It can be tempting to think that if we are not actively doing something at Mass, we are not "participating" in what is taking place.
Yet, the Church is firm in its belief that everyone participates in Mass, even if that participation is from the pews.
The whole Body of Christ participates
The Catechism of the Catholic Church explains that the entire Body of Christ participates in every liturgy.
It is the whole community, the Body of Christ united with its Head, that celebrates. "Liturgical services are not private functions but are celebrations of the Church which is 'the sacrament of unity,' namely, the holy people united and organized under the authority of the bishops. Therefore, liturgical services pertain to the whole Body of the Church. They manifest it, and have effects upon it. But they touch individual members of the Church in different ways, depending on their orders, their role in the liturgical services, and their actual participation in them."
However, this does not mean that everyone participates in the same way, or is called to the same function.
But "the members do not all have the same function." Certain members are called by God, in and through the Church, to a special service of the community. These servants are chosen and consecrated by the sacrament of Holy Orders, by which the Holy Spirit enables them to act in the person of Christ the head, for the service of all the members of the Church. The ordained minister is, as it were, an "icon" of Christ the priest. Since it is in the Eucharist that the sacrament of the Church is made fully visible, it is in his presiding at the Eucharist that the bishop's ministry is most evident, as well as, in communion with him, the ministry of priests and deacons.
Each according to his or her function
It is important to know that the Holy Spirit works through everyone, not only the priest, and that each of us are called to participate in our own unique way.
In the celebration of the sacraments it is thus the whole assembly that is leitourgos, each according to his function, but in the "unity of the Spirit" who acts in all. "In liturgical celebrations each person, minister or layman, who has an office to perform, should carry out all and only those parts which pertain to his office by the nature of the rite and the norms of the liturgy."
We don't have to serve, read a reading or be an usher to participate at Mass. Our presence and spiritual participation enables us to unite with the Body of Christ and to lift up our hearts to God in praise.
