Our Lord and Saviour, Jesus Christ, chose to be born in Bethlehem, a city whose name means "House of Bread." And He chose also to be born in a manger, a trough from which barnyard animals eat. Both of these facts tie the Nativity or birth of Our Lord to the theme of eating or bread. This is why the Church has always seen a profound parallel between the mystery of the Incarnation and the mystery of the Blessed Sacrament. Presence and Communion are the two key ideas that unite these two mysteries of our Faith. The Incarnation (God becoming man) and Transubstantiation (the bread and wine becoming the Body and Blood of Christ) are not two mysteries that are separate or isolated from one another but are profoundly united.
In both the Nativity and at the Transubstantiation, God descends from Heaven in a way that defies our human rationality and understanding. In the first, the mystery is shrouded in the virginal conception and birth of Our Lord; in the second, it is in the hidden presence of Christ's humanity (and through it, His Divinity) behind the veil of food and drink. And in both of these mysteries — precisely because they are mysteries — God has chosen to envelope His Presence in the sacred shroud of silence.
Most Catholics today are used to hearing almost all the words spoken by the Priest at the Altar in what is now called the "Eucharistic Prayer" of the Mass. In fact, the rubrics of the modern Mass instruct the Priest to pray this prayer aloud, in a clear and understandable manner, such that the faithful can hear all the words. The reason used to justify this is the Second Vatican Council's alleged insistence on "active participation," an unfortunate mistranslation of the original Latin expression participatio actuosa, by the lay faithful in the Catholic Mass. The term participatio actuosa should properly be translated as "actual participation" or, more precisely, "participation in act." It does not mean that the lay faithful are supposed to be actively saying things (interjections, acclamations, etc.) during the Mass, or even that they should be engaged in actively doing things — gestures such as the raising of hands, shaking hands at the sign of peace, etc. Participatio actuosa really refers to the interior disposition of soul that the faithful should possess when they assist at Holy Mass: namely, that they should be uniting themselves interiorly to the prayers and actions of the Priest at the Altar, by making their own interior offerings and prayers in union with the Priest. But be that as it may, the term "active participation" has led in modern times to a very major change in understanding of the most sacred part of the Mass itself: the Canon.
What the modern liturgy calls the "Eucharistic Prayer" is traditionally known as the Canon. It is called the Roman Canon because it has been at the very heart of the liturgy of the Roman Rite from Apostolic times until the introduction of the New Order of Mass (Novus Ordo Missae, as Pope Paul VI called it) in 1969. The word Canon in Latin means rule, as in the Rule of Faith, or the Rule of Divine Worship. The Roman Canon is therefore the proper way in which the Church worships God in the Roman liturgy. There is a particular feature of the Roman Canon that makes it stand apart in the Traditional Roman Rite as compared to the modern rite of Mass. It is that the Roman Canon has always been surrounded, from very ancient times, by a very profound silence.
In the Roman Canon, very few prayers are prayed by the Priest out loud such that they can be heard by the Congregation. Only a few words are said aloud, while the rest are prayed by the Priest silently at the Altar, in a low voice. The Priest's words can only be heard by himself and, sometimes, by the servers who are kneeling at the foot of the Altar (and of course by God, the Angels and Saints, and the entire heavenly court that is present at every Mass). This is because the prayers of the Canon are not prayers that are directed to the people, but to God. The faithful could, of course, follow along in their hand missals, especially as these missals grew in popularity in the 20th century, and always included a translation of the Latin prayers into the vernacular; but the faithful were never meant to "participate" in Mass simply be hearing each and every word pronounced by the Priest at the Altar. [The new liturgy, by the way, does have a few prayers prayed silently by the Priest at the Altar, for example right before He gives himself Holy Communion — but these are very rare. Almost all the words of the contemporary Eucharistic liturgy are prayed allowed in the modern rite].
In the Church's traditional liturgy, the most sacred and holy part of the Mass is enveloped in a deep silence, from right after the triple Sanctus until the beginning of Our Lord's Prayer (the Pater Noster or Our Father). Even the words of the Offertory are prayed silently at the Altar by the Priest (something which, incidently, the modern rite does allow for but does not mandate).
