Our participation in the subjective redemption

by Fr William G Most

The Mass is the center of all In the Mass, the essential participation is interior To answer the prayers etc is good, but if the interior is not added, God will say again what He said through Isaiah 29:13: “This people honors me with their lips, but their heart is far from me.” The interior participation of the people lies in two things, according to Pius XII, “Mediator Dei:” 1) The people offer inasmuch as the priest who acts “in persona Christi” thus also represents them, who are Christ’s members; 2) They should unite their interior dispositions to His, especially their obedience to the will of the Father in acting, and in accepting the hardships that come with their daily life Vatican II, Lumen gentium par 34, calls these things “spiritual sacrifices.”

Everything but sin can be turned into gold for eternity as a share in the sufferings of Christ Romans 8:28: “For those who love God, all things work together for good.” Even worry can be made part of this, for Christ worried all His life long His human soul saw the vision of God from conception, and it showed Him everything He had to suffer That was, as it were, eating away at Him, and He let us see inside in Lk 12:50 and John 12:27.

If we love Him, we will want to make reparation for offenses committed against Him by ourselves and by others.