for common prayer. This common, prayer consisted largely in the
recitation of the Psalms, hymns and prayers, of what are called the
Sunday Office. This office was nearly always the same in psalms, in
hymns and in every part; so that Sunday after Sunday, for many years,
there was very little change in the Sunday united-prayer part of the
liturgy, although the preaching on the incidents of the life of our Lord
(Beckel, _Messe und Pascha_, p, 91), the blessings and the thanksgivings
relieved the service from monotonous sameness.

A nocturn, a round of Psalms, was said on Saturday night by the
vigilants preparing for the Sunday services. Before the eighth century
two other short nocturns were added. This addition, which was copied
from the monastic practice, built up the three nocturn form of office
and became the model and form of the office for saints. "There is good
reason for believing that originally the Divine Office formed part of
the Mass. The _synaxis_, for which the early Christians assembled by
night, consisted of the 'breaking of bread,' preceded by the singing of
psalms and hymns, litanies and collects, readings, homilies, invocations
and canticles. This was the whole official liturgical prayer, apart, of
course, from private prayer" (Dom Cabrol, _Day Hours of the Church_,
Introduction, p. xvi).

One of the chief objects of Pope Pius X. in his reform was the
restoration of the liturgical importance of the Sunday office, the
office of the Lord's Day, and, therefore, in its own right, superior to
the saints' feasts by which it had been displaced from its special
office, psalms and lessons. And this could only be effected by a change
in the rules of occurrence, and in Title IV. (_De Festorum occurentia_,
etc., section 2) we find the new rule for restoring Sunday offices to
their proper liturgical rights.