ully carried out by patients. St.
Alphonsus teaches that invalids and convalescents may be allowed to say
Mass and yet not be bound to say the Office, as the saying of Mass does
not fatigue them so much as the saying of the Office (St. Alphonsus,
n. 155).

A grave fear exempts from the saying of the Office. A priest amongst
furious persecutors of the Church should be excused from any recitation
of his Hours which he fears may draw on him cruel or severe punishments.

Blindness makes the recitation of the Office a physical impossibility.
Even very defective sight, although not total blindness, exempts from
the obligation of saying the Office. In all such cases a formal
declaration of exemption should be sought. Some theologians hold that
such priests, if they have committed to memory a notable part of the
psalms, should repeat that part from memory. The new psaltery makes such
memorising an extremely difficult feat and no obligation for such a
repetition from memory can be imposed.

Want of a Breviary excuses from the recitation of the Office. For
example, if a priest setting out on a long journey forgets to take his
Breviary or leaves it in a railway carriage, and cannot procure another,
or cannot procure another without, great inconvenience, he is exempt
from the obligation of his Office; and the omission being involuntary is
sinless. The wilful casting away of a Breviary, as an excuse for not
being able to read the Office, is gravely sinful; and unless the sinful
desire be retracted there may be question of many mortal sins of wilful
omission to fulfil the obligation, as the omissions are then wilful in
cause. Priests travelling are unable sometimes to recite the proper
Office of the day, as their Breviaries lack something (e.g., the
proper prayer or the lessons of the second nocturn). The Sacred
Congregation of Rites (December, 1854) decided "_Sacerdos peregre
profectus cui molesti difficiliorque esset officii recitatio cui et
pauca desunt in libro officii praesentis, nempe oratio et legenda,
valet de communi absque obligatione propria deinde ad supplementum
recitandi... atque ita servari mandavit_." The psalms as arranged
in the new psalter must always be said for a valid recitation of the
Office (_v. Divino Afflatu_).

What is a priest bound to do, who from a grave cause cannot find time to
recite the whole Office but only a part of it?

St. Alphonsus gives the rule, "If you can recite a part equivalent to a