dumb spectators" but that "their voices should alternate with those of the priest and choir". Pope Pius XII approves "the efforts of those who want to make the liturgy a sacred action in which, externally also, all who are present may really take a part" (Mediator Dei, n. III).

Many other quotations could be given to show that the words "active participation in the liturgy" mean, in the mind of all these popes, external active participation (of course conjoined with the essential internal dispositions). It is in that sense that I use the words henceforth.

The practical, immediate objective of the liturgical movement is, then, to cause people actively to participate in the liturgy, since this is a means towards the ultimate aim, the glory of God and the sanctification of man. But this practical objective is by no means easy to achieve - especially in the most important of all liturgical functions, which is the Mass. There is a very serious problem to be faced, and it is that problem which I desire to discuss now in this and the next chapter. For nobody can work intelligently towards a goal if he is merely aware that "there are difficulties". He has to see precisely what those difficulties are, and what causes them, before he can do any effective work to overcome them.

Why, then, is it so difficult to get the people actively to participate in the Mass? What are the causes which operate to produce their present state of inactivity?

In the previous chapter I imputed some blame to the people themselves. But that is only half the picture; there is another side to it too, and it is that which we must now examine. The fact is that there is some excuse for the people. The liturgy of the Mass as we have it now, and have had it for many centuries, is such that the great majority of our Catholic people experience serious difficulties if they desire active participation, external as well as internal.

And the solution does not lie in mere instruction, for the amount of instruction that would be needed is greater than is feasible. What they would need for the present Mass - liturgy is more than instruction - it is education; education, moreover, up to a standard which they are not normally likely to get. It is within the grasp of but a small proportion of the Christian people as a whole. Is it right that the Sacrifice of the whole Christian community should be enacted in a manner which is proportioned to a mere few? Should not genuine active participation in the Sacrifice of all be within the powers of all? Yet it is not.

This problem actually arose many centuries ago; the fact that it has not been solved has cost the Church dear. It was not even properly diagnosed until Blessed Pius X pointed out that "the primary and indispensable source of the true Christian spirit is active participation in the solemn and public worship of the Church". But so long as the public and solemn worship of the Church is presented in a form such that the people cannot fully participate in it, then they are insofar cut off from the primary and indispensable source of the true Christian spirit.

This is the heart of the whole problem - a disparity between what the Mass really is, and how the Mass is celebrated. For the Mass is, according to its intrinsic essence, community worship. Yet the external form in which that worship is now embodied is such that the communities who are supposed to worship in that way find it largely beyond their powers to do so. The external form of the Church's public worship, such as it is now normally celebrated, does not seem to suit the Church as a whole; it suits rather a small cultured minority of the Church. All the rest are restricted to a greater or lesser degree of passive spectatorship; the external form of the Mass - which in fact is their Mass just as much as anybody else's Mass - is alien to their minds and dispositions.

In other words the present Mass liturgy, though venerable from long usage, though filled with treasures of doctrine and devotion and beauty and art which are the delight of cultured people, is not fully functional as the vehicle of community worship of the "toiling masses".

And the trouble lies not only in the existence of this state of affairs, but in the inability (or unwillingness?) of cultured people to see it and face up to it. Many of them so value the aesthetic excellencies of the present Mass-liturgy that they cannot reconcile themselves to any proposals for liturgical reform which would diminish these aesthetic excellencies, even if such reforms would bring the liturgy within the reach of those who have a right to understand and participate in it - namely, the common people.

For this reason I anticipate sharp and vigorous opposition to my thesis, which is that the liturgy stands in need of reform. I concede that any truly effective reform would involve serious losses in the aesthetic sphere, but maintain that the spiritual good of "God's holy people" should come before all else. I love Latin and I love plainsong; but I would prefer that every copy of the Liber Usualis be sunk in the depths of the sea rather than that the Mystical Body of Christ as a whole should be debarred from that "active participation" which is the "primary and indispensable source of the true Christian spirit".

Actually I do not think such an extreme choice would be necessary; my point is that if it were shown to be necessary, we should not shrink from it. In the matter of the glory of God and the good of souls we should be extremists. Hence I am prepared to brave the opposition, and shall be happy, if occasion arises, to meet contrary arguments. Meanwhile I can but plead for sincere and earnest examination of the arguments I shall now put forward.

Let us study the problem more closely. The principal act of Catholic worship is the Mass. And the Mass is by its nature, which no externals can alter, the sacrifice of the Church. For, as the Pope says in Mediator Dei, "Every time the priest re-enacts what the divine Redeemer did at the Last Supper, the sacrifice is really accomplished; and this sacrifice, always and everywhere, necessarily and of its very nature, has a public and social character . . . This is so, whether the faithful are present . . . or whether they are absent" (Mediator Dei, n. 101).

