The fourth movement is contemplative silence — the silence beyond words. At the consecration, the bells "rip open the fabric of reality." Rudolph Otto's mysterium tremendum et fascinans — the mystery that stupefies and draws like children — is the phenomenology of what is happening. Ad-oratio: a kiss.

The fourth movement of silence is the silence of Communion and adoration — a contemplative silence, the silence beyond words. It corresponds to the consecration, the elevation, the Communion itself, and the immediate moments of reception.

"When the priest elevates the host… the bells crash into the silence, ripping open the fabric of reality." Hicks's image is exact. The bells at the consecration are not a signal to look up; they are a sonic acknowledgement that something has happened that exceeds language. The fabric of ordinary reality — time, space, the brown wooden pew, the late-morning light — has been opened, and through the opening the eternal sacrifice of Calvary is made present.

The phenomenology is best named by Rudolph Otto's term mysterium tremendum et fascinans — the mystery that stupefies (you cannot fit it in your mind) and draws (you cannot stop looking). Both responses are right at the elevation. The trembling: this is too much. The fascination: I cannot look away.

Benedict XVI's response, which Hicks quotes: "We cannot do other than fall to our knees and greet him." The kneeling is not piety; it is the body's only honest reaction to what is in front of it.

The Greek word for the act of adoration is proskynēsis — to bow down, kiss the ground before the sovereign. The Latin is ad-oratio — toward the mouth, a kiss. "Ad oratio is a kiss as the divine bridegroom draws us into an intimate embrace." Both languages of the tradition name adoration as a kiss: the soul's most intimate act of love expressed in the most intimate of gestures.

Receiving Communion is the consummation of this silence. Whatever you say in your mind in the seconds after Communion — and you should say something — should be in the register of the kiss, not of the report.

Eucharistic adoration outside Mass, Hicks notes, has grown more in the last forty years than in the previous nineteen centuries. This is a grace of our time: the silence of adoration, once the preserve of monastics, is now available to every parish. Take it.

The fourth movement of silence is the silence of Communion and adoration — a contemplative silence, the silence beyond words. It corresponds to the Eucharistic Prayer (especially the consecration and elevation), the Our Father, the Lamb of God, the Communion itself, and the immediate moments of reception. This is the dense centre of the Mass — the movement toward which the first three silences have been preparing you.

"When the priest elevates the host… the bells crash into the silence, ripping open the fabric of reality." Hicks's image is exact and worth dwelling on. The bells at the consecration are not a signal to look up — though they function that way historically, in eras when most of the congregation could not see the altar. They are a sonic acknowledgement that something has happened that exceeds language. The fabric of ordinary reality — time, space, the brown wooden pew, the late-morning light through the stained glass — has been opened, and through the opening the eternal sacrifice of Calvary is made present. The bells are the audible sign of an invisible tearing.

The phenomenology of what happens at the elevation is best named by the early-twentieth-century German theologian Rudolph Otto in The Idea of the Holy: mysterium tremendum et fascinans — the mystery that trembles us (you cannot fit it into your mind, your categories buckle under it) and that draws us (you cannot stop looking, you want to look more). Both responses are right at the elevation. The trembling: this is too much. The fascination: I cannot look away. Children at Mass often stare at the elevation in a way adults have trained themselves out of. The children are responding correctly.

Pope Benedict XVI's response, which Hicks quotes, names the only adequate posture: "We cannot do other than fall to our knees and greet him." The kneeling at the consecration is not piety. It is not optional reverence. It is the body's only honest reaction to what is in front of it. To remain standing would be a category error; the body knows what is happening before the mind does.

The Greek word for the act of adoration is proskynēsis — pros (toward) + kynein (to kiss / to bow). It denotes the gesture by which one bowed down before the sovereign, often kissing the ground or the sovereign's feet. The Latin is ad-oratio — ad (toward) + os (mouth, opening), literally "toward the mouth," a kiss. "Ad oratio is a kiss as the divine bridegroom draws us into an intimate embrace." Both languages of the tradition name adoration as a kiss: the soul's most intimate act of love expressed in the most intimate of gestures. This is the register of Communion — not the register of receiving a gift across a counter, but the register of the bride approaching the groom.

Receiving Communion is the consummation of this silence. The communicant approaches; the priest says "the body of Christ"; you say "Amen" — meaning yes, He is, and I yield to Him. You receive. You return to your pew. The next minute or two is the closest you will be to Christ in this life, sacramentally — He is bodily within you. Whatever you say in your mind in those seconds, and you should say something, should be in the register of the kiss, not of the report. Not "thank you for this grace, please bless my week, also Aunt Margaret." That is the right thing to say five minutes later. In the first two minutes, just be there. Cardinal Ratzinger called it "the moment for an interior conversation with the Lord." It is conversation in the lovers' register, not the lawyers'.

Eucharistic adoration outside Mass, Hicks notes, has grown more in the last forty years than in the previous nineteen centuries. This is a striking statistic and a grace of our time. The silence of adoration, once largely the preserve of monastics, is now available in most parishes — perpetual adoration chapels, weekly holy hours, parish-wide forty-hours devotions. The invitation is the same as it ever was: come, sit, be silent, look at the Lord, let the Lord look at you. The classic counsel of the Curé d'Ars's parishioner — "I look at Him, and He looks at me, and we are happy together" — is the entire instruction. Adoration is the extension of the fourth movement of Mass-silence into a time set apart specifically for it.

Hicks also draws on Romano Guardini's The Spirit of the Liturgy — a book Benedict XVI revisited as Pope — which argues that the liturgy is fundamentally play: a kind of holy game with rules, in which the soul is freed from instrumental ends to enjoy God for His own sake. The silence of adoration is the moment in the game when the playing has reached its highest point and time itself seems to pause.

Practical step: next Mass, after receiving Communion, stay kneeling. Do not pick up a missalette. Do not look around. For two full minutes, say only one thing interiorly: "Jesus, You are here." Repeat it as often as the distractions return. Two minutes a week, sustained over a year, will rewrite your relationship to the sacrament more than any reading on the subject.