The Workers' Mass

Extract

It is becoming a convention to object to the Aposlolate of Christ the Worker because the name is misleading, or at any rate inadequate. The common answer, too, is becoming something of a recurrent theme. Yet if the answer is examined with an unbiassed mind it will be seen to be perfectly adequate. To quote from the Statutes : ‘The Apostolate of Christ the Worker ... is intended to be a means of bringing back to God the mass of the workers . . . It directs its energies towards the working masses throughout the world, irrespective of class and profession. It may be parochial, non-parochial or professional, according to the members who constitute the various branches. But though doubtless its work may take on a multitude of different aspects, it will remain, under this manifold activity, one indivisible body.’ An even more forcible answer lies in the actual work of the Apostolate, a work which rises from the principle embodied in the last sentence of the quotation, the spirit of unity and brotherhood. Among the works of the Apostolate the founder has put first the celebration of a monthly Mass. By this scheme, now become the Mass Calendar, all Catholics of any status, workers or otherwise, may share in the work and privileges of the Apostolate by offering Mass once a month for specified intentions. Significantly this monthly Mass intention is not included among the preludes to apostolic work, it is not insisted on only as a preparation, of soul, but it is the first and most important part of the actual apostolic work of the movement.