No merely external circumstances, therefore, can alter the intrinsic nature of the Mass. "Every time the priest re-enacts what the divine Redeemer did at the Last Supper," whether this be done in Latin or Greek or Hebrew or Glagolithic, audibly or inaudibly, in speech or in song, with people present or absent, active or inactive, vocal or dumb, the underlying reality of the Mass remains ever the same. The Mass is the sacrifice of Christ's Mystical Body, the Church, and its social and public character is inseparable from itself.

But it should be obvious that this social and public character, though it can never cease to exist, is capable of varying degrees of manifestation. What Christ did at the Last Supper may be re-enacted in a way which shows forth its public and social character; or it may be re-enacted in a way which conceals or disguises its public and social character. In other words it is possible for its external form to manifest (and thus correspond with) its internal nature; and it is possible for its external form to conceal (and thus be out of harmony with) its internal nature.

And though it does not make any difference to the Mass itself, it does make an enormous difference to the faithful whether the public and social character of the Mass is expressed or not. For if it is so expressed to them, then they can understand that it is public and social worship and that they can publicly and socially participate in it. But if the public and social nature of the Mass is hidden in its externals, then they do not perceive its public and social nature, do not understand it, and cannot participate in it except with difficulty.

Moreover, if the externals of the Mass - that is to say, its liturgical form - does express the internal reality of its social nature, then the form fits the content. It is something genuine, vital, "in order". Whereas if the Mass-liturgy obscures the internal reality of its social nature, then the form does not fit the content: it is something alien, disordered.

And the problem of public worship has arisen precisely because the Mass-liturgy, which was designed to express its public and social nature (and once actually did so), no longer does so adequately. Once it was a fitting and living vehicle of public worship; but now it might be compared to a beautiful museum piece which expresses all too little to our people. It obscures from them the underlying reality of the Mass and renders their active participation in it so difficult that normally they take no external part in its liturgy at all.

As Donald Attwater wrote (Orate Fratres, October, 1936): "The practical expression of our religion and its activities which we call liturgy is cast in forms entirely foreign to the civilisation of today; we offer forms of public worship to people whose mental outlook and life make it almost impossible for them to worship in that way".

Or, as Fr. Paul Doncoeur, S.J., puts it (Orate Fratres, March, 1947): "A lifeless ritualism can smother all the religious life of our people. They cannot be sustained, they cannot continue to live, except by means of a liturgy which is life-giving, and which they can assimilate . . . This is a very serious problem, a problem not only engaging the interest of scholars and aesthetes, but one that should cause concern and anxiety to all who find themselves responsible for their people before God. For we see here a frightening application of the axiom: Lex orandi, lex credendi - the law of worship is the law of faith. If our worship is disordered, then our faith will be disordered; if our liturgy is moribund, our faith will die too. This is a cry of alarm which I utter. For, alas, we must have the courage to admit that in some respects our liturgy is no longer vital; I mean, of course, not in its substance, but in its outward form. It is no longer vital among the people."

To see how vital it once was, and contrast it with things as they are now, let us reflect a little on the history of the Mass-liturgy.

What our Lord did at the Last Supper was simply this: He took bread and wine which His apostles had placed before Him; He turned these into His body as given and His blood as shed; and He distributed the results amongst them. So He instituted that which was, by its nature, a sacrifice; and by its form, a communal meal. And He told them to do the same in memory of Him.

Now this simple action of His became surrounded in time by a ritual; a ritual which was intended not merely to invest the proceedings with solemnity, but also to expand, to explain, to manifest ever more clearly all that was involved in these actions of our Lord. And this ritual in which His own actions became enshrined is what we call the liturgy of the Mass.

This differed in different times and places; but it is generally agreed that it attained particular excellence under Pope St. Gregory about the end of the sixth century. By revising forms in use under his predecessors he produced a ritual of actions and words which was admirably suited to the needs of his own flock - the Catholics of Rome. For them it was a living liturgy - easy, natural, intelligible - in the course of which they, as the Roman Christian community, prayed together, were instructed together, offered sacrifice together, and received of its fruits together.

Its external form perfectly expressed its underlying reality; it corresponded, that is to say, with the fact that this was the public and social offering of sacrifice by the Church.

This liturgy was shaped by Pope St. Gregory according to certain principles which had been at work in all the Mass-forms of all the local churches from the earliest times. His title to glory rests on the fact that he applied these well-known principles more fittingly, more artistically, more effectively than had any other bishop elsewhere.

