THUS far we have attempted to see clearly that the Mass is a sacrifice, a particular form of gift-giving which is in full accordance with our way of dealing with each other, and so also with Almighty God. It is not just a prayer, but an action. It is not just any action but this particular action of gift-giving.

We give our gift to God; like all gifts, it has a meaning and a value. Our gift starts off as bread and wine, having little meaning and practically no value. We put the meaning into it at the offertory and Christ puts the value into it at the Consecration; and then all of us - Christ and we - offer the now perfect gift, rich in meaning and infinite in value, to God Our Father in worship. And that is the sacrifice of the Mass.

But is that all of the Mass? No! It would not be natural if that were all there is to it. Our human nature needs more. Think again of the instances of gift-giving we have taken as examples - the young man who gave his girl a box of chocolates, and the child who gave her mother a flower. What happens in these cases? Is everything complete when the gift has been given? Not at all! There is a return-gift, and so an exchange of gifts. That is what is natural. And is there only action? Only giving? Again, no. There is also conversation - a preliminary exchange of words.

Look at one of the examples in detail: the young man, the girl and the chocolates. It would not be natural for him to appear before her in silence holding his box out to her; nor would it be natural for her to take it without a word. First of all there is some conversation. He says "Hello, darling! I've brought you a present and I hope you'll like it." And she replies "What is it? OO-o-o-oh! How marvellous! You are a perfect dear to have thought of it! " - or something like that. They begin by making verbal contact with each other; they exchange words. That is the natural prelude to gift-giving.

And what next? He gives the box; she opens it and eats some. Does she then put the lid on and stow it in a cupboard? Not likely! When she has tasted the chocolates, the obvious and natural thing is to offer some to him, so that he, too, may eat. He gives to her - so she gives to him. That is what "comes natural". They exchange gifts.

And it is just the same with God and us. We come to give God a gift. We don't just do it in silence - we begin by making verbal contact with God. We call out to Him. We say (equivalently), "Dear God, have mercy on us" (Kyrie eleison). We say, "God, how wonderful You are!" (Gloria in excelsis Deo . . . ) We say, "Please, God, we want something!" (Oremus, Deus a quo bona cuncta procedunt . . . ) Thus we send our words up to God.

And then God replies. He sends His words down to us. He speaks to us through one of His Apostles or prophets (Lectio epistolae beati Pauli Apostoli . . . ). Then He speaks to us through His Only-begotten Son,

Our Lord (Sequentia sancti Evangelii secundum Joannem . . ) Sometimes He speaks to us also through His minister, the priest. Thus we hear the epistle, the gospel and the sermon - each called "the word of God".

How simple and how natural all this is: our words go to God (Kyrie, Gloria, and Oratio), and then God's words come to us (epistle, gospel, and sermon). What is all this but exchange of words?

Now we proceed to our gift-giving. We hold out (in the hands of our priest) our bread and wine. We put the meaning into these gifts (offertory). Christ puts the value into the gifts (consecration). And then we all offer them to God, through Christ and in Him and with Him. Our gift goes to God.

But is that the end of the proceedings? Does nothing else happen? It would be very unnatural if that were so. If the young man who gave a present to his girl gets something back, if the child who gives a present to her mother gets something back, shall not we who have given a present to our God get something back?

Of course we do! God offers back to us a share of what we gave to Him, just as the girl offers back to her swain a share of what he gave her. God says "have some!" And so we come to the altar and eat of the sacrificial gift. That is Communion. It is the return-gift from God - the natural and obvious sequel to our giving a gift to Him. Exchange of gifts!

See now the whole outline of the Mass; see how simple it is and how utterly natural.

First, exchange of words.

Second, exchange of gifts.

Thus the whole process is complete.

Holy Communion, then, is an integral part of the Mass. It belongs in the Mass. It is not something on its own - a sort of extra to be put in or left out or put before or put after Mass according as people happen to be feeling pious or cold or hurried or leisured. It belongs in the Mass and to the Mass and is part of the Mass.

Now nothing is complete if any of its parts are missing. The Mass is sacrificial worship not merely of the priests, but also of the people. And Communion is part of it. So if people leave out their Communion at Mass they are leaving their sacrificial worship somehow incomplete. They have not "finished the job". They have made no exchange of gifts with God.

It is true, of course, that people are not individually bound by any obligation to complete this exchange; but in order to ensure that there shall be an exchange the Church insists that God's return-gift shall always be accepted by somebody. And that "somebody" is the priest who is bound to receive Communion at every Mass which he celebrates.

But what about the people who offered the sacrifice "according to their degree" with him and through him? Surely it is not seemly or proper or natural or reasonable if they, who have given a gift, refuse to accept God's gift in return? On the contrary. Even if it is not of obligation for them, it is "right and just, proper and salutary" - and also reasonable and natural - that all those who offer should likewise receive. In other words all should go to Holy Communion at every Mass.

