ship in the
full sense of participation is conditioned upon our being members of the
Body. If we are not members of the Body we have no recognised status as
worshippers. No doubt we each one have our individual aspirations and
needs which we bring with us, but they are the needs and aspirations of
a member of the Body of Christ, and our ability to unite them with the
act that is to be performed grows out of our status as members of the
Body; as such, we join our own intention to the sacrificial act and make
our petitions through it. But we are here as offerers of the Sacrifice,
and may not neglect our official significance, and attempt to turn the
Mass into a private act of worship.

We, then, the Body of Christ in this place, offer the Sacrifice of
Christ. What is the status of the priest? He is a differentiated organ
of the Body, not created by the Body, but created by God in the creation
of the Body. He is not separate from the Body, an official imposed upon
it from the outside, nor is he a creation of the Body set apart to act
upon its behalf. He is one mode of the expression of the Body's
life--the Body could not perfectly perform its functions without him
any more than a physical body can perfectly function without a hand or
an eye. But neither has the priest any existence apart from the Body of
which he is a function. The Sacrifice that he offers is not his on
behalf of the Body, but the Body's own Sacrifice which is made through
his agency.

But a complete body has a head; and of the Body which is the Church the
Head is Christ. We, the members, have our life from Him, the Head; we
are able at all to act spiritually because of our union with Him. He is
our life; and the acts of the Body are ultimately the acts of the Head.
The Sacrifice which the Body offers as the means of its approach to
Divinity is One Sacrifice of the Head: and the priestly function of the
Body has any vitality because it is Christ Who is its life, Who
functions through the priest, Who is, in fact, the true Priest. He
Himself is both Sacrifice and Priest; and that which is offered here is
indentical with that which is offered there.

Our life flows from our Head, is the life of Christ in us. So closely
are we associated with Him that we are called His members, the
instrument through which His life expresses itself, through which He
acts. By virtue of the life of Christ of which all we are partakers, we
are not only members of Christ, but m