The Psalms of the Epiphany

In the traditional Roman Divine Office, the only Hours which change their Psalms according to the specific feast day are Matins and Vespers. [1] On the majority of feasts, the first four Psalms of Vespers (109-112) are taken from Sunday, but Psalm 113, the fifth and longest of Sunday, is substituted by another; on the feasts of martyrs, by Psalm 115, on those of bishops by 131, etc. There are, however, four occasions on which Psalm 113 is not replaced, three of which are very ancient indeed, and the fourth relatively recent in origin.

The three ancient feasts are Easter, Pentecost and Epiphany, on which it is said on the day itself and through the octave. (Some medieval Uses, however, vary this.) This custom reflects the traditional baptismal character of these celebrations, which goes back to the very earliest days of the Church.

The Psalm numbered 113 in the Septuagint and Vulgate is really two Psalms joined together, those numbered 114 and 115 in the Hebrew. [2] It is the first of these which speaks of the passage of the Jews out of Egypt, and then of the Crossing of the Jordan into the Holy Land.

The Crossing of the Red Sea, depicted on a Christian sarcophagus at the end of the 4th century from Arles, France. (Image from Wikimedia Commons by Marsyas, CC BY-SA 3.0; click to enlarge.)

“When Israel went out of Egypt, the house of Jacob from a barbarous people: Judea became his sanctuary, Israel his dominion. The sea saw and fled (i.e. the Red Sea): the Jordan was turned back. … What ailed thee, O sea, that thou didst flee: and thou, O Jordan, that thou wast turned back? … At the presence of the Lord the earth was moved, at the presence of the God of Jacob, who turned the rock into pools of water, and the stony hill into fountains of waters.”

The Church has always understood the story of the Exodus as a prefiguration of salvation in Christ, and specifically, the Crossing of the Red Sea as a prefiguration of the Sacrament of Baptism. The reading of the relevant passage from Exodus is attested in the very oldest surviving homily on the subject of Easter, the Paschal homily of St Melito of Sardis, from the mid-2nd century; it begins with the words “The Scripture about the Hebrew Exodus has been read”, and this custom continues into every historical Christian liturgy. Following the lead of St Paul, who says that the rock which provided water to the children of Israel in the desert was Christ (1 Cor. 10, 4), St Melito attributes all of the events of the Exodus directly to Him.

“This was the one who guided you into Egypt, and guarded you, and himself kept you well supplied there. This was the one who lighted your route with a column of fire, and provided shade for you by means of a cloud, the one who divided the Red Sea, and led you across it, and scattered your enemy abroad. This is the one who provided you with manna from heaven, the one who gave you water to drink from a rock, the one who established your laws in Horeb, the one who gave you an inheritance in the land, the one who sent out his prophets to you, the one who raised up your kings. This is the one who came to you, the one who healed your suffering ones and who resurrected your dead.”

Psalm 113, therefore, which speaks of the Red Sea fleeing to make passage for the children of Israel as they go out of Egypt, and the rock that becomes a pool of water, is perfectly suitable to the two most ancient feasts on which the Church celebrates the Sacrament of Baptism, Easter and Pentecost. Likewise, on Epiphany, the Church commemorates the Baptism of Christ in the waters of the Jordan, to which the Psalm also refers. On the fourth feast, that of the Holy Trinity, which was instituted much later, it reminds us that our Faith in the Trinity was first manifested on the occasion of Christ’s Baptism, when the Holy Spirit came upon Him in the form of a dove, and the Father spoke from heaven; and likewise, of the baptismal formula which Christ gave to the Church, as recounted in Matthew 28, 16-20, the Gospel of Easter Friday.

The Baptism of Christ, by Giusto de’ Menabuoi; fresco in the baptistery of Padua, ca. 1378.

The nine psalms of Epiphany Matins are 28, 45 and 46 in the first nocturn, 65, 71 and 85 in the second, and 94, 95 and 96 in the third. The antiphons with which they are sung, and which determine their meaning for the feast, are attested quite uniformly in the ancient antiphonaries. The choice of these psalms and antiphons reflects some very ancient interpretative traditions found in the writings of the Church Fathers.

Psalm 28 is sung with an antiphon taken from its first two verses: “Bring to the Lord, o ye children of God: adore ye the Lord in his holy court.” The full text of these verses is “Bring to the Lord, o ye children of God: bring to the Lord the offspring of rams. Bring to the Lord glory and honour: bring to the Lord glory to his name: adore ye the Lord in his holy court.” The antiphon removes the three objects from the verb “bring”; the act of bringing is in itself to sufficient indicate the gifts which the Magi brought to Christ at the Epiphany.

