St. Peter Canisius Apostolate

Nov 10 2008

The Divine Office as a Form of Sacrifice

Published by Jeff Vehige at 1:25 pm under Fr. John Hardon, Liturgy of the Hours, Spirituality

Here is an excellent article by the late Fr. John Hardon on the discipline it takes to pray the Divine Office (the Liturgy of the Hours). Not everything he says can be applied to the individual recitation of the Office. However, much of it is applicable.

The two kinds of sacrifice that I find most challenging are the sacrifice of time . . .

This kind of sacrifice again differs immensely with different people, and for some no doubt it hardly seems to be a sacrifice at all. It all depends on what a person is doing, or could be doing, or would be doing at the precise time when the call is given for the recitation of the Divine Office.

Time, it has been said, is our most precious commodity after the grace of God. Wise men are miserly of this time, and saints have been careful not to waste any time, seeing how little we have of this priceless possession, and how quickly it runs out or better, how quickly time is running headlong into eternity.

In order to make the sacrifice of time, spent as we say on the Divine Office, we must be sure that no time could be better expended. We must, if necessary, steel ourselves to the conviction that after the celebration of the Holy Sacrifice, the time surrendered to the Divine Office is most acceptable to God.

. . . and the sacrifice of sentiments . . .

Closely associated with the foregoing is the sacrifice of sentiments when we pray the Liturgy of the Hours.

What would normally be on my mind or in my heart might be far removed (even as prayer) from what, e.g., the Psalm that I am singing bids me to think and, as it were, tells me to desire.

Yet, out of love for God and in deference to His Church I subordinate my personal sentiments to those which the Church wants me to have. I submit my mind to the Church’s mind in praying what, for the present, she wants me to ask of God, and not what I might prefer if I had my choice in the matter.

I may be feeling sad, and the prayers of the Office tell me to be glad. I may be feeling glad, and the prayers of the Office tell me to mourn for the sins of the world. I may have a strong attraction for the Savior in His heavenly glory, and the Office may require that I sacrifice these sentiments to turn instead to the Savior’s bloody Passion.

So it goes, and so it is. But that is precisely what the recitation of the Office requires of the Church’s faithful who have learned to give up even their deepest interior feelings in conformity with the Church’s directives seeing that these directives come through the Church from Christ Himself.

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