"Full Participation"

Vatican II called for "full participation" during the sacred celebration of liturgy in the Church.

My current job calls for me to plan, teach, and direct music for the weekly Children's Liturgy. I find myself asking, "What does 'full participation' really mean?" Does it mean participation in the absolute literal sense: singing every word and note to every song? speaking audibly and clearly every word for every response during mass?

How do people who are deaf "fully participate" then? What if, due to a temporary or permanent disease, someone cannot speak or sing, and therefore "fully paricipate?" Or the parent who must get up during mass with their fussy infant and lull them back to sleep by walking around? They're bound to miss something. They're not fully participating. Or are they? Let's not forget those who are too young, those who are too senile, and those who are too weak. All of these may not be able to "fully participate".

The list could go on and on. The point is this: we are broken people who come to mass to receive Christ through the Word and the Eucharist. Period.


As a student of music and of singing (with a degree to show for it), I can tell you that people can sing without being present- without meaning it. Singing can be, and often is, seperated from the emotion, the spirit, even sometimes the intellect. I've been in choirs (not just church choirs) before where a piece of music that was either dislike or over-rehearsed became dry because the choir, as a whole, was no longer present. In fact, it may be easier for a student of music, who has done a great deal of singing, to let their singing become "dry" and routine.

Now let's apply this to the mass. But let us first make a distincion between being in auto-pilot with spiritual dryness.

If I am in auto-pilot, I may very well appear to be participating- I might be singing, responding, going through all the "motions"- but my thoughts are else where: what's for dinner, why is she wearing that awful color? kind of thoughts.
And I make little or no effort to bring my thoughts to God.

If I go to mass, but I don't "feel" like being there and singing-(maybe I am sorrowful or anxious or nervous or confused), there is even more grace to be obtained if I continue to try, to pray, to seek, to ask God to help my mind and heart be engaged. This is much like spiritual dryness, even if it is temporary.
We will not always "feel" like being at mass. But we go out of faithfulness and love for God.

How easy any of us can fall into this trap during mass! We may be singing...but not participating. Certainly, this is a rational statement, as we have discussed. If this is true, then I'd like to propose another argument, a radical way of looking at the mass:
We may be participating...but not singing!!!

How is this possible? Well, first of all, we know all things are possible with God.

Secondly, if "he who sings, prays twice", then maybe the reverse is true. He who prays twice in his heart is singing. Maybe physical or mental obstacles or age prevent him from doing so, but he is present with the music that is being offered up during the Divine Liturgy.

Remember, at every mass, we are celebrating the Heavenly Liturgy with all the angels and saints. when we sing the "Sanctus", we are "joining in their unending song of praise...".

We cannot see or hear the angels and saints gathered around the altar at each mass. But we accept with faith that they are there. And how can an angel sing anyway? They can't possibly have vocal chords because they do not have physical bodies as we have. They are pure spirit. Maybe their "song" takes the form of light or an energy emmitting from them. But it certainly surpasses our understanding of singing. Hmmm....Maybe we need to stop taking this full participation thing so literally and start trusting that when our hearts and minds are raised, we are with God, and that is the meaning and purpose of worship.

Why do I bring this up? Why do I harp (no pun intended) continuously on music for liturgy and what it means to participate? Because when liturgists and music directors start choosing music for the liturgy based on what will get everyone "participating", they miss the big picture.

Hence, many of our hymns sound like a Mentos commercial because they are about twenty years behind the pop music trend, and we've all but lost chant, early polyphony, and traditional hymnody. Our liturgy is in disrepair, and largely due to this idea of "participation", what it means, how it's implemented

So what is the purpose of music for the liturgy? We will cover that in Part II.