The first principle was the use, in worship, of the selfsame language which the people used in their everyday life. The earliest Roman Christians were predominantly Of the Greek slave class; their language was Greek; and so Greek was used both in their instruction and in their worship. In the course of a few generations their children "lost the Greek" and took to the Latin of those among whom they lived, just as Germans or Italians who emigrate to America usually begin by talking their own tongue but fail to preserve it beyond their children or their children's children.

When Greek was no longer spoken by the faithful in Rome, it was no longer used in their worship. Instead, the prayers and instructions were in the tongue they now used in their daily lives, namely, in popular Latin. Not, you will note, in the classical literary Latin of the cultured classes, but in the Latin of the people, though dignified, of course, in style and form. That, then, was the first principle of the Roman liturgy of St. Gregory's time - the use of the vernacular.

The second principle, enunciated long before by Pope St. Clement I, was what we might call "differentiation of function". In the body there are many members, but not all the members have the same function. So also the Mystical Body of Christ in its worship has many members, but not all have the same function. Some are to do one thing, some another.

"We must do in an orderly fashion," he wrote, "all that the Master appointed us to do. He commanded us to celebrate sacrifices . . . which we should do thought fully and in due order. For to the presiding priest his own proper liturgy is appointed; to the priests a proper place has been assigned, and the layman is bound by the liturgy of the laity. Let each of us, therefore, brethren, make the Eucharist in his own proper order, not transgressing the fixed rule of each one's own liturgy."

The second principle is, then, that the various things to be done by the community at worship should be apportioned among various people; all were to do their own parts, fulfilling their own functions, not taking to themselves the functions of others. The celebration was to be hierarchic - in due order.

According to these two principles, and making use of prayer-forms customary even before his time in Rome, Pope St. Gregory put together the most perfect Mass-liturgy that has ever existed. It is worth our while to review its main features.

To begin with, the Christian community were to have communal prayers, instruction and song. Hence:

(1) The Entrance Rite. The sacred ministers entered, accompanied by the song of the people led by the schola (group of trained singers). The celebrant, having entered, greeted the people and prayed in their name. (Introit and collect.)

(2) The instruction. There were Scripture readings, variable in number and interspersed with psalm singing. These readings were given by different officials, not the celebrant. The last was the deacon, who sang the gospel. After these readings the celebrant gave the homily. (Epistle, gospel, sermon.)

Now the community proceeded to offer sacrifice.

Wherefore:

(1) There was the offertory procession, in which the people brought their gifts to the altar, singing a psalm as they came. The celebrant chanted (of course aloud, and in their own tongue) a prayer over the gifts. (Offertory, secret.)

(2) Next came the Eucharistic Prayer in the course of which the people's gifts were transformed into the Victim of Calvary, and offered in sacrifice to God. This, of course, was the celebrant's own special part; but the people had some share in it at the beginning (preface responses), in the middle (Sanctus chant) and at the end (the "Great Amen"); and they had the function of being witnesses throughout, since it was all chanted aloud in their own tongue so that they heard and under stood every word of it. Moreover they witnessed every gesture because the celebrant faced them over the altar.

(3) The community, having given their gift to God, now approached to receive God's return-gift, by partaking of the sacrificial Victim from the altar. This Communion procession was preceded by the singing of the Lord's Prayer and the Breaking of Bread, accompanied by the people's own psalm-singing, and followed by the final prayer of the celebrant and dismissal by the deacon. (Pater Noster, Pax, Communion, post-communion, Ite.) And that was all.

In this wonderfully simple and crystal-clear Roman Mass-liturgy there are several points worthy of our special attention, because it is precisely the lack of these which makes our present Mass-liturgy difficult from the standpoint of the people's participation.

(a) There were no private prayers of any kind; every word of the whole ceremony was audible to the people; every word, being in their own tongue, was intelligible to them.

(b) Every part was actually done by those to whom it was assigned; nobody did anybody else's part - each "made the Eucharist in his own proper order, not transgressing the fixed rule of each one's own liturgy".

(c) The intrinsic purpose of each phase of the Mass-drama was not only obvious, but was actually achieved.

In these three respects the present Mass-liturgy offers a startling contrast. As regards point (a), there are many "private" prayers (e.g. Aufer a nobis, Suscipe Sancte Pater, secret, Canon, pre-Communion prayers) which the people do not hear at all, and would not understand if they did hear them (because in an unknown tongue).

As regards (b), the people's parts are constantly being taken over by the choir at a sung Mass, or by an altar boy at a Low Mass. And the priest does everybody's parts as well as his own; he does introit, gradual, offertory and communion which belong to the choir; he does epistle and gospel which belong to the other ministers; he does Gloria and Credo and Sanctus which belong to the people.

