Vatican website translation:
96. Clerics not bound to office in choir, if they are in major orders, are bound to pray the entire office every day, either in common or individually, as laid down in Art. 89.
Latin original:
96. Clerici choro non obligati, si sunt in Ordinibus maioribus constituti, cotidie, sive in communi, sive soli, obligatione tenentur totum Officium persolvendi, ad normam art. 89.
Slavishly literal translation:
96. Clerics not obligated to [pray the Office] in choir, if they have been established in major Orders, are held by obligation to completely praying the entire Office, whether in common or alone, according to the norm [found in] art. 89.
Having discussed the obligations for praying the Divine Office by orders of canons, monks and nuns, other members of religious communities, and Cathedral chapters and colleges, the Council Fathers now turn their attention to those bound to praying the Liturgy of the Hours by reason of their clerical status. (At the time of the Council this would include bishops, presbyters, deacons and subdeacons.) Certain “active” orders, most notably the Jesuits, had not been bound to the choral singing or recitation of the Liturgy of the Hours, but clerics in these orders (as well as secular clerics) have been obliged individually to the daily complete recitation (or singing) of the Divine Office, a practice which is here confirmed.
Pray Tell readers might want to discuss the tension between praying the Divine Office as a genuine “sanctification of time” and the kinds of spiritual exercises/religious reading that might fit into an active cleric’s life of pastoral care (i.e., not praying the entire daily Office between ca. 11:00 PM and midnight to “get it in” or breaking off from spiritual direction or other forms of pastoral care in order to recite Mid-morning Prayer). We will see in the treatment of art. 97 that the Council Fathers themselves were aware of such tensions.
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