Although St Matthew does not specify how many Magi there were, the representation of three of them is one of the most ancient and consistent traditions of Christian art. It is commonly assumed that artists settled on three to correspond to their three gifts, which, in turn, have been read from very ancient times as symbols of Christ’s divinity, mortality and regality. This is undoubtedly true, but there is another, equally important reason for showing three. The Greeks, following the Babylonians, divided the world into three parts, Asia, Africa and Europe; this division predates Christianity, but was received by Christians and Jews as part of their sacred history. Each continent was believed to be populated by the descendants of one of the sons of Noah, Asians from Shem, Africans from Ham, and Europeans from Japheth. The three Magi are therefore the symbolic representatives of these three parts of world, coming to worship the Creator and Savior.

A third-century fresco in the Roman Catacomb of Priscilla, showing the three Magi each painted in a different color, to indicate that each one represents one of the three parts of the world.

Particularly in Rome, where people from every part of the Empire lived, an image of three Magi represents the revelation of Christ as the Redeemer of all men, and the coming of all peoples to salvation. The antiphon of Psalm 28 on Epiphany reflects the fact that the gentiles are also numbered among the “sons of God.” The antiphons of Psalms 65 and 85 are chosen on a similar theme. “Let all the earth adore thee, and sing to thee: let it sing a psalm to thy name, o Lord.” (Psalm 65, 4) “All the nations thou hast made shall come, and adore before thee, O Lord.” (Psalm 85, 9) Pope St Leo I quotes the second of these in his third sermon on the Epiphany. [3]

The Church Fathers also associate Psalm 28 with Christ’s Baptism. St Basil teaches that the words of verse 3, “the voice of the Lord is upon the waters” refer to St John the Baptist. (Homily 2 on Ps. 28) St Ambrose understands them to refer to the appearance of the Three Persons of the Trinity (De mysteriis 5.26), and likewise St Peter Chrysologus writes in a sermon on the Epiphany, “Today, as the prophet saith, the voice of the Lord is upon the waters. Which voice? ‘This is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased.” (Sermon 160)

A work known as the Breviarium in Psalmos, (traditionally but incorrectly attributed to St Jerome), explains the words of the antiphon of Psalm 45, “the stream of the river maketh joyful the city of God,” as a reference to both the waters of baptism and the outpouring of the Holy Spirit. “After the worship of demons is overthrown, the washing of baptism and the pouring fourth of the Holy Spirit maketh joyful the soul, the city of God, or else the Church which is the city of God that is set upon a mountain, and is not hidden.”

The Adoration of the Magi, from the Benedictional of St Aethelwold, ca. 975. By this point the tradition has emerged of showing the Magi with royal crowns, inspired by the words of Psalm 71 cited below, and a verse of the Epistle of the Mass of Epiphany, “And the Gentiles shall walk in thy light, and kings in the brightness of thy rising.” (Isaiah 60, 3)

A commentary on the Psalms of the later 4th century, formerly attributed to Rufinus of Aquileia (345-411), reads the antiphon of Psalm 71, “The kings of Tharsis and the islands shall offer presents: the kings of the Arabians and of Saba shall bring gifts” (verse 10), in reference to the Magi. “The Magi, led by a star, fulfilled this bodily, and the kings and princes of all the earth still do not cease to imitate them even daily. … by these gifts which are said to be brought to Lord, those faithful men are indicated, whom the authority of kings brings into the society of the Church.” It then refers the following verse, “And all the kings shall adore him”, to the end of the worship of the Roman emperors, for the sake of which Christians were so often persecuted before the reign of Constantine. “All the kings shall adore him, who were formerly wont to be adored, … and all nations that were formerly wont to serve earthly kings, will serve Him, that is our heavenly King.” (Commentarius in LXXV Psalmos; PL 21, 0939B). The mention of kings from three places in the East (Tharsis, Arabia, and Saba) also fits in with the traditional artistic representation of three mentioned above.

Psalm 94 was clearly chosen for the close similarity between its words “venite, adoremus, et procidamus ante Deum – come, let us worship, and fall down before God,” (verse 6 of the Old Latin version) and those of the Gospel, “venimus adorare eum. … et procidentes adoraverunt eum – we have come to worship him … and falling down they worshipped him. ” (Matt. 2, verses 2 and 11.) The antiphon with which it is sung on the Epiphany is therefore “Come, let us worship Him, for He is the Lord, our God.” This Psalm is normally said at the beginning of Matins every day with a refrain called an invitatory, which is repeated in whole or part between its verses. On the Epiphany, however, the invitatory and Psalm 94 are omitted from the beginning of Matins, and the psalm is said in the third nocturn, with the antiphon repeated between the verses in the manner of an invitatory.