For it is by communicating that each person really appropriates, makes his own, "personalises" the Mass he has helped to offer. It is the most important of all possible ways of sharing in the sacrifice. Not only does common sense make that clear, but even the very words used in offering the sacrifice imply it. For, just after the Consecration, when the Victim is there to be offered, the priest in the name of all prays: "We humbly beseech Thee, Almighty God. . . that as many of us as shall partake from this altar of the most sacred body and blood of Thy Son may be filled with every heavenly blessing and grace".

Don't people want to be filled with every heavenly blessing and grace? If they do, they should "partake from the altar of the most sacred body and blood" of God's Son. If they do not so partake, then they will not be "filled with every heavenly blessing and grace". Doubtless they will receive some blessing and some graces, for they have worshipped God and offered Him their gift.

But unless they also receive God's return-gift in Holy Communion they will not have derived from their sacrifice all that they might have done. If they miss Holy Communion they miss the most precious grace and blessing of all!

That, then, is the ideal, the right and proper and reasonable thing - that everyone who offers the Mass should receive Holy Communion thereat. If there are five people besides the priest at Mass, there ought to be five Communions. If there are fifty people, there should be fifty Communions. If there are five hundred people, there should be five hundred Communions. If there are only four hundred and ninety-nine Communions, then some member of that worshipping community has spoiled the perfection of the worship by not fully doing his part; somebody has omitted his gift-exchange with God. (Of course this would not apply to anyone who had communicated at an earlier Mass.)

In case anyone thinks I am urging some new and startling doctrine, I would point out that this was the invariable practice of the early Church. People in those days seem to have understood far better than modern folk what the sacrifice of the Mass involves. Nobody then would think of offering Mass without receiving Communion. Everybody always communicated (unless he had been excommunicated; which meant not only that he was debarred from communicating - that is, from receiving God's gift - but he was not allowed either to sacrifice - that is, to offer his gift with his brethren).

It is very sad that, for a variety of reasons which for lack of space cannot here be described, people in the course of centuries became ignorant and slack. Fewer and fewer received Holy Communion at Mass. At last things got so bad that the Fourth Council of the Lateran, in A.D. 1215, had to make a law that people must receive Holy Communion at least once a year. To such a low ebb had Catholic devotion sunk by that time!

About three and a half centuries later, in A.D. 1562, the Council of Trent tried to make people see the ideal again. The Council taught that it was desirable "that at every Mass the faithful present should communicate, not only by spiritual desire, but by actual sacramental reception of the Eucharist".( Session XXII, chap 6. Denziger Enchiridion, II, 944). So that is the official teaching of the Church.

Yet one would hardly think so, judging by the behaviour of lots of Catholics at Sunday Mass. Go into any church on Sunday morning and watch! At the earlier Masses there are many who do things properly, exchanging not only words, but also gifts with God. They do partake of the sacrifice by Holy Communion. But even at these Masses there are usually a number who spoil the perfection of the community worship by not communicating. At later Masses things get bad; and the last Mass is often deplorable. There may be hundreds of people in a packed church, yet nobody (or almost nobody) at Communion.

Truly that is a disturbing sight; it betrays wide spread apathy and ignorance of what the Mass is and what it means. For reason, the words of the Mass, and the official teaching of the Church all tell us that the ideal is for everybody at Mass to receive Holy Communion as their part of it.

Yet all these hundreds (or thousands or millions if we think of the whole world) are falling short of that ideal. The Mystical Body of Christ as a whole, instead of being "filled with every blessing and grace", is being undernourished, because vast numbers of its members, even though they avoid mortal sin by being present at the sacrifice, show no appreciation of the return-gift of the sacrifice which God offers to them.

Why do they do it? As I have said, it is through apathy and ignorance. It is apathy in the case of those who come to Mass merely because it is of obligation. They are there just because they have got to be there. They are doing the absolute minimum consistent with not lapsing from the Faith. They are bound to come to Mass, so they come. They are not bound to receive Communion, so they don't. They are not concerned to please God and give Him glory - they are concerned only to escape hell. What an attitude! They are not much use to the Mystical Body!

But I am convinced that there are others with better dispositions than that, who nevertheless refrain from Communion. And in their case it is not so much apathy as ignorance. They do not fully realise that Mass and Communion belong together. Instead they have got from somewhere or other a different idea of what things "belong together", and it is a wrong idea. For they connect Communion with confession rather than with the Mass. They think that confession and Communion belong together in such a way that one connotes the other; they imagine that you may not normally go to Communion unless you have first been to confession - that confession is necessary before each Communion.

This idea is wrong. It is the remains of a heresy called Jansenism which was condemned about three hundred years ago. Yet its effect persists in this form. The idea is wrong, and it has bad effects.

It is wrong: because the truth is that confession is a necessary prelude to Holy Communion only for those who are in the state of mortal sin. If they are not in mortal sin, they need not go to confession. (Of course they may, if they like, but I am here speaking of obligation.) They can - and should - receive Communion at their Mass even if they have not recently been to confession.

Imagine yourself up in the choir-loft of some church on a Sunday morning; you look down on hundreds and hundreds of Catholics at Mass, and you observe that only half of them (or less, if a late Mass) go to Communion. Can you really believe that all the rest are in the state of mortal sin? Is the church half-filled with God's enemies - people who have done something so wicked that they are hanging over the pit of hell? I can't believe that of them!

