Challoner on the silent canon
Some time back, I downloaded the (59Mb) pdf of Challoner's Garden of the Soul. Years ago I had a lovely small copy of this devotional work and still hope that it is somewhere around and that I will find it again. Looking up something from the electronic copy for a friend, I clicked through what Challoner says about how to hear Mass devoutly. I was struck by what he said about the silent Canon:
After the Preface follows the Canon of the mass, or the most sacred and solemn part of this divine service, which is read with a low voice, as well to express the silence of Christ in his passion and his hiding at that time his glory and divinity, as to signify the vast importance of that common cause of all mankind, which the priest is then representing as it were in secret to the ear of God; and the reverence and awe with which both priest and people ought to assist at these tremendous mysteries.