Hearing Our Prayers An Exploration of Liturgical Listening by Juliette J. Day

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There is a lot written about the “performance” of liturgy but this book turns to focus instead on the “reception” of liturgy.

Juliette J. Day draws out distinctions between what we hear and what we listen to, between the intentional sounds of the liturgy (mostly the words spoken and sung), the incidental sounds of the liturgy (the turning of the pages of the hymn book etc), and noise (the traffic roaring past outside). But within that mix we find the experience of the liturgy – to treat the liturgical experience as solely an encounter with the intentional sounds is to misunderstand it.

The is some consideration to the ways that the need for the liturgy to be heard has space practice – the use of chant helps carry the sounds through the space, the re-arrangement of Churches after the reformation to favour the spoken sermon – some of these were changes made with an understanding of the physics involved in hearing, some perhaps intuitive. How these were approached gives an insight into what people at different times and places thought was important about the liturgy.

Taking on the whole scope of Christian worship means this is very much a whistle-stop tour of the themes – a good introduction that would perhaps open doors to wider and deeper reading on the topics.