The Texture of Mass, Lent III 2025, Philip Chester

Laudabo Nomen Domini

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The Textured Silence:

Liturgy, Mass and Peter Brook

In the revamped Cardinal Place, a constantly changing text display now shows the remaining hours and minutes in the day—along with suggestions for how one might spend them.

Tomorrow will arrive in 8 hours and 10 minutes. That’s enough time to drive to Cupar or to blink 7335 times. Or take a coach to Port Talbot.

That’s enough time to read Travelling to the 38th Parallel by David Carle.

What do we do with the hours given to us? Time is, of course, a mysterious and elusive construct. It is the river that flows yet stands still, the thread that unravels even as it is woven. And yet, despite its fluidity, it controls our lives.

If we break down how we spend our time, the figures are revealing. We dedicate ourselves to sleep, to work, to eating, to the unceasing demands of the household. These are the essentials—the non-negotiables. Then comes leisure: the hours lost to screens, the conversations shared over meals, the hobbies and distractions that fill the gaps. And at the bottom of the list come religion and community, squeezed into a few brief hours a week.

In an analysis of how we spend our time, we apparently spend on average

56 hours Sleeping

40 hours Working

14 hours  Eating & Drinking

10-15  hours Household Chores (Cleaning, Cooking, Shopping)

These are classed as Essential Activities

And then there are Leisure & Personal Activities -

Watching TV/Streaming – 20 hours

Social Media & Internet Browsing – 14-20 hours

Exercising/Sports – 3-7 hours

Hobbies & Personal Interests – 5-10 hours

Socialising (Friends, Family, Pubs, etc.) – 10 hours

Reading – 3-6 hours

And then at the bottom of the list comes Religion or Community Activities, which take up 3-6 hours a week.

That adds up to around 168 hours in a week—and somehow, we still feel like we don’t have enough time. Even with our days so carefully measured, we still feel that time slips through our fingers. There is never enough of it. But the question is not simply how much time we have, but how we inhabit it. How do we step into moments of depth, of weight, of meaning?

During Lent our sermons are focussing on the Eucharist, the sacrament at the heart of our worship which undergirds our life of faith. And for my sermon I wanted to come at this from something of a tangent.

Our time together at Mass on Sunday occupies roughly one hour out of the 168 hours of our week. Perhaps a bit longer if the preacher goes on too long.

It’s a small percentage of the week, but arguably the most important hour of all. That one hour, that sacred space, has the power to reorient our entire week. It’s the lens through which we see our lives with new clarity, the touchstone that consecrates all our other moments.

I’ve long been intrigued by what I call the texture of worship, and by that I mean the intricate play of elements that come together in the Mass, drawing us into a profound and transformative encounter with God.

To illustrate this, I want to share some insights from Peter Brook, perhaps the most influential stage director of the twentieth century, and his seminal work, The Empty Space (1968). It is a book about theatre, but one that has much to teach us about worship, the Mass, and our shared experience of the sacred.

Brook strips theatre down to its fundamental elements, asserting that all that is required is ‘a man walking across this empty space whilst someone else is watching him’. This seemingly simple observation  encapsulates a profound truth: the essence of theatre, and actually of any meaningful encounter, lies in the act of presence, of witness, of shared experience.

The Eucharist, the Mass, is not a mere recitation of ancient words or a mechanical consumption of symbolic elements. It is an encounter, a profound and transformative encounter, within a carefully constructed empty space, an encounter with the living Christ.

Peter Brook speaks of four kinds of theatre: the Deadly, the Holy, the Rough, and the Immediate. And I think these categories offer a profound lens through which to examine our approach to the Eucharist.

So firstly, he begins with The Deadly Theatre, which is lifeless, ritualistic in the worst sense—repeating actions without conviction. It is predictable, uninspired, and exists mainly to fill seats rather than to challenge or engage the audience.

We know that danger well. It is so easy to come to Mass out of habit rather than expectation. It is so easy to receive the Body of Christ without truly recognising the mystery before us. The Deadly Mass is one where words are spoken but not heard, gestures are made but not inhabited, bread is broken but not received with faith. This, in many ways, is the challenge of Lent: to wake ourselves from spiritual complacency, to move from habit to intention, from familiarity to renewal. If our celebration of the Eucharist is to be true, it must not lapse into the deadly, the perfunctory, or the mechanical.

