What knowledge is needed for the valid and for the licit recitation of the Hours?  Must the person know the meaning of the words read?  No such knowledge is necessary, for God hears the prayer of the ignorant and illiterate and of the babes.  To the chief priests and scribes, who hearing the children crying out the Saviour’s praise in the temple, Christ said “Yea, have you not read ’Out of the mouths of infants and sucklings thou hast perfected praise’” (St. Matth. xxi. 15-16), St. Augustine defended from the sneers of the learned, those who prayed to God in rude and barbarous words, or words which they did not understand. “Noverint non esse vocem ad aures Dei nisi animi affectum” (De Catech. Rud.  C.I.).  The Church has bound religious, both men and women, to say the Office in choir, even though they may not understand Latin.  Nevertheless, it is highly desirable that those who understand Latin should understand what they read daily in the Breviary.  God, the Church, the practice of the saints, our own intelligence, our spiritual advantage, demand that every priest should read with knowledge so that with more certainty he may read attentively and devoutly.

For (1) the Holy Ghost warns us to sing wisely, Psallite sapienter (Ps. 46.8); (2) that priests may sing wisely, may say the daily Office piously is the reason and end of liturgical studies of the psalms and of the Breviary in theological colleges; (3) the saints who wrote so piously and so learnedly on the psalms and on psalmody are for ever impressing this matter of intelligent recitation.  St. Augustine wrote, “Et quare dicta sunt, nisi ut sciantur?  Quare sonuerunt nisi ut audiantur?  Quare audita sunt nisi ut intelligantur” (Tract xxxi. in Joan).  Again, commenting on psalm 146, he writes, “David teaches that we sing wisely; let us not seek the mere sound for the ear, but a light for the soul.”  St. Thomas Aquinas commenting on “For I pray in a tongue, my spirit prayeth, but my understanding is without fruit” (I.  Cor. xiv. 14) wrote “Constat quod plus lucratur qui orat.  Nam, ille qui intelligit reficitur quantum ad intellectum et quantum ad affectum; sed mens ejus qui non intelligit est sine fructu refectionis.”  And (4) our own intellect tells us that the Breviary should be read intelligently and devoutly.  One of the ends of the Church in imposing the Divine Office as an obligation is, that by honouring the holy mysteries, or the holy memories of the saints, we may raise our hearts and souls to God, as St. Paul wishes us, “May the God of patience and of comfort grant you to be of one mind towards one another according to Jesus Christ, that with one mind and one mouth you may glorify God” (Rom. xv. 5-6), an effect that cannot be produced by the recital of words which are not understood.  It is almost impossible to avoid very grave distractions and to sustain attention if there be not a good knowledge of the matter and form of the Hours recited.