f creatures and the ignorance of the Divine Office. And the
means to remove these obstacles are to purify the conscience, science,
to mortify the passions, to guard the sense and to have an intelligent
knowledge of the duty and requirements of a proper fulfilment of the
daily task of the saying of the Canonical Hours.

The first means is to purify the conscience from sin, for sin hinders
prayer. But what effect has sin on the recitation of the Office? The
Office is a prayer, an elevation of the soul to God, and as all writers
on ascetics teach, sin is a chain that binds us to earth; it is, says
St. Francis, as birdlime which impedes the soul in its flight upwards.
Prayer is a conversation with God, but a soul loving sin cannot converse
with God; "_Peccatores Deus non audit_" (St. John, ix. 31). Prayer is an
intimate union with God, but a soul resting in sin can have no intimate
union with God; there can be no intimate union between light and
darkness, between sanctity and sin, between good and evil; in a word,
between Christ and Belial. _Quae participatio, quae societas lucis ad
tenebras? Quae conventio Christi el Belial?_

The second means of procuring fervent prayer is the mortification of the
passions. It is not enough to secure fervour in prayer that our souls
should be free from sin; we must struggle to master our passions. This
point is important--for a soul upset by its passions, anger, pride,
etc., cannot with fervour recite the Hours, for it cannot converse with
God, it cannot elevate itself to God, it can have no true union with
God. It cannot converse with God, for God will not converse with an
unmortified soul for three reasons. First, He will not speak if there be
no one to listen, for the Holy Ghost tells us "Where there is no
hearing, pour not out words" (Eccli. xxxii. 6). God wishes a soul in
converse with Him to be calm and still, for God is not in the earthquake
(3 Kings, xix. ii.). Again, even if God speaks to an unmortified soul,
it cannot hear Him as the passions fix its attention on worldly matters.
And even when such a soul tries to listen and to understand, the
passions surging and warring drown all sound and sense of holy things.
For, "the animal man perceiveth not these things that are of the spirit
of God, for it is foolishness to him and he cannot understand, because
it is spiritually examined" (I. Cor. ii. 14). The human soul cannot truly
unite itself to God if the passions are not conquered