• Skip to primary navigation
  • Skip to main content
  • Skip to primary sidebar

Corpus Christi Watershed

We’re a 501(c)3 public charity established in 2006. We have no endowment, no major donors, no savings, and run no advertisements. We exist solely by the generosity of small donors.

  • Donate
  • Our Team
    • Our Editorial Policy
    • Who We Are
    • How To Contact Us
    • Sainte Marie Bulletin Articles
  • Pew Resources
    • Brébeuf Catholic Hymnal
    • Jogues Illuminated Missal
    • KYRIALE • Saint Antoine Daniel
    • Campion Missal, 3rd Edition
    • Repository • “Spanish Music”
    • Ordinary Form Feasts (Sainte-Marie)
  • MUSICAL WEBSITES
    • René Goupil Gregorian Chant
    • Noël Chabanel Psalms
    • Nova Organi Harmonia (2,279 pages)
    • Roman Missal, 3rd Edition
    • Father Enemond Massé Manuscripts
    • Lalemant Polyphonic
  • Miscellaneous
    • Site Map
    • Secrets of the Conscientious Choirmaster
    • “Wedding March” for lazy organists
    • Emporium Kevin Allen
    • Saint Jean de Lalande Library
    • Sacred Music Symposium 2023
    • The Eight Gregorian Modes
    • Gradual by Pothier’s Protégé
    • Seven (7) Considerations
Views from the Choir Loft

“Soft Source of Calm Tranquillity”: The Quiet Mass

Dr. Peter Kwasniewski · April 24, 2014

EORGE FRIDERIC HANDEL is so well known for his multitudinous English oratorios and Italian operas that it can be hard to remember he was a native German-speaker for whom both of those languages were acquired in the course of a colorful, productive, and largely successful career. It is also surprising that he set to music very few German texts in his life. One lovely exception are the Nine German Arias (HWV 202-210), to which I have been recently listening. The text of the aria “Süße Stille, sanfte Quelle” (HWV 205), written by Barthold Heinrich Brocke in 1721, particularly caught my attention:

Sweet silence,
soft source of calm tranquility:
when after this time
of vain labor
I see in my mind’s eye
that rest which awaits us in eternity.

To me, this poem perfectly captures the feelings one often has at a quiet low Mass. And while I am admittedly an ardent advocate of the sung High Mass and the Solemn Mass, I also know from long and grateful experience how the low Mass (especially on weekdays) can be an oasis of spiritual rest in the midst of our labors, a foretaste of that eternal resting in God that we long for if we are awake and alert to His reality and our destiny.

At Wyoming Catholic College we have a calm, almost whispered early morning low Mass each Saturday. It is so still in the church that you are strangely aware of silent things like the sunlight pouring through the windows. You hear the birds singing around the church as the daylight grows. As the age-old and ageless dialogue of the priest and servers wafts over me, I feel my soul grow calm in the presence of the Lord: the “still, small voice” of God speaks to me through the sacred liturgy. I understand better what Dom Guéranger once wrote: “The Holy Spirit has made the liturgy the center of his working in men’s souls.”

The Novus Ordo almost never allows for this kind of experience. After decades of experiencing it in the best possible situations, with priests of unquestionable orthodoxy and piety, appropriate sacred music, and so forth, that profound tranquillity, simplicity, silence, and otherworldliness, so characteristic of the traditional Low Mass, has proved ever elusive. I think the main reason is that the Novus Ordo is often demanding that you DO something, SPEAK or MOVE or whatever; you are never left at peace for long. It’s like having a schoolmarm who is always there poking you awake from your daydream and demanding that you get back to your long division problems: no time to waste! We’ve got work to do!

We modern Westerners are so inured to (one might even say seduced by) activism, we sometimes end up losing in our feverish work the graces we could have obtained in peace of soul, “waiting on the Lord.” Perhaps what we need the most is to let ourselves simply “be” in the presence of the Lord, abiding with Him, breathing with His breath, watching for Him to show Himself in some small way that is nevertheless immensely precious. It’s very hard to express what I’m talking about to someone who has not experienced a truly prayerful Low Mass―and for those who have experienced it, no explanation is necessary.

Please visit THIS PAGE to learn more about Dr. Kwasniewski’s exciting new publication,
Sacred Choral Works, a 273-page collection of a cappella choir music for the Liturgy.

Opinions by blog authors do not necessarily represent the views of Corpus Christi Watershed.

Filed Under: Articles Last Updated: January 1, 2020

Subscribe

It greatly helps us if you subscribe to our mailing list!

* indicates required

About Dr. Peter Kwasniewski

A graduate of Thomas Aquinas College (B.A. in Liberal Arts) and The Catholic University of America (M.A. and Ph.D. in Philosophy), Dr. Peter Kwasniewski is currently Professor at Wyoming Catholic College. He is also a published and performed composer, especially of sacred music.

