The Silent Canon

The New Liturgical Movement  has an extremely interesting, and indeed, one might well argue, important post about the significance of the Silent Canon.

The Silent Canon: Is Worship Supposed to be Aweful? is by Peter Kwasniewski, but based upon an essay by Charles Harris from 1932 in Liturgy and Worship a volume of Anglican liturgical studies. This does raise the point in one's mind about mutual enrichment and what the Anglican scholarly tradition can bring to the wider Church.

The points made about the spiritual value and of the antiquity of the silent or barely audible recitation of the Canon of the Mass are well worthy of attention. In its own way this is reminisent of Fr Michael Lang's Turning to the Lord about the eastward position for celebration of the liturgy.

Today the Silent Canon often appears starnage to the worshipper formed in the novus ordo tradition or in its Anglican cognates, and it does take a little getting used to, of learning how to employ oneself in prayer and meditation properly during that sacred time. Pope Benedict wrote of his regret at the loss of that silence, andits use is being both advocated by liturgists, and used in practice by some in their celebration of the Mass - the Ordinariate here in England certainly make use of the practice in the novus ordo.

Do read Kwasniewski's important and insightful article and reflect upon it - in prayerful silence.