The Deadly Mass leaves us empty, untouched, unchanged. It’s a missed opportunity for grace.

The danger of Deadly Theatre is not simply its lack of engagement but its inability to change us. If we are to overcome the Deadly Theatre in our worship, we must cultivate hearts that are attentive, expectant, and open to transformation.

Secondly Peter Brook contrasts this with The Holy Theatre, which carries a sense of presence, where something more is happening than meets the eye. He says that in Holy Theatre, the invisible is made visible.

And isn’t this exactly what happens in the Eucharist? Christ, unseen, becomes manifest in the breaking of the bread. The priest’s words, the gathered community, the sacred actions—these are not mere symbols but bear the weight of divine presence. The Eucharist at its best is not just a reenactment of the Last Supper; it is a living, present encounter with Christ. And Lent, with its call to prayer, fasting, and almsgiving, invites us into a heightened awareness of this presence. In stripping away distractions, we learn again to see, to listen, and to recognise Christ in our midst.

The Holy Theatre reminds us that worship is not a passive event. When we enter the sacred space of the Mass, we are stepping into something beyond ourselves, into the very mystery of God. Each time we participate in the Mass, we are drawn into the great drama of salvation. The bread we receive is the same body broken on Calvary; the cup we drink is the blood poured out for our redemption. This is the heart of the Holy Theatre: that in this sacred space, heaven and earth meet, time and eternity converge, and we stand in the presence of the living God.

The Holy Theatre is where we encounter awe. It’s where the veil between heaven and earth thins, and we glimpse the divine. It’s that profound feeling, the sense that we are standing on holy ground.

Then thirdly there is what Peter Brook calls The Rough Theatre, which is raw, embodied, and connected to the world. It reminds us that the Eucharist is not only a transcendent mystery but also something deeply incarnational. Jesus fed the hungry, dined with sinners, and touched the unclean—He was present in the rough, untidy, real world. The Mass must not be so polished that it loses the texture of life, the cries of children, the tiredness of the faithful, the struggles we all bring to the altar. It is the real world entering into the holy space.

When we come to receive Christ in the Eucharist, we do so not as pristine, idealised disciples, but as real people bringing our wounds, our questions, our brokenness. And Christ meets us there.

This is what makes the Eucharist real: not a distant, removed ritual, but the place where our daily lives intersect with divine grace. For me, this is made profoundly manifest at the end of Mass. The dismissal is given, The Mass is ended. Go in the peace of Christ. The priest moves to leave, but then turns back to the altar. Not yet time to go. There is one more prayer, a hinge prayer that captures the connection between our worship and our lives. Pray for us sinners, now and at the hour of our death. It is a dramatic reminder that our faith is fundamentally incarnational, made real in the beauty, the tragedy and the fragility of our lives. For me it is one of the most profound elements of the liturgy, connecting the Mass to daily life.

Deadly Theatre, Holy Theatre, Rough Theatre.

And finally, Brook speaks of The Immediate Theatre, where something electric, transformative happens between performer and audience. This, too, speaks to the Eucharist. The Mass is not a static ceremony; it is a living encounter. When we celebrate the Eucharist, something should change—outwardly, as well as inwardly.

Just as the elements of the Eucharist are changed, so must we be. We do not leave the Mass the same as we came; we are sent out, renewed and empowered to carry Christ into the world.

Will we allow the Eucharist to shape us into the Body of Christ? When we receive the Eucharist, we are not simply receiving Christ for ourselves; we are being commissioned to be Christ in the world. Just as the Eucharist is transformed, so too must we be transformed - into people of love, mercy, and service.

Brook’s vision of theatre reminds us that the Eucharist is not just words spoken, gestures performed, or bread broken; it is an act of presence, transformation, and deep engagement.

The challenge before us is to ensure that our celebration is never deadly, but always holy, rough, and immediate. May we come to the Eucharist today with open hearts, expecting to encounter the living God, and may we leave changed by what we have received. Let us be the living embodiment of the Eucharist, bringing love, mercy, and hope to all we meet. Let us leave this place, not as spectators, but as actors in God’s grand drama of redemption.

And as we continue our Lenten pilgrimage, may we be drawn ever deeper into the mystery of Christ’s presence among us. Amen.