Primary Sidebar

Corpus Christi Watershed

President’s Corner

    PDF Download • “Polyphonic Extension” (Kevin Allen) for Gloria III
    EVIN ALLEN was commissioned by Sacred Music Symposium 2025 to compose a polyphonic ‘middle section’ for the GLORIA from Mass III, often denoted by its trope name: Missa Kyrie Deus sempiterne. This year, I’m traveling from Singapore to serve on the symposium faculty. I will be conducting Palestrina’s ‘Ave Maria’ as well as teaching plainsong to the men. A few days ago, I was asked to record rehearsal videos for this beautiful polyphonic extension. (See below.) This polyphonic composition fits ‘inside’ GLORIA III. That is, the congregation sings for the beginning and end, but the choir alone adds polyphony to the middle. The easiest way to understand how everything fits together is by examining this congregational insert. You may download the score, generously made available to the whole world—free of charge—by CORPUS CHRISTI WATERSHED:
    *  PDF Download • Gloria III ‘Middle Section’ (Kevin Allen)
    Free rehearsal videos for each individual voice await you at #24366. Related News • My colleague, Jeff Ostrowski, composed an organ accompaniment for this same GLORIA a few months ago. Obviously, the organist should drop out when the polyphony is being sung.
    —Corrinne May
    “Booklet of Eucharistic Hymns” (16 pages)
    I was asked to create a booklet for my parish to use during our CORPUS CHRISTI PROCESSION on 22 June 2025. Would you be willing to look over the DRAFT BOOKLET (16 pages) I came up with? I tried to include a variety of hymns: some have a refrain; some are in major, others in minor; some are metered, others are plainsong; some are in Spanish, some are in Latin, but most are in English. Normally, we’d use the Brébeuf Hymnal—but we can’t risk having our congregation carry those heavy books all over the city to various churches.
    —Jeff Ostrowski
    “Yahweh” in church songs?
    My pastor asked me to write a weekly column for our parish bulletin. The one scheduled to run on 22 June 2025 is called “Three Words in a Psalm” and speaks of translating the TETRAGRAMMATON. You can read the article at this column repository. All of them are quite brief because I was asked to keep within a certain word limit.
    —Jeff Ostrowski

Quick Thoughts

    Antiphons Don’t Match?
    A reader wants to know why the Entrance and Communion antiphons in certain publications deviate from what’s prescribed by the GRADUALE ROMANUM published after Vatican II. Click here to read our answer. The short answer is: the Adalbert Propers were never intended to be sung. They were intended for private Masses only (or Masses without music). The “Graduale Parvum,” published by the John Henry Newman Institute of Liturgical Music in 2023, mostly uses the Adalbert Propers—but sometimes uses the GRADUALE text: e.g. Solemnity of Saints Peter and Paul (29 June).
    —Corpus Christi Watershed
    When to Sit, Stand and Kneel like it’s 1962
    There are lots of different guides to postures for Mass, but I couldn’t find one which matched our local Latin Mass, so I made this one: sit-stand-kneel-crop
    —Veronica Brandt
    The Funeral Rites of the Graduale Romanum
    Lately I have been paging through the 1974 Graduale Romanum (see p. 678 ff.) and have been fascinated by the funeral rites found therein, especially the simply-beautiful Psalmody that is appointed for all the different occasions before and after the funeral Mass: at the vigil/wake, at the house of the deceased, processing to the church, at the church, processing to the cemetery, and at the cemetery. Would that this “stational Psalmody” of the Novus Ordo funeral rites saw wider usage! If you or anyone you know have ever used it, please do let me know.
    —Daniel Tucker

Random Quote

Thus in 1905 the Vatican Kyriale appeared with rhythmic signs and the following legend: “Præsens exemplar, rhythmicis signis a Solesmensibus monachis ornatum, typicae Vaticanæ editioni de cætero plane conforme repertum est.” (This copy, provided with rhythmic signs by the monks of Solesmes, completely agrees in every other respect with the Vatican original.)

— Dom Gregory Hügle, OSB

Recent Posts

  • PDF Download • “Polyphonic Extension” (Kevin Allen) for Gloria III
  • “Booklet of Eucharistic Hymns” (16 pages)
  • PDF Download • “Text by Saint Francis of Assisi” (choral setting w/ organ: Soprano & Alto)
  • “Yahweh” in church songs?
  • “Music List” • Pentecost Sunday

Subscribe

Subscribe

* indicates required

Copyright © 2025 Corpus Christi Watershed · Isaac Jogues on Genesis Framework · WordPress · Log in

Corpus Christi Watershed is a 501(c)3 public charity dedicated to exploring and embodying as our calling the relationship of religion, culture, and the arts. This non-profit organization employs the creative media in service of theology, the Church, and Christian culture for the enrichment and enjoyment of the public.

The election of Pope Leo XIV has been exciting, and we’re filled with hope for our apostolate’s future!

But we’re under pressure to transfer our website to a “subscription model.”

We don’t want to do that. We believe our website should remain free to all.

Our president has written the following letter:

President’s Message (dated 30 May 2025)

Are you able to support us?

clock.png

Time's up