festinandum me adjuva_--"O God, help me to hasten?" Wise old Rodriguez
advises readers of spiritual books to observe a hen drinking and to
imitate her slow and deliberate sipping, by reading in small quantities,
with pauses. Sometimes priests acquire the habit of hurried reading,
quite unconsciously, and afterwards labour hard, and in vain, too, to
correct it. It is important for beginners in the Breviary to go at a
slow pace, as the trot and the gallop are fatal to good and pious
recitation. Sometimes priests excuse this hurried reading, as they wish
to save time! Why do priests wish to save time? "For study," some may
say; but the obligation of the Divine Office precedes all obligations of
study, and its devout recitation is of far greater importance to the
priest and to the Church than is any other or every other study. Some
priests gallop through the Hours, to gain time for other ministerial
work, they say. But they forget that the primary work--after the
celebration of Mass--and the _most important work_ of a priest, is the
great official prayer of the Church. Who amongst priests leads the life
of ceaseless toil which the Cure d'Ars led? And we have read how he said
his Hours. St. Francis Xavier found time to preach to his many
neophytes, to teach them, to baptize them, and yet he did not use the
permission given him to shorten his Breviary prayer. He read the whole
Office daily and added to it prayers to obtain the grace of better
attention and devotion.

Sometimes the reading of the Hours is hurried for a motive less
praiseworthy than the motives of study or of priestly work. _Producitur
somnus, producitur mensa, produncuntur confabulationes, lusus, nugae
nugarum; solius supremae Magestratis, cultus summa qua potest celeritate
deproperatur_ (Kugler, _De Spiritu Eccles_.), "On this, God complained
one day to St. Bridget, saying that some priests lose so much time every
day in conversing with friends on worldly affairs; and afterwards, in