In his Rationale Divinorum Officiorum (6.16.9), William Durandus also notes this prosaic explanation for omitting the invitatory on Epiphany, the mere avoidance of repetition. Before it, however, he explains that the invitatory is omitted “to show that the Church in its first fruits came from the gentiles to the Lord, not invited, or called by a herald, but with only the star to lead it, … so that shame might be inculcated on those who are late to believe, even though they have many preachers. For the Magi came to worship Christ, even though they were not called.” He then gives a second explanation, a more traditional one which dates back to his ninth-century predecessor, Amalarius of Metz: “Secondly, so that we who are daily invited and urged to worship and beseech God, may be seen to detest the deceitful invitation of Herod when he said to the Magi, ‘Go and inquire diligently concerning the Child.’ ”

A page of 1490 Breviary according to the Use of Passau, Germany. In the right column, the rubics just above the middle of the page begins “At Matins, we do not say the Invitatory, so that we may differ from Herod’s deceitful invitation.”

[1] The regular psalms of Sunday Lauds (92, 99, 62-66, the Benedicite, and 148-149-150) were traditionally said on all feast days in the Roman Rite. In the reform of St Pius X, psalms 66, 149 and 150 were removed, but the group thus reduced continued to be used on all major feasts, including Pentecost. The psalms of the day hours were likewise traditionally invariable for all feasts (53 and the eleven parts of 118), and those of Compline always invariable; this was also changed in the reform of St Pius X, but not in a way that applied to major feasts like Epiphany.

[2] There are four places where the Psalms are joined or divided one way in the Hebrew and another in the Greek. There are also psalms which both traditions have as a single text, but are generally believed to be two joined together, (e.g. 26), and others which both traditions have as two (41 and 42), which are generally believed to have originally been one, later divided. It is quite possible that these variations come from ancient liturgical usages of which all knowledge has long since been lost. Likewise, the meaning of many words and phrases in the titles of the Psalms had already been lost when the Septuagint translation was made in the 3rd century B.C.

[3] It is tempting to think of this as proof that the antiphon itself goes back to the time of St Leo, but it is of course just as possible that its unknown composer was inspired to choose this text by reading Pope Leo’s sermon.

The Psalms of Pentecost

In the traditional Roman Divine Office, the only Hours which change their Psalms according to the specific feast day are Matins and Vespers. [1] On the majority of feasts, the first four Psalms of Vespers (109-112) are taken from Sunday, but Psalm 113, the fifth and longest of Sunday, is substituted by another; on the feasts of martyrs, by Psalm 115, on those of bishops by 131, etc. There are, however, four occasions on which Psalm 113 is not replaced, three of which are very ancient indeed, and the fourth relatively recent in origin.

The latecomer is the feast of the Holy Trinity, which was first instituted at Liège in the 10th century, and spread from there very slowly. Pope John XXII (1316-34) ordered that it be celebrated throughout the Western Church on the Sunday after Pentecost, a custom which became universal after Trent; however, even as late as the mid-16th century, the Low Countries and several major German dioceses kept that day as the Octave of Pentecost, and put Trinity on the following Monday. The use of Psalm 113 at Second Vespers is a reminder of the day’s previous status as either the octave of Pentecost, or the first of the ordinary Sundays after it.

A page from a Breviary according to the Use of Augsburg, Germany, ca. 1493. In the right column, the first rubric reads “And so on Monday after the octave of Pentecost will the feast of the Trinity be celebrated.”

The three ancient feasts are Easter, Pentecost and Epiphany, on which it is said on the day itself and through the octave. (Some medieval Uses, however, vary this.) This custom reflects the traditional baptismal character of these celebrations, which go back to the very earliest days of the Church.

The Psalm numbered 113 in the Septuagint and Vulgate is really two Psalms joined together, those numbered 114 and 115 in the Hebrew. [2] It is the first of these which speaks of the passage of the Jews out of Egypt, and then of the Crossing of the Jordan into the Holy Land.

“When Israel went out of Egypt, the house of Jacob from a barbarous people: Judea became his sanctuary, Israel his dominion. The sea saw and fled (i.e. the Red Sea): the Jordan was turned back. … What ailed thee, O sea, that thou didst flee: and thou, O Jordan, that thou wast turned back? … At the presence of the Lord the earth was moved, at the presence of the God of Jacob, who turned the rock into pools of water, and the stony hill into fountains of waters.”

The Church has always understood the story of the Exodus as a prefiguration of salvation in Christ, and specifically, the Crossing of the Red Sea as a prefiguration of the Sacrament of Baptism. The reading of the relevant passage from Exodus is attested in the very oldest surviving homily on the subject of Easter, the Paschal homily of St Melito of Sardis, from the mid-2nd century; it begins with the words “The Scripture about the Hebrew Exodus has been read”, and this custom continues into every historical Christian liturgy. Following the lead of St Paul, who says that the rock which provided water to the children of Israel in the desert was Christ (1 Cor. 10, 4), St Melito attributes all of the events of the Exodus directly to Him.

