The Divine Office
by VP
Posted on Wednesday October 27, 2021 at 12:00AM in Quotes
" If Priests and Religious did all recite the Office as it ought to be recited, the Church would not behold herself in the miserable state to which she is reduced. How many sinners would be delivered from the slavery of the devil, and how many souls would love God with much greater fervor! And how would priests themselves not find themselves ever the same, imperfect, irritable, jealous, attached to their own interests, and led away by vanities! Our Lord has promised to hear every one who prays to him. (Luke xi. 10).
And how comes it that a priest offering up so many prayers in a day, were it only in the Office which he recites, is yet never heard? He is always the same, as weak and prone as ever to fall not only into slight sins (to which he is habituated, and takes neither pains nor care to correct himself of them,) but into grievous sins against charity, justice, or chastity; hence when he recites the Office, he pronounces sentence of condemnation against himself, in these words: Maledicti qui declinant a mandatis tuis. And what is still worse, he feels little remorse, excusing himself as being of the same flesh and blood as other men, and not able to restrain himself.
But if he said the Office with fewer distractions and less negligence, accompanying with his heart the many prayers which he offers to God in reciting it, he certainly would not be so weak but would acquire fortitude and strength to resist all temptations, and to lead a holy life, such as becometh a Priest of God."
Source: Sacerdos sanctificatus; or, Discourses on the Mass and Office by Saint Alphonse de Liguori
