fr paul's blog

We are all dependant upon one another in some way.  The meaning of all life only makes sense in relation to others.  A child is utterly dependant on it's mother for food.  Food that makes life grow.  As adults, in a spiritual sense, we are utterly dependant upon our Creator and Redeemer, who gives us life, both physically and spiritually.  We cannot understand the nature of His giving unless we make space within ourselves for Him to enter.  A quiet recollected mind receives that Divine giving.  This giving is a movement from God who gives, to us who receive or put it another way, a movement from contemplation to action .  St Thomas Aquinas states that the highest spiritual perfection consists in this movement.  This is shown, for example in the Gospel account of Mary and Martha.  Martha's activity was not wrong, rather Our Lord says that we must begin from a state of receptivity to purposeful activity.
The essence of all worship begins in this way.  Above all, in the Holy Mass we are fed with that which is given, the Bread of Life, that has come into the world.  We do not take to ourselves that which we can barely understand but we receive it in child-like trust.
The Mass is always a communal act, it is the action of Christ Himself as head of the body, that is mediated through the hands of the Priest.  The prolongation in time of the incarnation.  Therefore the attention of the Priest and people does not lie in each other but upon the altar.