The silence of the Offertory and especially of the Roman Canon in the Traditional Roman Rite has often been criticised by modern liturgists. Almost always, their critique falls back on the notion of "actual participation" mentioned above. This is why it is important to understand what participatio actuosa really is, and also why the Church has always had the Priest pray the Roman Canon in silence, from time immemorial until the promulgation of the new rite of Mass in 1969.
At the Office of Lauds (the Church's morning prayer) on the Sunday within the Octave of Christmas in the traditional Roman Breviary, the following antiphon is said or sung at the Benedictus :
Dum médium siléntium tenérent ómnia, et nox in suo cursu médium iter perágeret, omnípotens Sermo tuus, Dómine, a regálibus sédibus venit, allelúja.
It can be translated as:
While all things were in quiet silence, and the night was in the midst of her swift course, Thine Almighty Word, O Lord, came down from Thy Royal Throne, alleluja.
This antiphon within the Christmas Octave conveys the state of the world when the Second Person of the Most Holy Trinity (the Word of God) became incarnate on that first Christmas night. The world was in silence. The quiet night enveloped the grotto where the manger of Bethlehem lay. The world was waiting in silence for the coming of the Saviour. The same world that rejected Him longed for His coming, deep down. The Church Fathers say that the world was in its greatest state of darkness when the Light of Christ descended and came into that manger on that most holy of nights. God descends in silence. And even Christ, who is the Word of God, comes into this world in silence.
The silence of the manger is replicated in the silence of the Altar at Holy Mass. The traditional Roman Liturgy maintains a silent Canon ("Eucharistic Prayer") in order to foster the faithful's union with God. God speaks the language of silence, and He communicates to a heart that is disposed to silence. The many distractions of this world create a constant noise within our soul, and when we come to Holy Mass to worship God, Holy Mother Church invites us to cast aside the distractions of that noise and embrace the silent Word.
The Roman Canon was itself for a long time called the Secret of the Mass, while the prayer that precedes it was referred to as the Secretella or Little Secret. The Church has always believed that holy things are meant to be guarded and protected and only revealed with great care, following the words of Our Lord in the Gospel: Give not that which is holy unto dogs (Mt. 7:6). And that is why she often hides her sacred mysteries behind a type of mystical veil. In the Eastern Catholic Churches, this is represented by the iconostasis used in the Divine Liturgy, behind which is located the Altar, where only the Priest and his sacred ministers are permitted to go. In the Latin West, however, the role of iconostasis or sacred veil has been expressed in a different way: through the use of the Altar Rail, the sacred Latin language, and the silent prayers of the Roman Canon. The silence of the Roman Canon, therefore, is meant to convey the holiness of God, and to provide souls that are about to receive Him in Holy Communion at that Mass with an adequate opportunity to prepare themselves for such a great gift. God is set apart from the language of men. Even Jesus Christ, the Eternal Word of God, speaks to us through the sacred language of silence.
I truly believe that it is time to recover the use of silence in the Eucharistic Prayers of the modern rite of Mass, so as to allow the faithful to focus during the Mass on the mysteries taking place upon the Altar. It is not necessary for the faithful to hear every word that the Priest prays in order to enter into the divine mysteries. The faithful need silence in order to unite themselves to the Incarnate Word who becomes present.
As a Priest, I have offered Holy Mass in both the Traditional and the modern Roman Rite. And it is without a doubt much easier for me to focus on what is taking place upon the sacred Altar when I pray the prayers of the Canon in a low voice, surrounded by an external silence (Traditional Mass). And many of the faithful who have experienced both forms of the Roman liturgy have expressed to me this same reality: that they pray more easily at the Traditional Mass because of the silence that the traditional rite offers them. This silence of the Church's most sublime act of Divine Worship mimics the silence of the manger in Bethlehem and of the Incarnation (see the antiphon above). The entire world was in silence and in the darkness of night when Christ shone His eternal Light upon the human race. So too, a Church in silent and serene prayer is the most perfect setting for the Son of God to once again come down from Heaven and descend upon the sacred Altar.