Divine Office(transfer Frm Transmundane)

[BarbTherese]

DJMitch

Posted Today, 06:59 AM

"Truly I don't know with all their duties nowadays and our shortage of priests why this duty prevails on them" - sorry, I don't know how to do the blockquote thing, I am new here. But I had to respond to this. This comment underrates the importance of prayer in the Christian life, and particularly in the life of a priest. I do not understand how a priest can persevere in his priesthood for one day, or practise celibacy, if he neglects his breviary. There is an intrinsic connection between prayer and chastity; and all a priest's other duties must flow from his prayer life, which must in the nature of things be a deep one, involving both mental and vocal prayer. How can it be otherwise? If a priest neglects his prayer life, particularly the liturgical prayer of the Church, things will fall to pieces pretty quickly. I would be in favour of it being obligatory for priests to say all seven offices, rather than the five that they are currently required to say - with due submission to Holy Church, of course.

 

 

 

Replying to above and transferred from Transmundane  (not a debate forum) http://www.phatmass.com/phorum/topic/135407-your-office-is-calling-learning-the-do/page-3

 

Thank you for your comments, DJM :)  I appreciate your comments as you raised a very important and vital point, which I neglected.

 

I certainly did not mean to underrate the absolute importance of prayer in the daily life of every Catholic and especially our priests.  What I meant to highlight was the psychology of the priest and the Doctrine of The Mystical Body - and by implication, the heart and soul of holiness, i.e. Charity (concern for the welfare and wellbeing of our priests).  The Doctrine of The Mystical Body is not some abstract something with nothing to do with daily life.  It is a living reality in which we daily live every single minute of our journey, conscious of it or not.  I feel deeply for our priests especially perhaps diocesan priests who have many stresses and duties in the course of a day, non existent in the main prior to V2 and even during the years of The Council - 1962-1965.  Nowadays the severe lack of priests means that times have changed and dramatically.  Our priests not only daily labour especially here in Australia with many duties during their day with our severe shortage of priests with parish being twinned, even three into one parish, meaning double or triple workloads, but our priests often suffer too with profound loneliness.  They need to have time every single day just to switch off and relax - the human psychology asks this.

"13 Go and learn the meaning of the words, 'I desire mercy, not sacrifice.' (Matthew Ch9)

 

The Public Liturgical Prayer of The Church in The Divine Office is very important as Christ is praying too and with the entire Church.  I think that our priests would appreciate this on a very deep level and not abandon The Divine Office willy-nilly as it were.  As with Sunday Mass, surely they could be dispensed under certain conditions - and that they would understand these certain conditions on a deep level too.  Diocesan priests could be committed as duty to The Divine Office, all Hours, unless it is not feasible.

 

We need to remember too that prayer has multiple forms and as St Therese of Lisieux said, it can be simply to raise the mind and heart to God which one also does if one unites oneself to the formally praying Church or those contemplative monastics who do pray daily the entire Divine Office and on behalf of the whole Church and mankind........and under absolutely ideal conditions and environment.l  The whole lifestyle structured specifically for this.

 

I have known of some who pray every single Hour every single day and take great pride in that precise fact.  A paradoxical statement often i.e. they do pray every single day every single Hour but are they really praying or simply taking pride in their own pedantic commitment with that pedantic commitment of prime importance and sole focus.  I really do think that those who do not pray The Divine Office in its entirety, but do really pray - may be praying with more praise of God and effective intercession than the former.  Perhaps even those who do not pray The Divine Office at all also pray truly and effectively with praise of God and powerful intercession.  This is not at all to underrate The Divine Office as of paramount importance and in it's entirety, rather to examine the disposition of those who do pray it - in some instances - and to stress the importance of that disposition.  It is not the fact of reciting The Divine Office, all Hours, that is the heart of the prayer.  It is the disposition of the person who prays it.  And a diocesan priest who does his very best to pray the whole Office and succeeds, if in a quite distracted manner due to the simple psychology of the human person and pressing even urgent demands and duties elsewhere, is indeed praying per se and powerfully effectively.  But is it just and merciful on the man to demand it every single day of their life and despite all other factors and in our radically changed times?

 

1 Corinthians Ch 12 "But God has so constructed the body as to give greater honor to a part that is without it,

25 so that there may be no division in the body, but that the parts may have the same concern for one another.

26 If (one) part suffers, all the parts suffer with it; if one part is honored, all the parts share its joy.

27 Now you are Christ's body, and individually parts of it."

 

 

Obviously then, it seems to me, that if one prays, then all pray.

 

I agree that neglect of prayer will  quickly see things fall apart - but we are body and soul in partnership, united into the one human being - all of us.  Not, a body and also a soul as two separate entitites, which prevailed in our spirituality over many years indeed.