As regards (c), the intrinsic purpose of, for instance, the introit, is not in the least obvious. It is meant to put appropriate thoughts into the minds of the community, but in fact it usually does no such thing; it seems to be just "incidental music" by the choir. It is by no means obvious that the readings are to instruct the people, since those who sing or read them turn their backs on the people and use an unknown tongue. And the people are not in fact instructed by these actions. It is not very obvious that the offertory is the presentation and hallowing of the people's gifts, for the people see little, and hear and do nothing. (In this case, however, the intrinsic purpose is achieved - as also in the Canon.)

Probably the most serious drawback of the modem Mass-liturgy is that indicated in point (b) - the complete eclipse of "differentiation of function". For it was this, above all, which made apparent the social nature of the sacrifice. Now that the priest does everything, the result looks like a "one-man sacrifice"; and this, after all, is precisely what it is not.

This liturgy of St. Gregory's was very obviously social; it was something of great interest, intelligible from beginning to end, moving, inspiring, and at certain points even spectacular. And it was all entirely practicable, within the capabilities of the common people. They did not have to learn any dead language; they did not have to be taught how to use Missals; they did not even have to be able to read. Only the sacred ministers and the schola had to have that much culture. The common people were able to take their full part in the liturgy equipped with only those powers which pertained to them as human beings - namely, the power to see, to hear, to walk, and to sing.

But alas, this wonderful, living, fascinating Mass-liturgy, within the capabilities and grasp of the entire Christian community, did not survive St. Gregory's time by much more than a century or two. The people were gradually reduced to that role of "silent and detached spectators" which all but the cultured have today. How did this happen?

There were all sorts of factors at work throughout the course of many centuries. It is impossible here to do more than sketch out just a few of them.

Missionaries went forth from Rome, taking Gregory's Mass-book with them. They came to countries where Latin was not spoken, where local languages were often primitive and undeveloped. Some of them, like SS. Cyril and Methodius, observed the Roman principle that the language of worship should be the language of the people, and so they fashioned a liturgy in the tongue of their converts. Hence the Slavic liturgy which is still with us today.

Others, however, did not make similar adjustments. They preached, indeed, in the local vernaculars so far as they could learn them - they had to, for otherwise they could not have taught the people at all. But when it came to worship, they stuck to the familiar Latin because they were used to it. This was the way they had always done it - and they went on doing it. This meant that the common people could not take part in the singing, except for a few simple easily-learned phrases like "Et cum spiritu tuo" and "Amen". The psalm-singing during the four processions at the entrance, gospel, offertory and Communion had to be done by those few whom the missionaries were able specially to train in the singing of Latin psalms.

This had two unfortunate results. Firstly, the people lost their own function of being a sort of "general chorus" with an important part in the liturgy; they were reduced to the status of being listeners, merely "represented" by the schola. Secondly, as time went on, these scholae became ever more expert at singing. Being now unimpeded by the musical limitations of the common people they began to develop their hitherto simple chants into elaborate compositions filled with florid neums.

By the ninth century things had got a stage further. Musicians were now singing so many notes per syllable that they took a long time to get through their appointed texts. As a result the celebrant was often kept waiting. At the offertory, for instance, he was ready to sing his prayer over the gifts long before the choir had finished. Hence some private prayers, said by the priest inaudibly, were put in to fill up his time and keep him suitably occupied. This principle of inaudible prayers being once admitted led to the prayer over the oblations being likewise said inaudibly. Only the end phrase was kept out loud because it had to be answered.

Likewise the Sanctus chant had become so complicated that neither priest (unless he happened to be a musician) nor people could sing it. Hence the choir sang, the people kept silent, and the priest said it in a low voice. Then, instead of waiting till the choir had finished, and singing the Canon aloud, the clergy got on with it silently before the choir had got through all their neums. As the people could not now understand the Latin Canon anyway, what matter if they could not hear it? The silent Canon and all the interpolated silent private prayers in due course found their way back to Rome itself - probably through travelling monks and returning missionaries.

For by that time even in Rome itself the people's language was no longer Latin; it was Latin in process of developing into Italian. And in other civilised parts of the Roman Empire the once common Latin was developing into what we now call French, Spanish, and Portuguese. The common people everywhere ceased to understand the Latin liturgy which was now within the grasp only of the clergy, the monks, and the educated nobility.

