Your correspondence about silence in church (Letters, 30 August; Parish Practice, 23 August) reminded me of two successive Sunday Masses some years ago. At the first, our parish priest in South Wales came out beforehand to remind us of the importance of silence for the next five minutes to prepare ourselves for the celebration. At the second, at Boston College, the priest came out to urge us to take the next five minutes to introduce ourselves to the person next to us and find out about them, t