“This was the one who guided you into Egypt, and guarded you, and himself kept you well supplied there. This was the one who lighted your route with a column of fire, and provided shade for you by means of a cloud, the one who divided the Red Sea, and led you across it, and scattered your enemy abroad. This is the one who provided you with manna from heaven, the one who gave you water to drink from a rock, the one who established your laws in Horeb, the one who gave you an inheritance in the land, the one who sent out his prophets to you, the one who raised up your kings. This is the one who came to you, the one who healed your suffering ones and who resurrected your dead.”

Psalm 113, therefore, which speaks of the Red Sea fleeing to make passage for the children of Israel as they go out of Egypt, and the rock that becomes a pool of water, is perfectly suitable to the two most ancient feasts on which the Church celebrates the Sacrament of Baptism, Easter and Pentecost. Likewise, on Epiphany, the Church commemorates the Baptism of Christ in the waters of the Jordan, to which the Psalm also refers.

The Crossing of the Red Sea, by Agnolo di Cosimo, known as Bronzino, 1540; from the Chapel of Eleonora of Toledo in the Palazzo Vecchio, Florence.

Matins of Pentecost, like those of Easter, has only three Psalms; these are 47, 67 and 103 according to the Vulgate numbering. The antiphon sung with Psalm 47 is not taken from it, but from the Acts of the Apostles (2, 2): “There suddenly came a sound from heaven, as of a mighty wind coming, alleluia, alleluia.” The psalm seems to have been chosen because of the words of its first verse, “Great is the Lord, and exceedingly to be praised in the city of our God, in his holy mountain.”, the city of our God being Jerusalem, where the first Pentecost took place. And likewise, the second verse, “With the joy of the whole earth is mount Sion founded”, may be referred to the preaching of the Gospel to all nations, which begins on Pentecost.

The third Psalm, 103, describes the glory of God throughout His creation, drawing us back to the very beginning of the Bible, when God created the heaven and the earth. “Who stretchest out the heaven like a pavilion … Who hast founded the earth upon its own bases.” It is sung with an antiphon from verse 30 which makes it obvious why it was chosen, “Send forth thy spirit, and they shall be created: and thou shalt renew the face of the earth, alleluia, alleluia.”, for the renewal of creation at the coming of the Holy Spirit is also celebrated at Pentecost. The Byzantine Rite expresses this idea of renewal very beautifully in the traditional icon for the feast. At the bottom is placed the figure of an aged king, who represents the world grown old in sin and idolatry, and living in darkness. In the cloth in his hands are scrolls, which represent the teaching of the Apostles, by which he will receive the Gospel and the renewal of the Holy Spirit.

St Paul is included among the Apostles, he was not present at Pentecost; this demonstrates that the Holy Spirit continues His mission in the Church even after the day of Pentecost itself. The other Apostles are holding scrolls, representing their role as the Church’s teachers.

It is also a common custom to fill the church with greenery for the feast day, and although there is no absolutely formalized liturgical color scheme, among the Slavs, it has become standard to use green vestments. In Ukrainian, this has given rise to a nickname for the feast, “Зелені свята – green holiday.”

St Peter’s Eastern Catholic Church in Ukiah, California, decorated for Pentecost in 2018.

The choice of the middle psalm, 67, is also explained in part by its antiphon, which is taken from verses 29 and 30, “Confirm, O God, what thou hast wrought in us, from Thy holy temple in Jerusalem, alleluia, alleluia.” This refers to the place of the first Pentecost, and the last words of the Gospel of St Luke, who says that after the Ascension, the Apostles “were always in the temple, praising and blessing God.”

This is famously one of the most difficult texts in the entire Psalter. There are a number of lines which are very hard to understand, and endless emendations have been proposed for the Hebrew. These difficult readings carry over into its first translation, the Septuagint, and thus to the Vulgate, which derives from it; a good example is verse 14, “If you sleep among the midst of lots, you shall be as the wings of a dove covered with silver,” But even where the individual lines are perfectly clear, the psalm as a whole is not; indeed, the thought of it is so disjointed that some Biblical scholars have proposed that it was not originally written as a psalm at all, but rather as a list of titles of psalms which are now lost, or a collection of their first lines, or a collection of fragments.

It is precisely this disjointed quality that makes it a perfectly appropriate choice for Pentecost. When the people in Jerusalem first heard the Apostles speaking in a variety of languages, “they were all astonished, and wondered, saying one to another: What meaneth this? But others mocking, said, ‘These men are full of new wine.’ ” This confusion is reflected by the confusion of thoughts in the psalm. But St Peter explains to them that “these men are not drunk, as you suppose, … but this is that which was spoken of by the prophet Joel, ‘And it shall come to pass, in the last days, (saith the Lord,) I will pour out of my Spirit upon all flesh.’ ” (Acts 2, 12-17, citing Joel 2, 28) The Apostolic preaching takes away their confusion, as it reveals to them the true meaning of the Old Testament. We may therefore conclude by noting that St Augustine explains the “lots” in the verse given above as symbols of the two Testaments, and that “sleeping” between them signifies the Church’s peaceful acceptance of the harmony between them. (Enarratio in Psalmum LXVII)

St Peter Preaching in Jerusalem, by Charles Poërson, 1645. (The twisted columns in the background will be familiar to anyone who has visited St Peter’s in Rome, and the many Baroque churches throughout Europe that imitated the Vatican Basilica. They are also known as “Solomonic” columns, from the legend that the Emperor Constantine recovered them from the ruins of Solomon’s Temple, and brought them to Rome to decorate the original church. On the basis of this wholly mistaken but widely accepted belief, artists often included them when representing the Jerusalem Temple.)