Hence the people ceased to love the Mass as it deserves to be loved, for they could neither understand it nor take part in it. They came with diminished frequency; and they rarely communicated, especially as the offertory procession dropped out through the use of unleavened bread, and money-collections were introduced instead. The liturgy, like its language, threatened to become a dead thing among the people. Moreover low Masses became increasingly common, and were promoted by reason of the stipends attached to them. Sung Masses became ever less frequent until they were hardly to be found outside monasteries and cathedrals.

Thus, gradually, over the course of centuries, the living, organically active and united worship of clergy and people together became a sort of formal ritualism, the almost exclusive preserve of clerics and religious. All that the people could do was to watch. And even that became less interesting when the priests turned their backs to the people, removed the altars from their proximity, and built great screens which cut off the choir (clergy's part) from the nave (people's part) of the churches. The poor folk then could not even see.

The active external participation of the people was thus gradually hindered by these changes in the sung Mass; and the same holds true, to an even greater degree, of the developments in Low Mass. It was here that the principle of "differentiation of function" died too. There being no deacon, no sub-deacon and no choir, the priest took over the functions of them all. He did everything, whether it was really his business or not. And the practice of the celebrant reading introit, epistle, gradual, offertory and Communion found its way ultimately into the sung Mass as well.

All these changes were in the sixteenth century incorporated into rubrics which have perpetuated them to this very day.

Perhaps it is not to be wondered at that the people, having been deprived of playing their full, active role in the Mass, ceased to appreciate it, and almost never communicated until the Fourth Council of the Lateran, in 1215, made the law that all must communicate at least once a year. It is small wonder also that ignorance and apathy became so widespread that there flourished all those manifold abuses which finally contributed to the great upheaval and revolt of the mis-named Reformation. We cannot by any means put the sole blame for the Reformation on to the "reformers".

In the chaos of those evil days it was, of course, absolutely necessary that the Mass be rigidly stabilised by the imposition of hard-and-fast rubrics, however inept modern knowledge of liturgical history has shown some of them to be. One shudders to think what might have happened to the Mass later on if it had not been, as it were, put into the "deep-freezer". Look what occurred later to those externals which were not so rigidly controlled - the music and the vestments. The music became mere "Grand Opera"; and the vestments, with their lace underclothes and cut-away sides became such that, if the priest had not kept his worldly clothes underneath, his sacred clothes would be (considered as garments) positively indecent! Certainly we may be glad that the Mass itself became "buried" in such inflexible rubrics.

But one feels that now, after four centuries, when the danger of the Protestant Reformation has passed, and there is a new awakening to the greatness of the Mass, a reform of rubrics in the light of subsequent liturgical research is urgently needed. For, as they are, they constitute one of the major problems of the practical liturgist who is working to restore active participation of the people. These rubrics were made in the days when there was no participation by the people what ever. And as their purpose was to keep the Mass as it then was, they tend to keep it such that the people cannot participate actively now.

That is why at present we have to resort to all sorts of partial expedients Which are liturgically unsatisfactory, such as making somebody read the epistle and gospel in English while the priest reads them in Latin. These expedients are not "the real thing"; they are activities in the nave which merely run parallel with the activities in the sanctuary - they are not integrated into the liturgy itself. It is not one thing which is going on, but two.

However, there is good reason for hope. The new Holy Saturday rubrics, for instance, do give us "the real thing" in the congregational candle-lighting and in the vernacular renewal of the baptismal vows. We should be duly grateful - and not cease to pray for more such reforms. In time, please God, we shall have them. But until we do have them we have to admit that there are serious reasons which make it difficult for the people to behave otherwise than as "silent and detached spectators". Our present liturgy, as I have endeavoured to show, is not truly a people's liturgy but a liturgy for the cultured. May the intercession of Blessed Pius X, who so desired "active participation of the people" advance the solution of this urgent problem.

In the meantime, however, we may not rest content with sitting back and doing nothing, while "waiting for reform". All available expedients must be tried, within the framework of existing laws, to achieve whatever degree of active participation is here and now possible. And for this purpose the experience of the liturgical movement, of thousands of zealous clergy and tens of thousands of devout laity, must be called upon for help and guidance. Despite present handicaps, much, very much, can be attained when there is good will and love of proper divine worship.

Books and pamphlets, many of them excellent, furthering an intelligent appreciation of the Mass, are multiplying. With personal effort we can always increase our internal participation, and carry out the consequences in terms of community spirit and fraternal charity. However historical developments may have affected the celebration of the holy Sacrifice, the fact (and obligation) remains that "the Mass is the chief act of divine worship ; it should also be the source and centre of Christian piety" (Mediator Del, n. 214).

In other words, in given instances, there may be an excuse for "silent", but never for "detached spectators".