II. Of the Principle of the Divine Office

The principle that underlies the universal custom of saying the Divine Office is clear. The necessary activities of human life often render it difficult for men to do more than is requisite to fulfil the divine precept concerning prayer. Therefore in order that a ceaseless offering of the sacrifice of prayer on the part of man may not be wanting, certain ones are called out from among men to give their lives, unhindered and undistracted, to this special work.

God calls others to serve Him in this or that trade or profession. The trade of the Religious is prayer. He is called to a vicarial office, to stand before God continually as the representative of his brethren in the world. It is the ancient story of Moses and Joshua. One contended for God in the valley, while the other lifted up his hands in prayer on the mount; both being necessary to the triumph of God's cause against His enemies.

As sympathetic co-operation secures better results in other spheres of human activity, so it is in the labour of the Religious. Therefore the Holy Spirit has inspired those who are called to this special service to associate themselves together in communities for the purpose of offering the perpetual sacrifice of prayer.

In order to secure regularity, and systematic form and expression, in this work for which the Religious is set apart, the Divine Office is ordained, to be said together wherever possible by the brethren. In it the Religious fulfils, as he fulfils nowhere else, his obligation of prayer, his duty of entering in before

God to offer prayer and praise seven times a day as the official representative of his brethren throughout the world.

His representative capacity is witnessed to in the form of the Office itself. Whether he recites it in choir with his brethren, or alone in the solitude of his cell, the form set for him to use is a plural. With the dawning day, he sings:

Now that the daylight fills the sky,
We lift our hearts to God on high,
That He in all we do or say

Would keep us free from harm to-day.

All through the day, hour after hour, the same note prevails, until amid the gathering darkness of the night he stands again before the Divine Presence on behalf of his brethren with the prophet's cry upon his lips : "Thou, O Lord, art in the midst of us, and we are called by Thy Name; leave us not, O Lord our God."1

The main Catholic doctrine that underlies the notion of the Divine Office is that of the Communion of Saints, the oneness of all faithful souls in the Body of Christ, "which is the Church.'

This brings us to another aspect of our study. Throughout the whole Church-on earth, in purgatory, in heaven-the praise that is ascending to God is one praise. The Divine Office, sung in the humblest choir, or said by some lonely missionary on his solitary journeyings, is as much an integral part of the Church's praise as are the hymns of the Redeemed in glory. It is a part of the praises of 1 Jeremiah xiv. 9. 2 Colossians i. 24.

heaven, and he who says his Office devoutly in this life, is doing, under earthly conditions, precisely what he will be doing in the heavenly places when by God's good grace he comes there. Time and space count for naught; they are no barrier in the Kingdom of God. We are as much at one in our praise and prayer with the seraph before the Throne as we are with the brother who occupies the stall next to us in the choir.

These considerations teach us the dignity, the solemnity, of the Divine Office, worthy to be called by St. Benedict in the Holy Rule, the Opus Dei, the Work of God, before which, he says, nothing is to be preferred-nihil operi Dei praeponatur.1

The world counts this work of praise the smallest part of our life. The Religious knows that it is the greatest. The corporal works of mercy, splendid and Christ-like as they are, are but relative. That is to say, they exist only in relation to the present fallen condition of man. The work of praise transcends all earthly conditions, in that it is the ultimate work of creation. When all is brought to perfection, final and complete, the Divine Praises will be the one work that will go on in unbroken progress and power for eternity.

Those Religious who engage in corporal works of mercy, realizing this, perform their works with gladness, assured that they are thereby contributing to the great restoration; but when the hour arrives for the Divine Office they hasten to the choir, rejoicing that here for a little time they are to be accorded the 1 St. Benedict, Regula, cap. 43.

privilege of anticipating the coming time when all need of the quality of mercy having passed away, the perfect work of praise will be theirs in the fulness of the Beatific Vision.

III. Of the Perfect Office

Before entering upon the recitation of the Divine Office, we pray : Open Thou my lips, O Lord, to bless Thy Holy Name, cleanse my heart from all vain, evil and wandering thoughts, enlighten my understanding, enkindle my affections, that I may say this Office with attention and devotion, and may so be meet to be heard before the presence of Thy Divine Majesty."

This, in substance, is a prayer for the grace to say a perfect Office. The petition we here offer embraces all that we are taught constitutes a worthy rendering of praise in honour of God.

The perfect Office is said to include three things: (1) The Officium Oris, (2) The Officium Mentis, and (3) The Officium Cordis.

I. Of the "Officium Oris," or the Devotion of the Body. The Officium Oris (the Office of the Lips) is the term used to describe the outward worship of God that is paid by the body, which must have its equal part with the intellect and the affections, if the integrity of worship is to be complete. "For ye are bought with a price; therefore glorify God in your body and in your spirit which are God's."1

There must be an exact, careful rendering of the very words that the Church has appointed for the

expression of the praise and prayer of her people. The Divine Office is definitely a vocal, not a mental, prayer, so that the mental reading does not suffice.

Care must be taken by the two sides of the choir not to overlap each other. The psalms and other parts of the Office should be said with such deliberation and such proper pauses between the verses that one voice without losing a word would be able to join with both sides of the choir through the entire Office.

Billuart quotes the Council of Basle as giving the direction that the Office is to be said, "Not in the throat nor between the teeth, nor by eating and clipping the words and sentences, but reverently, by distinctly pronouncing the words.”1

The Church claims the whole man in her worship, nothing is counted too small to be offered to God. We are directed when and how we shall kneel, or stand, or sit, and for the perfection of the Office every direction must be followed with exactness and becoming recollection. All slouchiness of attitude is to be avoided. Stand erect with the feet firmly together; sit upright, the eyes never wandering; and above all let not the attitude of kneeling degenerate into an undignified position of reclining."

In order that the Office may be outwardly rendered with the proper dignity and reverence, it is, of course, necessary for each one to know what it is. The diligent Religious will always before the beginning of the Office look up the calendar, rubrics, etc., so as not

1 Billuart, Tractatus de Religione, Dis. ii, Art. viii, sec. 7. 2 See Clark, Observances of Barnwell Priory, pp. 81 and 87.