The Mass in Slow Motion Quotes

“Destiny is always jumbling up the pattern of our lives like the patterns in a kaleidoscope. You can’t avoid it, even by entering holy religion; you take a vow of stability, only to find that life is one long round of packing. The charmed circle is always being broken up; we are separated from the people we have grown accustomed to. But do let’s get it clearly in our heads that there can be no real separation, in life or in death, as long as we stick to Holy Mass. In Christ we are all one; the sacred Host is the focus in which all our rays meet, regardless of time and space. Only we must keep true to him; only we must all go on saying that prayer the priest says before his Communion, asking that though he is separated from everything else he may never be separated from our Blessed Lord; A te numquam, a te numquam, a te numquam separari permittas.”
― Ronald Knox, THE MASS IN SLOW MOTION

“Roughly speaking, at a High Mass the priest only murmurs when the choir shouts. But which way about was it? Did the priest say to himself, ‘I can’t be bothered to say this bit out loud, with those sopranos howling me down all the time’? Or did the organist say, ‘The holy priest doesn’t seem to have much to say for himself just now; come on, boys, let ‘em have it’? I don’t know. I only know I always rather wish these Secret prayers after the Offertory were said out loud, because they are so very attractive, some of them.”
― Ronald Knox, The Mass in Slow Motion

“If I have a public, this book, I fear, will be a severe test of its patience.”
― Ronald Knox, The Mass in Slow Motion