this time difficulty and its solution by the Congregation of the Council on 22nd July, 1893.  The Bishop of Trier explained to the Congregation of the Council that owing to the State legislation in the German Empire all public clocks should register the same time, and that this meant that in his diocese the legal computation differs by half an hour from the mean time.  “May clerics follow the legal time in reciting the Divine Office?” was the bishop’s question.  The Congregation of the Council answered by a simple affirmative.  In 1892, Greenwich time was introduced for State purposes into all railway, postal, and Government offices in Holland.  The query was put to the Congregation of the Inquisition if the clergy and people might, for the purpose of fast and other ecclesiastical obligations, follow the new time, or were they obliged to retain the true time?  The reply was “affirmative ad primam:  negative ad secundam partem.”  “In a word, the constant Roman answer has been ’Do as you please’; so far as the approval of the legal time is concerned it confirms the conclusion of the editor of the Acta (xxxii-251) that in computing time the Church follows the rule that regulates all business concerns in different localities....

“In the meantime, taking into account the conventional character of ‘time’ and the liberal principles of Rome in the past, we have no doubt that everyone, priest or layman, is fully justified in following the new time if he feels so inclined.” (See Codex Juris.  Canon., Can. 33).

Are priests bound to recite Matins and Lauds before Mass?

The first sentence of the Ritus servandus in celebratione Missae in the Missal contains the clause “saltem Malutino cum Laudibus absoluto,” The word saltem indicates that the Church notifies the minimum and expects a further hour, Prime or even others of the small hours, to be finished before Mass.  But theologians hold that there is no grave obligation for such prior-to-Mass recital, and that any reasonable cause excuses from the obligation (Lehmkuhl II., 628).  In connection with this matter a very instructive and devotional essay in the Irish Ecclesiastical Record (Fourth Series XXXI., n. 533) by Father M. Russell, S.J., is well worth reading.  It is entitled “A Neglected Adverb”; the adverb being saltem, from the clause quoted.

At what times should the small hours be recited?  Prime may be, and, probably with more appropriateness, should be used as morning prayer and said before Mass.  Terce and Sext may be said before mid-day, or Sext and None may be said after mid-day.  Vespers should be said after mid-day.  Compline was the night prayer of the monks, who probably instituted the hour.  It should be borne in mind that the substance of the law of recitation is fulfilled if the whole office of the day be recited before midnight, and that the obligation for entire and complete recitation is grave; while the recitation of the hours at set hours of the day is a light obligation.