Hi J;
Welcome back to the Church. If there was no priest present, and no words of consecration, there was no mass. Lay people are not capable of saying mass—that is, consecrating the bread and wine as this requires a validly ordained priest acting “in persona Christi”. And as for lay people giving the homily, this is not permitted either. The General Instruction of the Roman Missal says (a.66), “The homily should ordinarily be given by the priest celebrant himself. He may entrust it to a concelebrating priest or occasionally, according to circumstances, to the deacon, but never to a lay person.” However, lay people are not prohibited from speaking or giving presentations on the faith outside the context of the liturgy, for example, at a retreat or information evening.
You will find, sadly, from time to time, communion services such as these were either there is a lack of a priest on a Sunday or where there is a misguided and abusive attempt by a pastor to provide lay people with “a greater role” in the liturgy.
Your Sunday obligation furthermore is not satisfied by attending a communion service, unless it is difficult, impossible or unreasonable for you to make it to mass. In this case, you would not be guilty of a serious sin by not attending mass (as we would if we failed to fulfil the Sunday obligation, including the obligation to attend mass on Holy Days, without good cause). However, in such cases you do not even need to attend para-liturgical events like the one you describe. But I should add, the dispensation from the Sunday obligation is only obtained with serious reason, such as illness, or being in a foreign country/place where no mass can be found, etc. Being on holiday or having a football game to attend does not suffice. We must make every reasonable effort to fulfill our obligation.
Hope this helps.
