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There are pastoral problems which cannot be addressed without bringing a theological perspective to bear on them. Every aspect of the Christian faith is understood within the limited capacities of human thinking, and human thinking changes as history moves on. If some aspects of the faith are tied up with particular ways of understanding which are no longer effective pastorally or theologically, then change is required. When we acknowledge that every understanding of the Christian faith has roots in its particular time, place and culture, then a sensitivity to changes taking place in those contexts requires a reconsideration of the way the continuing faith is to be expressed in that new situation.
One critical issue requiring such reconsideration today is that of Christ's eucharistic presence. That presence is at the core of the Catholic faith. It is not something that can be left in shadow in the life of the people of God.
THE PEOPLE OF GOD 'DO' THE EUCHARIST
There are two dimensions to the statement that the people of God do the Eucharist. Firstly, it is the gathered people of God who celebrate the Eucharist in memory of their Lord. The description of the Mass in the General Instruction of the Roman Missal makes this point well: "At Mass or the Lord's Supper the people of God is called together, with a priest presiding and acting in the person of Christ, to celebrate the memorial of the Lord or the Eucharistic Sacrifice'.1
The Mass 15 celebrated by the whole people of God; it is within that celebration that the ministerial priest has a crucial role. The point which needs to be made here is that the Mass is not the action of the priest in which the people participate, but the action of the people of God within which the priest presides, prays and acts.
The second dimension involved in saying that the people of God do the Eucharist is that the liturgy is indeed something done. The etymology of the word 'liturgy' makes this clear: that the word ends in '-urgy' reflects the Greek original which means it is the doing of something. It is an action. The word "liturgy" means 'the work or the action of the people'; it is something...