Bishop Gerald Kicanas of Tucson has stressed emphatically the need for the "full and active participation" of Christ’s faithful at the Eucharistic celebration.  He adds his voice to the constant cry of the Church’s Magisterium.  Pope Saint Pius X emphatically encouraged the faithful to actively participate at Mass.  Pius XI cautioned the faithful about being “mere spectators” at the Holy Sacrifice.  Pius XII encouraged the Dialogue Mass, resulting in an unprecedented level of people’s participation.   
   

    These great popes laid the groundwork for the Vatican II Document on the Liturgy.  “Mother Church earnestly desires that all the faithful should be led to that full, conscious, and active participation in liturgical celebrations which is demanded by the very nature of the liturgy.  Such participation by the Christian people as `a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a redeemed people’ (1 Peter 2:9; cf. 2:4-5), is their right and duty by reason of their baptism” (N. 14).”   We are not to sit and stare at Mass as “mere spectators!” 
   

    Pastors of souls are to, “promote the liturgical instruction of the faithful, and also their active participation in the liturgy both internally and externally” (N. 19).  Moreover, the Council Fathers taught that: “Servers, lectors, commentators, and members of the choir also exercise a genuine liturgical function” (N. 29).  This is indeed a form of external participation. 
   

    However, "full and active participation" must go further.  It must be internal as well.  The prayers at Mass often invite the faithful to offer, “fitting sacrifice.”  Full and active participation must begin with striving to live one’s baptismal promises.  The Prophets decried the Sabbath observance of Israelites whose lives were devoid of observing God’s Commandments.  
   

    The Apostles Peter, Paul, James, Jude and John insisted that Christians must be, “worthy of the Christian calling.”  Internal participation begins with living the Church’s faith and moral principles.  “Be you also as living stones built up, a spiritual house, a holy priesthood, to offer up spiritual sacrifices, acceptable to God by Jesus Christ” (1 Peter 2: 5). 
   

    The Council’s Document Lumen Gentium teaches: “Christ the Lord, High Priest taken from among men, made the new people `a kingdom and priests to God the Father.’  The baptized, by regeneration and anointing of the Holy Spirit, are consecrated as a spiritual house and a holy priesthood, in order that through all these works which are those of the Christian man they may offer spiritual sacrifices and proclaim the power of Him who has called them out of darkness into His own marvelous light” (N. 10).
   

    Vatican II affirmed that the ordained priesthood differs from that of the faithful, “in essence and not only in degree.”  The ordained priest offers the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass, “acting in the very Person of Christ.”  How about the faithful?  How are they to offer spiritual sacrifices? 
   

    If we wish to be His disciples, Jesus said, we must take up our crosses daily and follow Him.    At the Offertory of the Mass, the priest raises the paten and offers the Spotless Victim to the Heavenly Father.  It is here, my friends that we offer our crosses.  Internal participation invites us to place our crosses on the sacred vessel along with Jesus, the Spotless Victim.  In so doing, we make supreme sense of our trials and tribulations.  We find the divine reason for our sicknesses, misunderstandings, rejections, loneliness, and the panorama of life’s tears.  “Through Him, with Him and in Him,” we offer the crosses sent by Our Lord to the Heavenly Father in atonement for sins of the world. 
   

    When we come to Mass with this “contribution envelope” of our crosses, we begin to understand the joy of the saints.  They did not want sufferings, yet, they accepted them.   “Now,” Saint Paul says, “I rejoice in my sufferings for you and I fill up those things that are wanting of the sufferings of Christ, for the sake of His body which is the Church” (Col 1: 24).
   

    “This `common priesthood’ is that of Christ the sole priest, in which all His members participate: `Mother Church earnestly desires that all the faithful should be led to that full, conscious, and active participation in liturgical celebrations which is demanded by the very nature of the liturgy, and to which the Christian people, `a chosen race and a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a redeemed people,’ have a right and an obligation by reason of their Baptism” Catechism N.1141).
   

    "Full and active participation," at Mass comes to full fruition when we receive Jesus in Holy Communion. “It is in keeping with the very meaning of the Eucharist that the faithful, if they have the required dispositions, receive communion when they participate in the Mass”  (Catechism N. 1388).
   

    Full, conscious, and active participation at the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass is a way of life centered completely on Jesus Christ, the Savior of the World.  We must heed the Popes.  The Mass is not a spectator sport!