Book of Hours

This is a personal memoir, cast in the form of a secular breviary, that recreates a year Father Owen Lee spent teaching at an American college campus in Rome over a quarter century ago.  Father Lee is by day a classics professors, but has also been a beloved presence on the Metropolitan Operas's Saturday afternoon Chevron-Texaco broadcasts for over 20 years  - and is an ever-insightful commentator on operatic stories, music and themes.

Recreating a year Father Lee spent teaching at an American college campus in Rome, this work is set in the context of a personal crisis - impending hearing loss, theological doubts, and the celibate's regret that he cannot share his remaining years with children of his own. It shows how religious faith and humanistic culture need never be enemies."A Book of Hours" is a departure for Father Lee - a personal memoir, cast in the form of a secular breviary, that recreates a year Father Lee spent teaching at an American college campus in Rome over a quarter century ago. The book draws together in an intricate web of refracting relationships the three great loves of Father Lee's life: opera, literature, and his life and work as a priest. A Eurorail pass allowed him to visit all the great opera houses of Europe, which in turn reflected on his teaching in the classroom during the week: Homer and Virgil, Whitman and Rilke. And all of this is set in the context of a personal crisis - impending hearing loss, theological doubts, and the celibate's inevitable regret, at age forty, that he cannot share his remaining years with children of his own. In this inspiring and beautifully crafted book, Father Lee shows us how religious faith and a deeply humanistic culture need never be enemies, but rather can be a source of mutual enrichment.