"Be still and know that I am God"

This weekend I took my wife to a Mass celebrated in the extraordinary form for the first time. We live about 60 miles from the nearest TLM, and this was the first time we had our stuff together enough to make it down to Detroit to hear the high Mass at St. Josaphat. My wife, who is always more to the point than I am and makes her mind up more readily, upon attending the extraordinary form for the first time immediately said, "I like it better than the new Mass." It only took her one hour to deduce what I had to be convinced of over several years!

At any rate, this weekend was a first for me as well, for this was the first TLM I had been to where I didn't in the least way attempt to follow along in the booklets. I know Latin okay, I understand the order of the Mass and I can follow along if I want to, but I accidentally grabbed only one missal and decided to let my wife use it, leaving me to just watch and Mass, pray and absorb what was going on.

I immediately realized how liberating this was. After being exposed only to the NO for so long at a time (even an NO done reverently), it was nice to not to have to do anything physically. Being able to just kneel, pray and unite my heart with the sacrifice of Jesus in silence brought to mind the words of the Lord in Psalm 46:10: "Be still, and know that I am God; I will be exalted among the nations, I will be exalted in the earth." At previous TLM's I had been flipping along in the red booklet, trying to find where the priest was, attempting to pray along with him, sing the responses, etc. This time I just let all that go and prayed, only singing along with the Credo I think.

In doing so, I realized how demanding the NO is. It doesn't just encourage physical participation, it mandates it and precludes any real spirit of silent contemplation. It is a bit odd - our traditions of spirituality all unanimously agree on the need for silent contemplation as a fundamental method for attaining holiness, and yet the most important element of our worship, the Mass (as it is currently celebrated), is very wordy, emphasizing talk, singing and lots of physical gestures by the congregation.

Don't get me wrong - I'm not in any way advocating some kind of Calvinist-Quaker minimialism, but I am drawing a contrast between two types of participation. The TLM allows much more leeway for the congregation to engage in private devotion or silent adoration during the Mass, while the NO is kind of like a liturgical work-out where everybody gathers together, does a lot more physically, mimics the priest and gets precious little time for silent prayer, especially if there is a post-Communion hymn where the congregation is expected to sing immediately after receiving our Lord. I am thankful that at my parish our music director often chooses to simply sing an appropriate piece that doesn't require the congregation to sing along but allows us to pray and listen to the beautiful melodies praising our Lord.

I hope that this spirit of devotion and attunement to the value of silence bleeds into the NO in the coming years as the TLM becomes more widespread. If all of the saints agree that holy silence is a necessary disposition to fruitful contemplation, why would we want a Mass that excludes any opportunity for it?