Why Does the Priest Whisper Some Prayers?
At each Mass, you’ll notice the priest offering some prayers at a whisper. From time to time, they’re spoken just loudly enough to make them out. As the priest adds water to the chalice, for instance, you might hear, very softly: “By the mystery of this water and wine may we come to share in the divinity of Christ…” And, when pouring water over his hands: “Wash me, O Lord, from my iniquity and cleanse me from my sin.”
To be sure, these “secret” prayers are not meant to separate priests from the rest of the faithful, as if these are prayers reserved for a class of spiritual elite. Neither is there some deeper and more mystical ritual underneath the Mass that only priests are permitted to enter into.
In a sense, the priest’s whispered prayers are simply his own personal prayers, his private (even if prescribed) way of participating in the Mass as an individual. Each Christian brings to the Mass the unique prayers of his or her heart. This is just as true for the priest as it is for anyone else. The Benedictine writer Father Boniface Hicks reminds us that the priest “is not merely a functionary who mechanically carries out certain ritual words and gestures in order to bring about a particular result…. He is also personally a participant in these sacred mysteries. His own relationship with God grows through his silent, internal participation in the prayers of the Mass.”1 These whispered prayers give us a glimpse of that reality ― that the priest, too, is offering up his worries, intentions, and gratitude.
Moreover, the experience of seeing the priest whisper his prayers teaches the congregation something about their own participation in the Mass. It reminds us that we too are in a private, whispered dialogue with God. It is true that, at Mass, the prayers of all are gathered into a united whole. It is a communal prayer. But that does not mean the individual streams of our private prayers have disappeared into the whole.
Jesus tells us that, when we pray, we should “go to our inner room, shut the door, and pray to our Father in secret” (Mt 6:6). God meets us in the secret, whispered mysteries of our hearts. In conjunction with the communal elements of the Mass, then, we are also, at the same time, communing with our Father “in secret.” The priest’s whispered prayers are a reminder of that, a reminder that the Mass takes place both in a community and within our own “inner rooms.”
Father Boniface Hicks, “The Quiet That Speaks – The Silent Prayers of the Priest at Mass,” Adoremus Bulletin, July 15, 2021, available at https://adoremus.org/2021/07/the-quiet-that-speaks-the-silent-prayers-of-the-priest-at-mass/.