[1] The regular psalms of Sunday Lauds (92, 99, 62-66, the Benedicite, and 148-149-150) were traditionally said on all feast days in the Roman Rite. In the reform of St Pius X, psalms 66, 149 and 150 were, lamentably, removed, but the group thus reduced continued to be used on all major feasts, including Pentecost. The psalms of the day hours were likewise traditionally invariable for all feasts (53 and the eleven parts of 118), and those of Compline always invariable; this was also changed in the reform of St Pius X, but not in a way that applied to major feasts like Pentecost.

[2] There are four places where the Psalms are joined or divided one way in the Hebrew and another in the Greek. There are also psalms which both traditions have as a single text, but are generally believed to be two joined together, (e.g. 26), and others which both traditions have as two (41 and 42), which are generally believed to have originally been one, later divided. It is quite possible that these variations come from ancient liturgical usages of which all knowledge has long since been lost. Likewise, the meaning of many words and phrases in the titles of the Psalms had already been lost when the Septuagint translation was made in the 3rd century B.C.

Psalms in the Byzantine Lenten Office

On the Gregorian calendar, yesterday was the first day of Great Lent in the Byzantine Rite, so here is an interesting thing about the Byzantine Divine Office and its use of the Psalms in this season. (On the Julian calendar, the first day of Lent will be on the Gregorian date March 18, and Easter on May 5.) As with everything in the Byzantine Rite, exceptions abound, and this is not a comprehensive account of all the possible variations and substitutions.

The Hours of the Byzantine Office all have one or more Psalms as part of their permanent and mostly invariable structure, analogous to the Roman Rite’s daily use of Psalm 94 as the invitatory or the invariable Psalms of Terce-None and Compline (before the reform of 1911). So for example, Psalm 103 is said every day as part of the introductory rites of Vespers; the same three Psalms (5-89-100) are said at Prime 355 days of the year, etc.

However, the entire Psalter, including the Psalms that are also used elsewhere as structural elements, is also divided into 20 sections called “kathismata.” Each kathisma is subdivided into three “staseis”, each of which concludes with the doxology, then three repetitions of “Alleluja, alleluja, alleluja; glory to Thee, o God”, “Lord, have mercy” three times, and the doxology again. Normally, one kathisma is said at Vespers, except on Sunday evening, and two at Orthros. The whole Psalter is therefore read over the course of a week.

This first table shows how the Psalms are distributed through the kathismata; the number of psalms per stasis is irregular to account for their varying length.

This second table shows how the kathismata are normally distributed through the week. Two pairs of them are said out of order on Friday (19 and 20) and Saturday (16 and 17), since the 17th is said on weekdays at the Hour known as the Midnight Office, which I have described in a previous article. (This is one of the very few places where the Byzantine Rite makes a formal accomodation to the idea of keeping the Office from getting too long or too repetitive.)

In Lent, however, the Psalter is done TWICE in a week. On weekdays, three kathismata are said at Orthros instead of two, and one is added to the Hours from Prime-None, with three exceptions (Prime of Monday, and Prime and None of Friday.) In this Lenten system, the same kathisma, the 18th, which consists of the 15 Gradual Psalms, is said at Vespers on all the weekdays. This coincides with the custom by which the Divine Liturgy is not offered on the weekdays of Lent, permitting more time to be dedicated to the Office.

(Hours with no kathisma are left blank in this table, which accounts for the first four weeks and the sixth week of Lent. During the fifth week, there is an adjustment to the order to accomodate a special and spectacularly lengthy service held on Thursday of that week, which is too complicated to explain here.)

In the first round (from Saturday Vespers to Orthros of Wednesday), the 17th kathisma is omitted, again, because it said at the Midnight Office. On the other hand, there are three occasions (Terce of Monday, Prime of Tuesday, and None of Thursday) in which the same Psalm is said as one of the regular daily Psalms of those Hours, and then repeated almost immediately in the kathisma. On the last of these occasions, Psalm 85 is said twice back-to-back, once as the third of the daily Psalms of None (83-84-85), and immediately again as the first Psalm of the 12th kathisma.

It should be kept in mind that this system is generally only used in full in monasteries; in practice, other churches, especially parishes, will either abbreviate the kathismata or omit them altogether. For example, in Slavic practice, the first kathisma at Vespers on Saturday evening, Psalms 1-8, is often abbreviated into this very nice piece of music, which only includes a few select verses of these Psalms.

