Romano Guardini on "Active Participation"

(Monreale Basilica, in Sicily)

Pay attention, class. R. Guardini was one of B-16's professors:

The sacred [Holy Saturday] ceremony lasted for more than four hours, but the participation was always lively. There are different means of prayerful participation. One is realized by listening, speaking, gesturing. But the other takes place through watching. The first way is a good one, and we northern Europeans know no other. But we have lost something that was still there at Monreale: the capacity for living-in-the-gaze, for resting in the act of seeing, for welcoming the sacred in the form and event, by contemplating them. (1929)

The picture above (click to enlarge) is of the interior of the Basilica Guardini wrote about.

That "listening" part is important, too...