Controv. iii., de bonis operibus de oratione i., i. clx.) were re-published in a revised and embittered form. What a change has come amongst non-Catholics! Hundreds of Anglican clergymen are reading daily with attention and devotion the once hated and despised prayer book, the Roman Breviary. How old Bellarmine would wonder if he saw modern England with its hundreds of parsons reading their Hours! How he would wonder to read "The Band of Hope" (1915), an address delivered by an Anglican clergyman to a society of London clergymen. It includes a rule of life beginning, "Every day we say our Mass and our Office." (Cf. R. Knox's Spiritual Aeneid, p. 102.)

The Roman Breviary is excellent, too, in comparison with every other breviary (e.g., Aberdeen, Sarum, Gallican). For none of these can show the antiquity, the authority, the doctrine, the sublime matter, the beautiful order, which the Roman Breviary presents. It was for these reasons that the emperors, Pepin (714-768), Charlemagne (742-814), Charles the Bald (823-888), adapted the Roman rite (Gueranger, Institutiones Liturgiques, tom. i.). And Grandicolas (1772), an erudite liturgist, but a prominent Gallican with no love for Roman rites, declared that the Roman Breviary stands in relation to other breviaries as the Roman Church stands in relation to all other Christian bodies, first and superior in every way (Com. Hist. in Brev. Rom., cap. 2). St. Francis De Sales applied to his Breviary the words of St. Augustine on the Psalter, "Psalterium meum, gaudium meum."

CHAPTER IV.

THE CONTENTS OF THE BREVIARY.

SECTION I.

The title of the Breviary is, BREVIARIUM ROMANUM EX DECRETO SACROSANCTI CONCILII TRIDENTINI RESTITUTUM S. PII V. PONTIFICIS MAXIMI JUSSU EDITUM, ALIORUMQUE PONTIFICIUM, CURA RECOGNITUM PII PAPAE X., AUCTORITATE REFORMATUM. This work is divided into four parts, the first part being called Pars Hiemalis, the winter part; the second part, Pars Verna, the spring part; the third part, Pars Aestiva, the summer part; and the fourth part, the Pars Autumnalis, the autumn part.

The Church, guided by the Holy Ghost, has drawn up these volumes of liturgical prayer, so that for each season, even for each day, her official prayer may be suited to the time, to different degrees of solemnity and of rite, and so that it may be fixed and determined, yet having great beauty in its wonderful unity and variety. Hence, nothing in her official prayer is left to chance, nothing is left to the selection or caprice of the individual who recites this prayer; all is foreseen, everything is in order, every tittle has a reason for its existence and its place in the liturgy, and represents the end and the intentions of the Church. For, every part of the Roman Breviary is stamped with the wisdom, the zeal and the piety of the Church, which presents it, as an offering all suitable for and worthy of God's honour and glory.

Considering, then, the Breviary as a liturgical book, we find that the Divine Office has four general divisions, corresponding to the divisions of our Lord's life. First, from Advent to Septuagesima; second, from Septuagesima to Easter; third, from Easter to Pentecost; fourth, from Pentecost to Advent. These divisions correspond also to the divisions of the year, winter, spring, summer and autumn.

The end and object of the Office are to invite us to join in the infinite praise which the Son of God rendered to His Father during His life, and which He renders still in Heaven and in the Tabernacle. "Domine in unione illius divinae intentionis qua ipse in terris laudes Deo persolvisti, has tibi Horas persolvo," "O Lord, in union with that divine intention wherewith Thou whilst here on earth Thyself didst praise God, I offer these Hours to Thee." The life of Christ is divided into four principal divisions: first, His birth, circumcision, epiphany, presentation; second, His public life and His death; third, His resurrection, ascension, and descent of the Holy Ghost; fourth, His mystic life in the Church and in Heaven. Hence arise the four general divisions of the Divine Office:—

First General Division which begins the Church's year. From Advent to Septuagesima:—The birth of the Saviour preceded by His life in Mary's womb, and by the four weeks of Advent, representing (it is said) the passing of the four thousand years, and embracing the mysteries of the Holy Infancy, Circumcision, Epiphany, Holy Name of Jesus, and the Presentation.

Second General Division, from Septuagesima till Easter:—The death of Christ preceded by the events of His public life, His fasting, temptation, preaching, miracles, passion and death.

Third General Division, from Easter to Pentecost:—The Resurrection, the Ascension, Pentecost.

Fourth General Division, from Pentecost till Advent, the termination of the Church's year. The mystic life of Christ in the Church, which will end on the Judgment Day.

These divisions make up the four parts of the Roman Breviary.

The first part, Pars Prima, contains the Pontifical Bull, Quod a nobis, of Pope Pius V. (1568). It states:—1. That the cause of the new edition was to remove the regrettable variety in the public liturgy. 2. It recalls the labours of Pope Paul IV., Pius IV., and Pius V. for the same end. 3. It announces the abolition of the too-abbreviated Breviary of Quignonez and of all those which have not, for two hundred years preceding 1568, an authentic approbation or a lawful custom. 4. It gives permission to those using such breviaries to adopt the Roman Breviary. 5. It withdraws all privileges in respect to other breviaries. 6. It declares the Roman Breviary obligatory on all except those mentioned (vide 3, supra). 7. Even bishops are forbidden to make the smallest change in the new Breviary. 8. The recitation of offices from other breviaries does not fulfil the obligation of those bound to breviary recitation. 9. Bishops are requested to introduce the new Breviary. 10. The Pope suppressed the obligation of reciting on certain days the little Office of the Blessed Virgin, the Office of the Dead, the Penitential and the Gradual Psalms, 11. But he recommends their recitation on certain fixed days and grants an indulgence for the practice. 12. Where the custom of reciting the little Office, in choir, exists, it should be retained. 13. The appointment of the time for the adoption of the Breviary is obligatory. 14. Prohibition, under pain of excommunication, is made against those who print, distribute or receive copies of this Breviary without lawful authority. 15. The authentic publication and obligation of the Bull.

The second document in the Pars Prima of the Roman Breviary is the Bull Divino Afflatu, issued by Pope Pius X, on 1st November, 1911. It tells us:—

1. That the psalms were composed under divine inspiration, and that it is well known that from the beginning of the Church they were used not only to foster the piety of the faithful, who offered "the sacrifice of praise to God, that is to say, the fruit of lips confessing to His name" (Heb. xiii. 15), but—that retaining the custom of the Old Law—they held a conspicuous place in both the liturgy and Divine Office of the New Law. He quotes St. Basil, who calls psalmody the voice of the infant Church, and Urban VIII., who calls psalmody the daughter of hymnody which is chanted before the throne of God in Heaven. Two quotations from St. Athanasius and St. Augustine, in praise of psalmody, are added.

2. In the Psalms there is a certain wonderful power which arouses in souls a zeal for all virtues. Two quotations from St. Augustine are