It should also be noted that the kathismata are basically done as readings by a single reader in a simple recitative tone. They have nothing analogous to Roman antiphons, and there is no melody to them analogous to a Roman psalm-tone. The recitation of the Psalms in this manner therefore does not take anywhere near as long as it would if they were being sung as they are in the Roman Rite.

The first proper chant of Orthros has two variations. On feasts and Sundays, a refrain from Psalm 117, “The Lord is God, and hath shone upon us; blessed is He who cometh in the name of the Lord”, is sung between verses of the same Psalm. Aliturgical days, however, are known as “days of Alleluja”, because this chant is replaced by a different refrain, three Allelujas sung between verses of Isaiah 26. In the following recording, it is sung together with the opening troparion of Matins of Holy Thursday and Good Friday. “When the glorious disciples were enlightened at the washing (of the feet) during the Supper, then was the impious Judas darkened, grown sick with avarice, and handed Thee, the just Judge, to lawless judges. See, o lover of money, the man who was brought by these things to the gibbet; flee from the insatiable desire that dared such things against the Teacher. Thou, who art good to all, o Lord, glory to Thee!”

Between this and the multiplication of the kathismata, the Byzantine Rite does the opposite of the Roman, greatly increasing the number of Allelujas said in Lent.

Last but not least, the kathisma system is dropped completely from Orthros of the morning of Holy Thursday until None of the Saturday of Bright Week (the Byzantine term for the Easter octave), and then resumed at Vespers of St Thomas Sunday; so the monks give themselves a break from the Psalter for ten days, the first three of which are nevertheless among the lengthiest of the entire year.

His yoke is easy, and His burden is light.

Paul VI Against the Council: The Censorship of the Psalms in the Divine Office

The other day, I noticed that the problem of the psalter in the post-Vatican II Liturgy of the Hours was being mentioned again on social media. To reiterate: three psalms were removed entirely from the psalter in the reformed Office (57, 82 and 108), with parts of nineteen others also deleted (see here for a full list). It seems an appropriate moment, therefore, to demonstrate that this censorship of the Psalms goes directly against the intentions of the Second Vatican Council, notwithstanding the desires of a tiny minority of the Fathers.

Shortly after Pope John XXIII announced the Council, a letter was sent out to all bishops and prelates asking them for their suggestions about what should be discussed. Over two-thousand responses were received; these are collectively known as the vota, and make up the antepreparatory (or pre-preparatory) part of the Acta of Vatican II. In my contribution to the 2019 Fota International Liturgical Conference, “The Proposals for Reform of the Roman Breviary in the Antepreparatory Period of Vatican II”, I noted that the omission of the imprecatory psalms from the Roman Breviary was mentioned in only three vota:

• “That it be examined whether some psalms (e.g. the imprecatory psalms) that are difficult for Christians to fruitfully pray may be omitted from the Divine Office”. (Julius Cardinal Dopfner: Bishop of Berlin, Germany: ADA II.1, p. 588)
• “Regarding the Breviary… that several Psalms, full of curses, be substituted [for others].” (Amerigo Galbiati, P.I.M.E., Bishop of Jalpaiguri, India: ADA II.4. p. 149)
• “That in the Breviary the whole of sacred scripture in the New Testament be included; and from the Old Testament, the books of Moses, the historical books, and the four major prophets. Omit the [accounts of] wars and the imprecatory psalms.” (Gaspar Lischerong, S.J., Apostolic Administrator of Daming, China: ADA II.4, p. 568)

Three vota out of over two-thousand is a vanishingly small proportion. However, this idea that some psalms were not suitable for modern prayer would actually be discussed in some detail at the Council’s Central Preparatory Commission, when the draft constitution on the liturgy was being considered in the spring of 1962. This is mostly thanks to the remarks made by Arcadio Cardinal Larraona in his relatio (presentation) of chapter 4 to the Commission, in which he claimed that the omission of the imprecatory psalms was a possibility justifiable by what was then art. 71 of the constitution:

For art. 71: In the arrangement of the psalter, these things need to be revisited… that some psalms which seem less in keeping with the spirit of evangelical charity may be omitted, or recited less frequently… (ADP II.3, p. 331)

In the subsequent discussion by the members of the Commission, Ernesto Cardinal Ruffini gave Psalms 55, 58, 83, 109, 129, 137 and 140 as examples that could be omitted from the psalter in whole or in part (ADP II.3, p. 338), and Carlo Cardinal Confalonieri declared that he had no objection to omitting verses from imprecatory or long historical psalms (ADP II.3, p. 342). In the voting on chapter 4 of the draft constitution, Valerio Cardinal Valeri, Giovanni Cardinal Montini (who would, of course, be elected Pope Paul VI in 1963), Archbishop Victor Bazin and Bishop Johannes Suhr, O.S.B., declared their agreement with Ruffini, with Paolo Cardinal Marella agreeing with both Ruffini and Confalonieri (see ADP II.3, pp. 360-362). Abbot Benno Gut, O.S.B., was alone in his defense of the preservation of the whole psalter in the Breviary (ADP II.3, p. 368). 

