Sometimes a priest has to say part of his Office away from home. In such
case, the same principles apply. He should say it in surroundings
suitable for such an exercise. One cannot say Office properly in a
crowd, whether walking or in an omnibus or tramcar. If our compartment
is fairly empty, and no regular conversation in progress, a railway
carriage may be a suitable place: but if it is full of people it
certainly is not; and if it occurs that this is the only opportunity we
have of completing our obligation, it might in an extreme case be almost
better to let the obligation go than fulfil it so irreverently. Stories
are told of a priest finishing his Office under a street lamp before
midnight, when it might certainly have been better to omit it. A due
respect for the Office urges us to say it with devotion or not at all.
But in the majority of cases, the question of omitting it does not enter
in; the alternative is not to omit it, but to have to say it at an
inconvenient time after returning home. Surely such slight inconvenience
should not be put in the balance against the need of reciting it "digne,
attente ac devote."
With respect to the time of day, each priest must judge for himself how
to accommodate it to his daily routine. The liturgical rules bind only
_sub levi_, and therefore can be set aside for a reasonable cause,
provided that the whole Office is finished by the hour of midnight.
Nevertheless, a priest who wishes to show respect for his Office will
set rubrics aside as rarely as possible. So far as he can, for example,
he will aim at saying Prime in the morning and Vespers in the evening.
He will not invert the order of the hours if he can help it; he will not
break off at unauthorised points, even though the reason be
theologically sufficient: he will rather anticipate any likelihood of
interruption and avoid saying his Office at such times. A priest who
looks on his Breviary as a convenient duty to put in at odds and ends of
time, so that it shall not encroach on any valuable space of time, is
laying himself out for possible interruptions and certainly not showing
that respect for his Office which is necessary to make it a source of
blessing to his life.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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