The Divine Office

This long-esteemed work by Abbe Bacquez supplies a need long felt among the clergy and others who for a book that treats practically of the Divine Office, with sound advice and numerous aids for achieving a more fruitful use of the Roman Breviary in daily prayer and meditation. Quoting St. Leonard of Port Maurice's rule of life, "Say your Mass and your Office well," Cardinal Manning, Archbishop of Westminster, testified in 1885: "We are all apt to turn from the substance in our hands to the shadows that allure us. To say the Holy Mass, even in the midst of our infirmities, as the Holy Mass ought to be said, would lift us in ascending towards God to a nearness which we can hardly conceive; for the Holy Mass is a daily renewal of our union with our Divine Master. To say the Divine Office as it ought to be said would fill us with inexhaustible matter of mental prayer, for it is the work of the Holy Ghost and of the Saints. The seven hours are seven visits day by day to the heavenly court; our voice is united to the eternal adoration; and our daily Office ascends in the golden censer with the prayers of the Saints. The translation of this most edifying work from the walls of Saint-Sulpice, the source of so much sacerdotal perfection, comes to us most opportunely, and we heartily commend it to the use of the clergy and of the faithful."

"What precautions are taken that this Divine Prayer may not degenerate into a simple lip service, and that this daily obligation, far from becoming an obstacle to piety, shall be always a light to the mind, a stimulus for the heart? The recitation of the Divine Office is one of your principal obligations-the one you have most frequently to fulfil. I purpose then to make you feel its excellence, its sanctity and its advantages. Taking the prayers we recite each day, I will try to show their meaning and beauty, and so give an idea of the treasures of wisdom and piety which result from a profound study of them. If we but considered that after the Holy Eucharist we have no means more efficacious in order to conform ourselves to the likeness of our Lord and to become imitators of His virtues, we should almost infallibly acquire the Spirit of our Divine Master." -adapted from the author's Introduction