Juliette Day raises some intriguing questions in her exploration of liturgical listening. Her thesis is that listening, and especially liturgical listening, is an intentional act structured within a ritual framework. She presents this sound concept through a proposed narrative that distinguishes hearing from listening and then explores the role of ritual listening via an expanding network of events. These include how listening to speech differs from listening to music versus being present in silence within a liturgical context. In the last few chapters, she moves onto questions of aurality in a more technical sense. She studies these in terms of the impact of noise on the listener, on the listener’s ability to attend to sound, and on the role of architecture as a conveyor of sound.

The divisions in her narrative are important because they demonstrate the strengths and weaknesses of her presentation. The strongest aspects of Day’s text are found in those chapters where her expertise is exercised in pursuit of her technical arguments. This is the case in the latter chapters surrounding noise, attentiveness, and aurality in architecture. Her last two chapters are especially proficient in presenting contemporary scientific and technical analysis to the experience of liturgical aurality. Here she steps away from the theological and into the analytical. For example, in her chapter on human aural attentiveness, she discusses how sound, source, focus, as well as our capacity to process sound signals, attend to and remember them, are all integrated elements . The same level of critical evaluation is evident in her work on the aurality of certain classical church architectural spaces and their role in liturgical action. Again, her analysis provides insight into the relationship of space and action as a form of integrated liturgical listening. Where her text disappoints is in the lack of sufficient connections between listening and the theology of the Second Vatican Council’s liturgy. Even in those sections distinctly given over to the contemporary Catholic liturgy (62–63), the exploration of the listening process fails to connect the action described with the communal and relational reality present amid the celebration. This is not mere dialogue, but active listening in the Spirit. It is deeply communal and relational. It is also, first and foremost, prayer, something that is not mentioned until the midpoint of the book. Day’s text hits its stride in the later chapters, leaving the earlier chapters appearing more eclectic in their theological argument.

Listening is an essential aspect of the liturgical dynamic, and Day’s text adds a further facet to the discussion. This is important especially today in the face of the Synod on Synodality and its emphasis on listening in the Spirit as a fundamental element of the structuring of the church. This text is best used at the graduate level, though given the price of the book, perhaps its ideal place will be as a reference text.