Category: Re-Reading Sacrosanctum Concilium

Vatican website translation: 101. 1. In accordance with the centuries-old tradition of the Latin rite, the Latin language is to be retained by clerics in the divine office. But in individual cases the ordinary has the power of granting the use of a vernacular translation to those clerics for whom the use of Latin constitutes…

Let pastors of souls take care that the primary Hours, especially Vespers, be celebrated communally in church, on Sundays and more solemn feasts. It is also to be commended that the laity themselves recite the Divine Office, whether with priests, or gathered among themselves, or even each one alone.

I have been away from Pray Tell for some months now, partially due to other responsibilities and partially due to being under the weather. Today at the beginning of a new month I return with my article-by-article reflection on the Constitution on the Sacred Liturgy.

Vatican website translation: 98. Members of any institute dedicated to acquiring perfection who, according to their constitutions, are to recite any parts of the divine office are thereby performing the public prayer of the Church. They too perform the public prayer of the Church who, in virtue of their constitutions, recite any short office, provided…

Appropriate instances are to be defined by the rubrics in which a liturgical service may be substituted for the divine office. In particular cases, and for a just reason, ordinaries can dispense their subjects wholly or in part from the obligation of reciting the divine office, or may commute the obligation.

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.

Communities obliged to choral office are bound to celebrate the office in choir every day in addition to the conventual Mass.

That the day may be truly sanctified, and that the hours themselves may be recited with spiritual advantage, it is best that each of them be prayed at a time which most closely corresponds with its true canonical time.