This is perhaps the most famous single series of Monsignor Knox’s sermons—the Mass taken step by step, to show what it means to the priest offering it, and what it could mean to the congregation offering it with him. The congregation is a group of literate students, and never were sermons more closely related to the congregation actually present. He never abandons the conversational tone, and he interweaves the most trifling elements in his hearer’s lives with the profoundest spirituality. In reality, the sermons are for everybody: one automatically makes the substitution of one’s own interests and distractions for theirs.
Msgr. Knox on the Old Mass
The famed preacher and essayist wrote, needless to say, about the traditional Latin liturgy, the only one in use during his time. But his reflections will profit all who seek to deepen their love of the Eucharist and plumb its depth of meaning: “I suppose it is the experience of all of us that the Mass, with its terrific uniformity—unvarying throughout Latin Christendom, varying so little from one feast or season to another—does not impose uniformity on our thoughts. Merely because the words and gestures are so familiar, we don’t rest content with their immediate significance; we read fresh meanings of our own into them, treat them as a kind of cipher language in which we communicate our aspirations to Almighty God….”
Now you more completely understand…
- The Mass as one continuous action
- The prayers at the foot of the altar
- Introit, Kyrie, Gloria
- Collects: the why and the how
- Epistle, Gradual, Gospel
- Credo
- Offertory
- Lavabo, Suscipe Sancta Trinitas
- Secret Prayers, Preface
- Sanctus, Te Igitur, Commemoration of the Living
- Communicantes
- Consecration
- Prayers of Offering, Commemoration of the Dead
- Pater Noster to Ite Missa Est
“The introduction is masterful.”—Orate Fratres, 1948
“Open the book at almost any page and you will find there perfect gems of spiritual expression.”—Homiletic and Pastoral Review, 1949
“A charming introduction to the deeper sacramentalism of many Mass actions.”—Catholic World, 1946
“The tone is very personal and the reflections are individual…rather than ordinary.”—The Messenger of the Sacred Heart, 1948
“Substantially one of the best books on the Mass, it is witty, good-humored, personal, informal, most readable.”—Ave Maria Magazine, 1949
“The Mass in Slow Motion is the type of book with which one might relax in an armchair and read at ease over several evenings only to realize later the book had added reverence and depth to one’s own participation in the Mass. ”—Books on Trial, 1948
“We are…soon made captive by this astonishing preacher.”—Tablet