The issue of the imprecatory psalms would also be mentioned at the Council itself, with Cardinal Ruffini being the first to raise the issue, just as he was at the Central Preparatory Commission. At the Council’s 14th General Congregation (7 November 1962), Ruffini proclaimed:

However, in the recitation of the Divine Office, especially in the vernacular or by the people—at least by nuns and laity—I think that some psalms should be omitted: those that are called “imprecatory”. Indeed, there is none who does not see how sharply they can pierce souls: e.g. vv. 23-29 of Psalm 68, in which the psalmist calls for the chastisement of enemies… also, almost all of Psalm 108… Saint Thomas Aquinas, with the wisdom and clarity for which he is famed, best interprets and explains the imprecations in the psalms… Nevertheless, because the people are not well-versed in biblical exegesis, many would easily fall into wrath and curses against their neighbours. (AS I.2, p. 329)

Two days later, at the 15th General Congregation (9 November 1962), Antonio Cardinal Bacci would also declare that, in his opinion, various psalms—in fact, almost a third of the psalter!—should be omitted from the Breviary, because the imperfect revelation in the Old Testament has been perfected and fulfilled by the “law of charity and mercy” of the Gospel:

There are not a few psalms which reflect the particular condition of the Hebrew people, and so contribute little to our piety, as well as those which look to the law of retaliation, in force at that time. I give only two examples: Psalm 136… and Psalm 108… Those psalms which are either imprecatory or refer to the particular condition of the Hebrew people are about a third of the psalter. In my opinion, it is appropriate that all these psalms, that are in other respects divinely inspired Sacred Scripture, and consistent with the particular conditions of their times, should be expunged from the Breviary, which is primarily a book of sacred prayer and sacred meditation. Let us recall what the Divine Redeemer said: “You have heard that it was said to those of old… But I say to you.” The law of the Gospel is the perfection of the Old Testament, and in the present-day the law of retaliation is no longer valid, but rather the law of charity and mercy. (AS I.2, p. 409)

Two of the Fathers would say similar things to Cardinal Bacci during the same General Congregation. Bishop Fidel García Martínez (emeritus of Calahorra y La Calzada, Spain) suggested that readings from the Old Testament, including some of the psalms, are difficult to understand because of their incomplete revelation of God, and thus the bulk of the readings in the revised Breviary should be from the New Testament (AS I.2, p. 439). Rev Fr Aniceto Fernández Alonso, O.P., the Master General of the Dominicans, thought that it would perhaps be better to delete the imprecatory psalms from the Breviary. These psalms, he said, are obviously the inspired word of God, and can be read according to their correct interpretation, but “their expressions represent the very imperfect revelation of the Old Testament and reflect the very imperfect morality of that time”, giving the examples of Psalms 68, 108, and 136. Such psalms, according to him, are “less suitable in our day for fostering and expressing the sublime effects of charity.” (AS I.2, pp. 461-462)

Psalm 108 in the 9th century Utrecht Psalter, fol. 64r

Three other Fathers mentioned the possible removal of the imprecatory psalms from the Breviary in their written submissions to the Conciliar Liturgical Commission:

• Bishop Anton Reiterer, M.C.C.I. (Lydenburg, South Africa), wanted to “remove from the Breviary all the psalms which cannot be properly said, namely: historical and imprecatory psalms” (AS I.2, p. 560);
• In his comments, Rev Fr Mariano Oscoz, E.C.M.C. (Prior General Emeritus of the Camaldolese Hermits of Mount Corona), expressed the same logic as others (i.e. the imperfect morality of the Old Testament), and suggested it would be “sufficient” for the Council to “approve the general principle” of the removal of the imprecatory and other obscure psalms; in fact, Fr Oscoz used the Rule of Saint Benedict (RB 19.7) as justification for this! (AS I.2, p. 555)
• Archbishop Domenico Luca Capozi, O.F.M., in a slightly more vague manner, asked for the breviary psalms “to be selected in such a way that they are not too long, and those that do not foster piety are abandoned.” (AS I.2, p. 505)

