Music of Silence: a Sacred Journey Through the Hours of the Day

Christian Century, April 24, 2002 by Richard A. Kauffman

By David Steindl-Rast and Sharon Lebell. Seastone, 121 pp., $12.00.

If you ever want to take a retreat at a Christian monastery and are unfamiliar with the "liturgy of hours," Music of Silence provides a good orientation to the "appointed hours" of the day when monastic communities gather for corporate prayer. A chapter is devoted to each of the "hours," from Vigils to Compline, each of which serves more as meditation than a simple explanation of each "hour" of prayer. A painting of Fra Angelico's, which includes an angel for each of the hours, is used to help illustrate the periods of prayer. The authors also help the uninitiated understand the place of Gregorian chant in the Christian monastic tradition. Themes for which Steindl-Rast is known resurface here, such as mindfulness to the present and gratefulness as the attitude which a life of prayer cultivates. Somewhat oddly, however, this book doesn't exemplify the Benedictine emphasis on preferring Christ above all else. Despite Steindl-Rast's own Benedictine rootage, the spirituality in Music of Silence lacks that particularity.

--R. A. K.