Chapter IX — On the causes excusing from reciting the Canonical Hours

I. Several are the causes excusing from reciting the office, such as inability, infirmity, sudden and continual grave occupation, and things of that kind. Several have amplified these causes beyond what is fair.

II. Question I. He who cannot recite alone, but can with a companion — is he bound to procure a companion, that he may be able to pay the Hours? Answer. This question is understood when a companion can conveniently be had. For if it were necessary to seek out a companion at a price paid, it is more likely that no one is bound with so great a burden. He would do this best if the one reciting were rich: for he would help a poor cleric, and...

both would praise God — Laymann, Filliucci, Lessius, Villalobos, and others distinguish. If, being well, you were using a companion, you must likewise use one while you labor under an inconvenience of the eyes, or another impediment; but not if, being well, you were reciting without a companion. Leander, Juan Sánchez, Diana absolutely deny that a companion must be procured. The true opinion affirms it. Because the precept of the Church must be fulfilled in the best way it can be. Therefore he who can conveniently have a companion must procure one. A blind man is not bound to commit the office to memory in order to be able to recite it. But if a blind man, or others lacking the Breviary, know the office by heart, they are bound to recite it. Hence, if they know by heart the office of the common, blind persons or others bound by impediment, when the office of the feria, or the proper office of some Saint, is in course, must recite that. These, however, to avoid the difficulty, commonly implore from their Superior a commutation into the office of the Blessed Virgin. A blind man holding a prebend is bound to attend choir, and to recite the Hours there so far as he can.

III. He who lacks the Breviary without fault is excused from the recitation; yet if he knows the Hours by heart, he is bound to recite them. He who by his own fault deprives himself of the Breviary, so as to become unable to pay the burden of the Hours, not only sins gravely by that action by which he stripped himself of the Breviary, but sins so long as he persists in the depraved determination of not reciting. But as soon as he changes his will, and repents of his prior action, he then ceases to sin, and is excused from recitation, since he is unable to recite. He who obtained a benefice before knowing how to recite the office sinned in obtaining it, and is bound diligently to learn the manner of reciting the office.

IV. Question II. What infirmity excuses from reciting the Hours? Answer. A certain and precise rule cannot be designated. The precepts of the Church, like the evangelical precepts, are precepts of charity, insofar as all things promote charity; wherefore they do not oblige with grave detriment to one's own health. A sick man lying abed must be treated benignly. He who has suffered a fever for several days is exempted from the office for a fitting interval of time. Some speak too laxly on this argument. They teach that those do not sin who read tales or histories, or converse with friends, even though they omit the office, while they labor under a quartan fever: because, they say, the reading of tales and conversations with friends recreate the soul, while the recitation of the office afflicts the sick man. To remove doubts and perplexities, dispensation must be sought from a Superior.

V. Question III. What occupation exempts from reciting the office? Answer. An occupation which cannot be deferred, and which redounds to the spiritual good of the Neighbor, exempts from the Canonical Hours. Leander excuses from saying the office those who are about to give a public lecture for obtaining a chair or a degree. This opinion is altogether false to me. I do not deny that a case of exemption can sometimes occur; but this happens very rarely. Leander teaches things more lax still concerning daily Preachers in the time of Lent, all of whom — even those who preach not from obedience, but voluntarily and for a wage — he exempts from reciting the divine office. Hear his own words: "I answer that it is also more probable that even the daily Preacher, who preaches daily in Lent only voluntarily, or for a wage, is excused from saying the daily Hours, if he cannot conveniently recite them ... And surely if this our opinion were not probable, and safe in practice, woe, woe to the Lenten Preachers; a thousand times woe to them." Thus far Leander, the most benign among the Probabilists. But woe, and a thousand times woe, to those Casuists who dare to write such things. Is he who preaches voluntarily and for a wage every day exempt from reciting the Canonical Hours? Who can hear these things without scandal? If the precept of prayer presses most frequently, when does it oblige more strongly than when the apostolic ministry is being exercised? And besides, the contrary experience of all pious Preachers proves that this debt can also be paid during that time.

VI. Pious works voluntarily undertaken, urgent necessity being absent, do not excuse from the office. He who foresees a future impediment is bound to anticipate the office, whatever certain men say to the contrary.

VII. Question IV. He who cannot recite the greater part of the office — is he bound to recite the lesser? Answer. Leander of the Most Holy Sacrament, treatise 8, disputation 5, question 52, defends the denying opinion as not only probable, but more probable. Fr. Tommaso Tamburini, book 2 on the Decalogue, chapter 5, § 8, number 3, defends the same, and cites for it Azor, Castropalao, Sanchez, Filliucci; and Leander alleges many others. This opinion was condemned by Innocent XI. Its falsity is manifest. For the divine office is a certain moral whole, consisting of seven parts, each of which constitutes a certain peculiar whole. For each of the seven Hours completes an entire and perfect prayer. He who cannot pay an entire debt — say a hundred — but can pay twenty, is he not bound to pay the twenty? "The greater part," they say, "draws the lesser to itself: the accessory follows the principal." Ineptly are axioms of this kind applied to decisions of morals. When things are indivisible, the accessory follows the principal; not so when they can be divided and separated. That other axiom has its place in reckonings, where the greater part decides the matter; not so in other divisible matters, as is established from the condemned proposition.

VIII. He who cannot recite half the office, but can recite the other half, is bound to this, whatever Leander, Castropalao, Diana, and others say. He who lacks the Breviary, but has the Diurnal, is bound to recite the psalms of Matins, although for the denying opinion Leander, question 60, cites Pellizzari, Tamburini, Filliucci, Diana, and others.

IX. Question V. Who can dispense from reciting the office? Answer. The supreme Pontiff, as the supreme guardian of the laws and the maker of ecclesiastical law, can dispense, for a just cause, throughout the universal Church. Bishops too, in their own diocese, can dispense — not in perpetuity, but according to the variety of circumstances, a just cause occurring. Similarly, Regular Prelates can dispense their Religious for a time, a just cause pressing.