Article Fifth. On Causes Excusing from Recitation of the Office

775. On the excusing causes themselves. Causes excusing from recitation of the office can be reduced to two: a. to infirmity; and b. to occupation, which cannot be joined with recitation of the office without grave inconvenience: for the Church is not judged to wish to oblige with grave inconvenience.

a. It is not necessary that express mention be made of physical impotence and dispensation. For it is evident of itself that he who lacks a breviary and cannot procure a breviary for himself is not held to reciting the office; likewise a blind man who cannot read is not held. But if these can recite some hour (Lauds or Compline) or a notable part of an hour from memory, they are held to recite it.

b. Likewise it is evident of itself that the supreme pontiff can dispense from the obligation of reciting the office, since this obligation is of ecclesiastical law. A bishop and a regular superior also can dispense in this precept, but unless they have obtained broader power, only in a particular case and for a time. Therefore they can dispense: a. if it is doubted whether the excusing cause suffices, that is, whether the inconvenience joined with recitation is sufficiently grave that the obligation ceases of itself; b. if recourse to the supreme pontiff is difficult; c. in a cause which frequently occurs, such as infirmity; d. in any cause, if the dispensation is sought for a short time.

776. General preliminary notices. 1. He who cannot recite the whole is held to a part, if in it the character of the end is preserved.¹ Therefore he who can recite an entire little hour is held under grave obligation to reciting it; he who cannot recite even a little hour is held to nothing, because a part which is less than a little hour is not judged to conduce notably to the end intended by the law.

2. He who has been legitimately excused from recitation of the office is not held in place of the office to pour forth other prayers or to supply through another, because the divine office is a personal burden.

3. He who cannot recite the office alone, but can with a companion, is held to employ a companion (even one who is not held to the office), if he can have him gratis and easily; but he is not held if he must hire him for pay or can find him only with great difficulty. The reason for the first is that recitation with a companion belongs to the ordinary means of reciting the office, which therefore must be employed if it can conveniently be had. The reason for the second is that this inconvenience is sufficiently grave to excuse from recitation.

Authors ask whether a beneficed person is held from the fruits of the benefice to hire a companion for pay, so that he may be able to recite the office. This obligation can be established: a beneficed person who is continuously impeded from reciting the office alone, and by reason of the benefice has no other obligation besides the divine office, is held either to hire a companion or to seek a dispensation.²

¹ To this pertains proposition 53 condemned by Innocent XI: He who cannot recite Matins and Lauds, but can recite the remaining hours, is held to nothing, because the greater part draws the lesser to itself.

² Cf. St. Alphonsus, n. 158; Lehmkuhl II, n. 639.

777. Infirmity, and indeed both infirmity actually existing, which is so great that the office cannot be recited without notable difficulty, and a founded fear of increasing or contracting infirmity from recitation of the office. Therefore the following are excused:

1. The sick person who suffers from any grave disease whatever.

a. Therefore he is excused who suffers from notable pain of the head, so that he cannot perform his customary occupations; or who is so weakened from an internal disease that he is compelled to lie in bed; and this indeed holds even if he can spend one or another hour in conversations with visitors or can read newspapers: for recitation of the breviary of itself rather wearies and does not relieve; but those occupations of themselves rather relieve and do not burden.¹

b. A sick person who cannot recite the whole office, but doubts whether he can recite a part, is held to nothing, lest occasion be given to doubts and anxieties.

c. He who doubts whether infirmity suffices for excusing can stand by the judgment of a superior or of a prudent physician or of another prudent man, or even by his own judgment.

2. The convalescent person who from recitation of the office deservedly fears grave inconvenience, such as notable weariness, exhaustion of strength, heaviness of the head, crudity of the stomach, great pain, etc.

A convalescent person is excused for some time from recitation of the office, even if through the day he can speak with others or read something profane: for this, as has been said, is done for the sake of recreation and restores strength, but recitation of the office requires greater attention and therefore more wearies and hinders the restoration of strength. Moreover not all are wearied by recitation of the office in an equal way, but some more than others according to the character of their disposition and condition.

¹ Cf. Elbel II, pr. 7, n. 177.

778. Occupation undertaken from office or charity, which cannot be combined with recitation of the office and deferred to another time without notable detriment to oneself or another. Here it must be noted that no one is held to deprive himself of refreshment of the body or of necessary sleep, in order that he may be able to recite the office. Therefore the following are excused either in whole or in part:

1. He who in the evening, when the office has not yet been discharged, is unexpectedly called to a sick person, and on that day obtains no further suitable time for discharging it. Nor is he held, if he returns a little before midnight, to defer nightly rest in order to discharge the office.

2. He who is occupied the whole day in hearing confessions which cannot conveniently be deferred to another day, as in the time of exercises or missions; the same holds concerning other labors of this kind, for example, concerning visitation of the sick in time of contagion, etc.

It is false that he is excused from recitation of the office who during the day is occupied for seven hours with grave labors; indeed not even he is of himself excused from recitation who during the day is occupied for ten hours with grave and urgent labors, unless perhaps he is so wearied that he cannot recite the office without notable difficulty.

3. He who needs the whole time for preparing a sermon which he cannot omit without scandal. Yet if, foreseeing these straits of time, he did not prepare the sermon at an opportune time, by this negligence he certainly committed sin.