I think the explanation is merely that they are people who do not happen to have been to confession the previous evening, and that they therefore consider themselves unworthy to communicate. Those who do communicate are those who went to confession yesterday; those who do not communicate are those who did not confess yesterday. That, I think (apart from the exceptions, the daily communicants), just about sums up the situation.

If only they could be disabused of this hateful notion that they may not communicate except just after confession! If they all realised that they were perfectly free to receive the holy Eucharist (mortal sin apart) and that God wants them to do so, would they not crowd up to the Communion rails? If they truly understood that the act of worship (both communal and individual) falls short of the ideal through their abstention from Communion, would they not accept it?

Apply this, now, to yourself. I am presuming that you are a practising Catholic who comes to Mass every Sunday. Well, suppose you are there and that you have not broken your fast (for that is the present law. It was not always so, and perhaps the time may come when again it will not be so. But that is how the law stands now.) (This was written before the promulgation of the Apostolic Constitution "Christus Dominus" of Jan. 6th, 1953, which mitigated the Eucharistic fast.) The bell rings for the "Domine non sum dignus" and some people approach the altar rails. You have to decide whether you will leave your place and join them.

How do you decide? What question do you ask yourself? Do you ask, "When was my last confession?" That is the wrong question - it is off the point. The question which matters is, "Am I in mortal sin?" If the answer to this were to be "Yes!" (as, I hope, is never the case), then of course you would have to stay in your place. You could not communicate. But if the answer is "No! Not as far as I am aware" - then leave your place and go to the altar rails.

"But," you may say, "I haven't been to confession for a month! And I'm afraid I have committed all sorts of sins in that month. Surely I am not worthy to receive Communion?"

No doubt you have committed some sins during that month - owing to our human weakness we all do. But unless any of those sins were mortal sins they are no obstacle to your Communion. As venial sins were probably washed away by the "sacramental" of your taking holy water devoutly as you entered the church, or by your joining contritely in the "Confiteor" at the beginning of Mass. You may have committed them indeed, but their guilt is no longer with you and they should not hold you back.

And of course you are not worthy - who is? All that matters at the moment is that you qualify by reason of not being in the state of mortal sin. You have the life of grace in your soul. You are a living member of the Mystical Body. Therefore you are invited by God to partake of the sacrificial gift you have just offered to Him.

And you should heed His invitation whether your last confession was last week or last month or last year the length of time since your last confession is not the point at all. It is grace which is, at this moment, the point that matters.

So you see, confession is not necessary every Saturday as a condition of receiving Holy Communion every Sunday. If it were, the Communion would be a burden, since a whole lot of people who can and do get to Mass each Sunday just cannot get to confession each Saturday. And it is a thousand pities if they think that that debars them from weekly Communion.

That many do so think I am absolutely convinced. This wrong idea holds incalculable numbers of Catholics from weekly Communion. They think weekly Communion means weekly confession - and that is more than they can tackle. They can (and do) manage confession periodically - say, once a month; but they then limit their Communions to those Masses which immediately follow their confession. At the intervening Masses they do not communicate; and the reason is not that they have fallen into mortal sin, but simply and solely the fact that they have not just been to confession.

What harm this idea does to souls! How it reduces the nourishment of the Mystical Body of Christ, and spoils the completeness of the sacrificial worship offered by so many!

Please note carefully that I am not trying to discourage frequent - even weekly - confession. If people want to confess weekly, by all means let them do so. Our Holy Father has in recent years made a special point of encouraging frequent confession. What I am denouncing is the idea that this is necessary in order to receive Holy Communion.

And I denounce it because it is not the truth; it is contrary to the teaching of the Church and is responsible for the omission of Holy Communion at Mass by untold numbers of Catholics who could communicate.

So think very seriously of what you do if you omit to receive Communion as part of your Mass. You behave in a way which is both unnatural and ungrateful. You spoil things. (I am abstracting, of course, from cases where individuals find it impossible to come to Mass fasting, even according to the provisions of "Christus Dominus".) For, if you are doing your offertory properly, and taking part as you should in the Canon, you are, in effect, saying to God: "Dear Lord, I love You! And I want to make You a present!" "What present?" says God. "This bread and wine, Lord! This means me. I gave You my whole self under this symbol at the Offertory; and now I am joining myself to the perfect Gift: the sacrificial body and blood of Your beloved Son."

"Thank you," says God; "I am very pleased with that. And to show that I love you too, I am going to give you a present in return." "What present, Lord?" you ask. "This same holy Bread!" replies God. "Receive this body of My beloved Son, for your spiritual nourishment now and as a preparation for eternal life." And if you do not accept it when you might, you are answering, in effect, "No thank You, Lord. Not today, thank You. I am not taking Your present. I prefer to do without. Some other day perhaps . . . some other time . . . next week, maybe; or next month. But not now. I shall get on without Your present."

Can that be pleasing to God? Is that the right and natural and reasonable way to treat God? Yet that, in practice, is the answer of those who come to Mass and yet, though not in mortal sin, do not "partake from this altar of the most sacred body and blood" of God's Son.