which Mass
is offered, for the Office is the supplement of the Mass (Tronson).

(b) "To help holy Church." The Church militant has many and great needs.
It is her mission to extend the Kingdom of Christ, and to do this great
work she needs freedom from hostile laws, strength and courage to
withstand tyrants and persecution, unity and peace amongst her children
and pastors, zeal in her ministers and recruits for her militant forces.
To obtain these results the Church relies very much on the devout
recitation of the Office. Doubtless, it is for these purposes that the
Church has confided to the care of her chosen ministers this public
official prayer and has laid no such obligation on the laity. St.
Alphonsus did not hesitate to say that if priests and religious said the
Office as they should say it, the Church should not be in the deplorable
state that it then was in. This Doctor of the Church adds "that by
devout saying of the Office many sinners could be drawn from the slavery
of the devil and many souls would love God with more fervour." The wants
of the Church are greater now than they were ever before. Each
devoutly-said Hour draws down God's blessing on His Church. What a vast
number of blessings come from a life of daily recitation offered
worthily, attentively and devoutly (_digne, attente, ac devote_).

(c) "The benefit of the person who recites the Hours." The third end for
which the canonical Hours are offered is for the benefit of the person
who recites them. St. Alphonsus wrote, "If they said the Office as they
ought, priests themselves should not be always the same, always
imperfect, prone to anger, greedy, attached to self-interest and to
vanities.... But if they recited the Office, not as they say it with
distractions and irreverences, but with devotion and recollection,
uniting the affections of the heart with so many petitions which they
present to God, they should certainly not be so weak as they are, but
would acquire fervour and strength to resist all temptations and to lead
a life worthy of priests."

Another blessing springs from the attentive recitation of the
Breviary--viz., the daily withdrawal from the world and its cares which
must be banished from the soul which speaks with God. For, as St.
Alphonsus writes, the saying of the Hours devoutly, gives occasion to
pious souls to elicit many acts of virtue, acts of faith, of hope, of
charity, of humility, etc. For one psalm, says the saint, moves