It is said that the liturgy may be lived in more than one way, and that popular piety has a liturgical sense of its own, which takes a different shape in each culture. For this the Considerations give Romano Guardini’s account of Monreale in Holy Week. Arriving on Holy Thursday when the Mass was already past the consecration, he found a crowd that sat and watched, hardly anyone reading, every one intent on beholding; on Holy Saturday a ray broke now and then through the vault, and a rite of more than four hours kept the people taking part throughout.

From it he drew a distinction. Prayerful participation may go by listening, speaking and gesture, or by seeing. The first is good, and it is all the North now knows; what the North had lost, and was still alive at Monreale, was the gift of “living in the gaze”, of receiving the holy in form and event by contemplating it.

What is it then? I will pray with the spirit, I will pray also with the understanding; I will sing with the spirit, I will sing also with the understanding. Else if thou shalt bless with the spirit, how shall he that holdeth the place of the unlearned say, Amen, to thy blessing? because he knoweth not what thou sayest.

i · 1 Corinthians 14:15–16 · Douay-Rheims

^jOne thing I have asked of the Lord, this will I seek after; that I may dwell in the house of the Lord all the days of my life. That I may see the delight of the Lord, and may visit his temple.

j · Psalm 26:4 · Douay-Rheims

^kAnd whereas such is the nature of man, that, without external helps, he cannot easily be raised to the meditation of divine things; therefore has holy Mother Church instituted certain rites, to wit that certain things be pronounced in the mass in a low, and others in a louder, tone. She has likewise employed ceremonies, such as mystic benedictions, lights, incense, vestments, and many other things of this kind, derived from an apostolical discipline and tradition, whereby both the majesty of so great a sacrifice might be recommended, and the minds of the faithful be excited, by those visible signs of religion and piety, to the contemplation of those most sublime things which are hidden in this sacrifice.

k · Trent, sess. XXII (1562), ch. 5 · Waterworth (1848)

^lBut the Lord is in his holy temple: let all the earth keep silence before him.

l · Habacuc 2:20 · Douay-Rheims

ad i

Guardini's first way: listening, speaking, gesture. Paul asks for it, prayer with the understanding, so that the unlearned can say Amen.

ad j, k

His second way, seeing. The Psalmist asks to see the delight of the Lord. Trent gives the reason, the nature of man again, and the means: visible signs that raise the mind to contemplation. Monreale is Trent's chapter 5 in the act.

ad l

And silence, which the Council counts among the ways of taking part.

☞ The checker

Nothing to compute here. No rule ranks one mode of participation above another, and none is needed: the primary texts hold both ways. Guardini is the Dicastery's witness, and binds nothing (n. 8).