The Divine Office: A Study of the Roman Breviary

by Edward J. Quigley

ARTICLE II.—THE MEANS TO ADOPT FOR THE PIOUS RECITATION OF THE BREVIARY.

A.—THE MEANS TO ADOPT BEFORE THE RECITATION.

Preparation is necessary before beginning every prayer, for the Holy Ghost says, "Before prayer prepare thy soul, and be not as a man that tempteth God" (Ecclesias. 18. 23). This preparation necessary before other prayers is above all necessary before the recitation of the Divine Office, which is the greatest of all prayers. Two kinds of preparation are necessary, the remote and the proximate.

The remote preparation demands the removal of all obstacles which impede prayer, and the greatest of all prayers, the Church's official prayer. The chief or capital obstacles which impede or prevent a pious recitation of the Breviary are: sin, the passions, the absorbing thoughts of creatures and the ignorance of the Divine Office. And the means to remove these obstacles are to purify the conscience, science, to mortify the passions, to guard the sense and to have an intelligent knowledge of the duty and requirements of a proper fulfilment of the daily task of the saying of the Canonical Hours.

The first means is to purify the conscience from sin, for sin hinders prayer. But what effect has sin on the recitation of the Office? The Office is a prayer, an elevation of the soul to God, and as all writers on ascetics teach, sin is a chain that binds us to earth; it is, says St. Francis, as birdlime which impedes the soul in its flight upwards. Prayer is a conversation with God, but a soul loving sin cannot converse with God; "Peccatores Deus non audit" (St. John, ix. 31). Prayer is an intimate union with God, but a soul resting in sin can have no intimate union with God; there can be no intimate union between light and darkness, between sanctity and sin, between good and evil; in a word, between Christ and Belial. Quae participatio, quae societas lucis ad tenebras? Quae conventio Christi el Belial?

The second means of procuring fervent prayer is the mortification of the passions. It is not enough to secure fervour in prayer that our souls should be free from sin; we must struggle to master our passions. This point is important—for a soul upset by its passions, anger, pride, etc., cannot with fervour recite the Hours, for it cannot converse with God, it cannot elevate itself to God, it can have no true union with God. It cannot converse with God, for God will not converse with an unmortified soul for three reasons. First, He will not speak if there be no one to listen, for the Holy Ghost tells us "Where there is no hearing, pour not out words" (Eccli. xxxii. 6). God wishes a soul in converse with Him to be calm and still, for God is not in the earthquake (3 Kings, xix. ii.). Again, even if God speaks to an unmortified soul, it cannot hear Him as the passions fix its attention on worldly matters. And even when such a soul tries to listen and to understand, the passions surging and warring drown all sound and sense of holy things. For, "the animal man perceiveth not these things that are of the spirit of God, for it is foolishness to him and he cannot understand, because it is spiritually examined" (I. Cor. ii. 14). The human soul cannot truly unite itself to God if the passions are not conquered, because by their very nature they are opposed to God and hence inspire estrangement from, and disgust for, holy things.

Thirdly, the senses must be guarded. Our five senses can impede the recitation of the Office because they present to our souls images of the things which occupy them, and they can draw our will towards the pleasures which correspond with these objects. It is necessary for the worthy, attentive and devout saying of the Office that each sense be guarded. The sense of sight should be guarded from gazing at objects at hand, persons, books, landscape, etc. The sense of hearing should be guarded in flying from the company of evil speakers, calumniators, detractors, those who speak of worldly affairs or who give evil counsel. It is necessary, too, to guard the tongue from evil speech. "I have set a guard to my mouth, when the sinner stood against me" (Psalm 38, 2); and it is well to guard against too frequent or too long conversations, which fill the soul with thoughts disturbing to a prayerful disposition. The sense of touch should likewise be guarded, for St. Thomas says that the sense of touch is the maintenance of the other senses (1 P. q. 76, a. 75). And when the foundations of a house commence to fall asunder, the walls, the frame and the roof totter and fall. So it is with the senses; when the sense of touch is disturbed the other senses quickly complete the ruin.

What knowledge is needed for the valid and for the licit recitation of the Hours? Must the person know the meaning of the words read? No such knowledge is necessary, for God hears the prayer of the ignorant and illiterate and of the babes. To the chief priests and scribes, who hearing the children crying out the Saviour's praise in the temple, Christ said "Yea, have you not read 'Out of the mouths of infants and sucklings thou hast perfected praise'" (St. Matth. xxi. 15-16), St. Augustine defended from the sneers of the learned, those who prayed to God in rude and barbarous words, or words which they did not understand. "Noverint non esse vocem ad aures Dei nisi animi affectum" (De Catech. Rud. C.I.). The Church has bound religious, both men and women, to say the Office in choir, even though they may not understand Latin. Nevertheless, it is highly desirable that those who understand Latin should understand what they read daily in the Breviary. God, the Church, the practice of the saints, our own intelligence, our spiritual advantage, demand that every priest should read with knowledge so that with more certainty he may read attentively and devoutly.

For (1) the Holy Ghost warns us to sing wisely, Psallite sapienter (Ps. 46.8); (2) that priests may sing wisely, may say the daily Office piously is the reason and end of liturgical studies of the psalms and of the Breviary in theological colleges; (3) the saints who wrote so piously and so learnedly on the psalms and on psalmody are for ever impressing this matter of intelligent recitation. St. Augustine wrote, "Et quare dicta sunt, nisi ut sciantur? Quare sonuerunt nisi ut audiantur? Quare audita sunt nisi ut intelligantur" (Tract xxxi. in Joan). Again, commenting on psalm 146, he writes, "David teaches that we sing wisely; let us not seek the mere sound for the ear, but a light for the soul." St. Thomas Aquinas commenting on "For I pray in a tongue, my spirit prayeth, but my understanding is without fruit" (I. Cor. xiv. 14) wrote "Constat quod plus lucratur qui orat. Nam, ille qui intelligit reficitur quantum ad intellectum et quantum ad affectum; sed mens ejus qui non intelligit est sine fructu refectionis." And (4) our own intellect tells us that the Breviary should be read intelligently and devoutly. One of the ends of the Church in imposing the Divine Office as an obligation is, that by honouring the holy mysteries, or the holy memories of the saints, we may raise our hearts and souls to God, as St. Paul wishes us, "May the God of patience and of comfort grant you to be of one mind towards one another according to Jesus Christ, that with one mind and one mouth you may glorify God" (Rom. xv. 5-6), an effect that cannot be produced by the recital of words which are not understood. It is almost impossible to avoid very grave distractions and to sustain attention if there be not a good knowledge of the matter and form of the Hours recited.

It seems irrational that, priests should spend daily more than an hour reading words that they understand not at all, or very imperfectly; and that the beautiful and sublime thought and language of the book of psalms, which are admired by all educated men, should be, to those who read them every day for years, nothing but a tinkling cymbal, vox et praeterea nihil. This is often the case even with priests who practise piously and methodically mental prayer. And yet nowhere are such beautiful acts of faith and confidence in God's power expressed as in the Psalms (e.g., 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 10, 12, 16, 19, 25, 27, 30, 34, 43, 54, 55, 56, etc.); no more sublime expressions of praise exist than in the Psalms 8, 9, 17, 18, 20, 21, etc. Time spent in studying the history of the Breviary, the structure and the growth of the contents of each Hour, the meanings of the prayers and hymns, is time well spent.