I too pray to be faithful to The Church all my days in all matters of Faith and Morals and without reservation whatsoever.  "In essentials unity, in non-essentials liberty - but in all things Charity".

 

Frankly, the endless rules and regulations in our Faith does very much sadden me.  Too often rules and regulations have become ends in themselves in The Church - for some perhaps many that is.  Nevertheless, I obey - but strive to not make those rules and regulations ends in themselves, rather to sight the higher goal to which they strive to point and guide and make that my focus, Grace prevailing.

 

All Scripture quotations from Vatican website : http://www.vatican.va/archive/ENG0839/__PZH.HTM

Edited September 1, 2014 by BarbaraTherese

[DJMitch]

I agree that dispensations should be given in certain cases for certain reasons, if there seemed to be a valid reason for asking for one. The Church has granted priests dispensations from the canonical obligation for a very long time.). The busyness of priests' lives is one reason why the Church reduced the obligation from the old breviary (Matins, very long; Lauds, about 20 minutes, Prime, Terce, Sext, None (all quite short), Vespers (same length as Lauds) and Compline, to the new one (Office of Readings, Morning Prayer, one of three daytime offices, Evening Prayer, Night Prayer). All of these offices, except the daytime ones possibly are shorter than the old ones. At one time I said the 1911 breviary, and it took a great deal of (not wasted) time; the new one I said at a later period. It is easier to rush the new one, I think. It might take an hour in total to say the new breviary during one day. Also diocesan priests only have to say one of the three daytime offices, and not prime and terce and sext and none, as they had to in the past.

A priest is a public ambassador, if that is the right word, representing us to God, and it is appropriate that he should say the public liturgy of the Church. The priest does not represent himself alone, but the Church; that is why he prays the Church's prayer (not neglecting his own private prayer, though, as if he only existed in his official capacity).

There is, somewhere, a book by St Alphonsus Liguori - the title in French is "Messe et l'Office meprises" (I am typing this on my iPad and how accents should be done on this touch-screen keyboard is a mystery to me). At the end of it he responds to those who call the recitation of the office a "weight": he says, no, it is not a weight; or, if it is a weight, it is the weight of wings which lift us up to God so that we can be united with him.

One could, of course, take a sinful pride in saying the whole Office. That would, of course, be very bad; but the same is true of any spiritual things: one can take pride in them. But the temptation to Pharisaical pride is not a reason to stop doing those things, or any other good things, for that matter.

With regard to rules and regulations: it is always to be borne in mind that they are means and not ends; and that there is no way that an organization on the scale of the Catholic Church could possibly exist without rules and regulations. Nothing can be administered without order; and no body of men can be in order without clearly delineated rules. But the Church's regulations now are much simpler than they have been at times in the past; for instance, before the promulgation of the 1917 Code of Canon Law, I believe the laws of the Church were in a variety of what might be called haphazard documents that ran, I believe, to five volumes. The 1983 Code, by contrast, is very clear and very simple. And the obligation to say the Divine a Office grew organically in the first place; it started as a custom, and custom came to have the force of law - there is a maxim in the Church, "consuetudo habet vim legis", "custom has the force of law", and that is how the obligation developed. There is an interesting book about the Divine Office written by an Irish priest called Father Quigley early last century; that might be of interest. There is another book by Battifol called something like the History of the Roman Breviary, but I never got round to finishing it.

I will conclude this ramble by saying: let us pray for vocations to the priesthood and to the religious life.

[BarbTherese]

Thank you for a very interesting and informative post indeed - much appreciated.  I am very happy to know that a bishop (I am presuming) can dispense a priest under certain circumstances. 

Daily prayer for our priests and religious and an increase in vocations to all walks of life.

[DJMitch]

You are most welcome - the liturgy of the Church and the history of that liturgy are very interesting, I find. I have no time to write further now, perhaps mercifully, otherwise I might never shut up.

Blessings! David

[BarbTherese]

David, for very long posts and wandering above below and around the actual subject, truly rambling, you would probably have to take a place underneath many of my posts.  I found your posts very interesting and certainly informative indeed and nothing of a ramble at all!

 

And blessings to you and yours also..............Barb :)

[truthfinder]

I'm not sure less prayer is the answer - especially in today's environment.  Prudence is needed.  If the priest can't say his office because he's on numerous committees and adminstrative duties - those should be reconsidered.  However, if he missed vespers because he was rushing off to do the anointing of the sick - that's totally understandable.

[dairygirl4u2c]

holy one, holy mighty one... have mercy on us and on the whole world.

[dairygirl4u2c]

holy one, holy mighty one... have mercy on us and on the whole world.