, because by their
very nature they are opposed to God and hence inspire estrangement from,
and disgust for, holy things.

Thirdly, the senses must be guarded. Our five senses can impede the
recitation of the Office because they present to our souls images of the
things which occupy them, and they can draw our will towards the
pleasures which correspond with these objects. It is necessary for the
worthy, attentive and devout saying of the Office that each sense be
guarded. The sense of sight should be guarded from gazing at objects at
hand, persons, books, landscape, etc. The sense of hearing should be
guarded in flying from the company of evil speakers, calumniators,
detractors, those who speak of worldly affairs or who give evil counsel.
It is necessary, too, to guard the tongue from evil speech. "I have set
a guard to my mouth, when the sinner stood against me" (Psalm 38, 2);
and it is well to guard against too frequent or too long conversations,
which fill the soul with thoughts disturbing to a prayerful disposition.
The sense of touch should likewise be guarded, for St. Thomas says that
the sense of touch is the maintenance of the other senses (1 P. q. 76,
a. 75). And when the foundations of a house commence to fall asunder,
the walls, the frame and the roof totter and fall. So it is with the
senses; when the sense of touch is disturbed the other senses quickly
complete the ruin.

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
advantag