(2) To whom do we speak in our daily service of prayer?  We speak to our Master, Whose very special work we are doing in offering up the great prayer.  His adorable eyes are fixed upon us at this sacred duty.  He listens to us, He reads our thoughts.  He judges our intentions, our efforts and their fulfilment.  He is the King of kings, the Almighty God.  Mindful of His presence and majesty should we not try earnestly to bless His Holy name and to free our hearts from vain, evil and wandering thoughts?  We pray ad benedicendum nomen sanctum tuum; munda quoque cor meum ab omnibus vanis perversis et alienis cogitationibus.

(3) In whose name do we speak?  It is a great honour to be an ambassador for a great king and a mighty kingdom, guarding the interests of the fatherland in a foreign land.  The priest is always such an ambassador.  “For Christ, we are ambassadors,” says St. Paul.  In this work of daily recitation of the Office, we are ambassadors, not of some petty king or tiny state, but we represent the entire Church, the well-beloved spouse of Christ, to whose prayer He ever hearkens. Sonet vox tua in auribus meis; vox enim tua dulcis est (Canticle of Canticles, ii. 14).  And St. Bernard says “Sacerdos publica persona et totius Ecclesie os.”  Hence, every priest is the ambassador of Christ and of His Church, the guardian of His interests.  And as it is the duty of ambassadors to study carefully, to watch and further the interests of the kings whom they represent, it is a priest’s duty to study carefully and further the interests of Christ’s Church by the devout fulfilment of the great daily duty, the recitation of the Divine Office.  History brands as traitors those ambassadors who through ignorance of the language of the foreign court, or through want of vigilant attention, allow the interests of their royal masters to suffer.  What a punishment awaits the days and years of ignorant, careless or inattentive fulfilment of the great official work of a priest—­the Divine Office.

Who are a priest’s associates in this work?  They are the thousands of priests and religious throughout the world who say the Hours, and who send up daily and nightly the great prayer of praise and thanksgiving to God. Secundum nomen tuum, sic et laus tua in fines terrae (ps. 47, v. ii). Dies diei eructat verbum et nox nocti indicat scientiam (ps. 18, v. 3).  In this holy work of reciting the Hours, we are united with the angels and saints in heaven in honouring our common Creator; for, the Church herself reminds us of this ineffable honour in the hymn for the dedication of the Church:—­

“Sed ilia sedes Coelitum
Semper resultat laudibus
Dumque trinum el unicum
Jugi canore jungimur
Almae Sionis aemuli.”

“That house on high—­it ever rings
With praises of the King of kings;
For ever there, on harps divine,
They hymn th’ eternal One and Trine
We, here below, the strain prolong;,
And faintly echo Sion’s song.”