Part 2
The novus ordo restores the essential three part action of this type of sacrifice to the visible realm in as much as (1) we all offer the food of bread and wine in the offertory procession, (2) the clergy "confects" the Eucharist (converting it from ordinary food to sacred food), and (3) we all communally eat and drink of the consecrated gifts. 

These elements were present, of course, in the Tridentine ritual, but the essential role of the faithful bringing the gifts and sharing fully in the meal by eating and drinking have been rendered physically visible in bodily gesture. Since the same visible action (leiturgia, public action) was equally visible in the early liturgy, this aspect of the novus ordo is properly characterized as a "reform", a "restoration" of a ritual that had become "corrupt" in the sense that essential elements with obscured. 

"Assisting at mass" in my experience conjures images of the faithful as silent, non-essential observes at a sacred priestly ritual.