Who is necessary for there to be a valid Mass?

[Nuzzi151]

Our Priest says at the end of Sunday Mass, "Thank you for being here. Mass is the highest form of prayer, and without you there is no Mass."

I always believed the only one who had to be there was the Priest, and wrote him so, i believe he is downgrading the Priesthood. He never responded.

[Fr. Vincent Serpa]

Hi,

You are correct. Without the priest there would a Church full of lay people. But there would be no Mass. That was a very unfortunate thing for a priest to say. He sounds like he is still living in the seventies where it was fashionable to stress the vertical at the expense of the horizontal. When God doesn't come first, such lack faith affects everything.

Fr. Vincent Serpa, O.P.