Of Other Public and Common Exercises of Devotion.
Besides what we have just said, Philothea, you must also attend the offices of the Hours and Vespers on Sundays and feast days, as far as your convenience will permit: for these days are dedicated to God, and it is meet that more acts should be done therein to His honour and glory than are done on other days. By this means you will feel a thousand sweetnesses of devotion, as Saint Augustine experienced, who assures us in his Confessions that, when he heard the divine office at the beginning of his conversion, his heart melted with sweetness, and his eyes with tears of piety. Moreover, remember once for all that there is always greater benefit and consolation in the public offices of the Church than in private devotions; for God has willed, as concerns His worship, that the communion of the faithful should be preferred to every kind of particular practice.
Willingly join the confraternities of the place where you are, especially that one in which you may find the greatest edification. In so doing you will do a thing most pleasing to God; for although the Church does not command confraternities, she nevertheless recommends them, and, to bear witness to her desire that people should enroll in them, she grants indulgences and other privileges to their members. Besides, it is a practice most conducive to Christian charity thus to join with several persons in furthering their good designs: and although it may happen that one does works as good by oneself as those done in common in confraternities, and perhaps even with greater relish, yet God is more glorified by such gatherings, wherein the merits of each are linked and united with those of his brethren.
Besides what we have just said, Philothea, you must also attend the offices of the Hours and Vespers on Sundays and feast days, as far as your convenience will permit: for these days are dedicated to God, and it is meet that more acts should be done therein to His honour and glory than are done on other days. By this means you will feel a thousand sweetnesses of devotion, as Saint Augustine experienced, who assures us in his Confessions that, when he heard the divine office at the beginning of his conversion, his heart melted with sweetness, and his eyes with tears of piety. Moreover, remember once for all that there is always greater benefit and consolation in the public offices of the Church than in private devotions; for God has willed, as concerns His worship, that the communion of the faithful should be preferred to every kind of particular practice.
Willingly join the confraternities of the place where you are, especially that one in which you may find the greatest edification. In so doing you will do a thing most pleasing to God; for although the Church does not command confraternities, she nevertheless recommends them, and, to bear witness to her desire that people should enroll in them, she grants indulgences and other privileges to their members. Besides, it is a practice most conducive to Christian charity thus to join with several persons in furthering their good designs: and although it may happen that one does works as good by oneself as those done in common in confraternities, and perhaps even with greater relish, yet God is more glorified by such gatherings, wherein the merits of each are linked and united with those of his brethren.
I say the same of all public prayers and devotions, to which, so far as we are able, we ought to contribute by our good example, for the glory of God, for the edification of our neighbour, and for the common end proposed therein.