Contrary to this, a number of Fathers defended the principle of the entire psalter being prayer in the Breviary. Again, at the Council’s 16th General Congregation, Abbot Jean Prou, O.S.B. (Solesmes), stated that it was “most desirable that the entire psalter be preserved in the sacred liturgy, not excluding the so-called imprecatory psalms, which can be more easily understood in a spiritual sense”. He also mentioned the fact that similar material in the New Testament and the liturgy would have to be deleted (he cites the Book of Revelation and the introit to the Mass formulary Intret in conspectu, in the Common of Several Martyrs outside Easter: see AS I.2, p. 446). Bishop Emilio Guano (Livorno, Italy) stated that “In my opinion, it is preferable to preserve the entire psalter, including the so-called imprecatory psalms, over one week, so that more and more priests, religious and the Church are imbued with the prayer of the Old Testament and of Christ himself.” (AS I.2, p. 458)

Abbot Benedikt Reetz, O.S.B. (Beuron), in a written intervention, forcefully defended the integrity of the psalter in the Breviary, contra Cardinal Ruffini:

I see no reason at all why one or the other psalm should be excluded from the Divine Office because of curses and imprecations, as proposed by His Eminence Cardinal Ruffini… The whole psalter belongs to the treasury of the sacred Scriptures, and we believe it is also inspired in those parts which are not fully understood by us now because of the fragility and weakness of our intellect. Who claims the right to exclude certain psalms from the Divine Office, and what will be the criteria for this exclusion? … For nearly twenty centuries, the Catholic Church has sung all 150 psalms in their entirety, and there is no reason why she should deviate from this tradition in the 20th century. (AS I.2, p. 559)

It is this latter group of Fathers who would prevail in the discussion. When the revised chapter IV of the constitution on the liturgy was presented to the Council Fathers on 21 October 1963, Bishop Joseph Martin (Nicolet, Canada) gave the relatio explaining the various changes made. In these remarks, he also explained that the Conciliar Liturgical Commission had considered the suggestions that the imprecatory and historical psalms should be removed from the Breviary:

However, another question of no small importance, which does not derive its origin from the text [of the Constitution], has arisen concerning the psalter. Some of the Fathers wish to expunge from the breviary those psalms which express imprecations and vengeance, or even those which provide insufficient revelation about the latter, or, indeed, historical psalms or those that ‘foster insufficient piety’. Other Fathers rejected these opinions, and our Commission adheres to this rejection: the whole psalter belongs to the treasury of the sacred Scriptures, and we believe it is also inspired in those parts which are not fully understood by us now because of the fragility and weakness of our intellect. In such an arbitrary selection of the psalms, one might perhaps indulge ‘rationalist’ tendencies; moreover, we fear that such a thing would be astonishing to the brethren who have separated from us. ‘For whatever was written was written for our instruction’ (Romans 15:4) Otherwise, those parts of the sacred liturgy, taken also from the New Testament, which speak of the same things would have to be expunged. (AS II.3, pp 136-137, emphasis mine).

So, to reiterate: the Council Fathers were told by the Conciliar Liturgical Commission that it was in no way envisaged that the constitution on the liturgy would justify the omission of certain psalms from the Divine Office. Sacrosanctum Concilium did not mention this, and the Commission explicitly excluded the possible interpretation or use of article 91 to justify it. This is important, because for many other specific suggestions for the future reform of the liturgy, the Commission told the Fathers that they would be referred to the “post-conciliar commission” to deal with, since the constitution was intended mainly to give the general principles of the reform. [1] In this instance, however, the Council Fathers were specifically told that the provisions in SC 91 did not envisage or allow for any psalms or parts of psalms to be deleted.

How, then, did we end up with a reform of the breviary in which parts of the psalter have been arbitrarily removed due to “certain psychological difficulties” (General Instruction on the Liturgy of the Hours, n. 131)? The blame for this lies almost entirely with Pope Paul VI. Both the consultors and members of the Consilium ad exsequendam voted numerous times in favour of keeping the entire psalter in the revised Office. [2] Paul VI ignored them. The 1967 Synod of Bishops voted overwhelmingly to keep the entire psalter in the revised Office — 117 placet, 25 non placet, 31 placet iuxta modum. [3] Paul VI ignored them.

It is true to say that the secretary of the Consilium had a hand in Paul VI sticking with his decision, as Bugnini attached his own observations to the Consilium’s final vote in favour of retaining the whole psalter, in what has been described as “bold and unwarranted interventions against the majority opinion of the Consilium.” [4] Equally, however, as we have seen above, Paul VI seemed to have had already made up his mind about censoring the psalter years before he was even elected Pope. And, ultimately, the final decision was his and his alone.

I don’t think it should be controversial — though in the current climate of the “unique expression of the Roman Rite”, it may be politically incorrect! — to say that Paul VI was wrong here: wrong to go against the specifically expressed intentions of the Council, wrong to go against the vote of the Synod of Bishops, and wrong to go against the majority of the members and consultors of the Consilium. As Gregory DiPippo has written elsewhere, “The Church lives as it lives now very largely because Paul VI rejected and did not fulfil the will of the Second Vatican Council” and I would certainly concur with that.

I would also concur with many others that the full psalter needs restoring to the post-Vatican II Liturgia horarum as a matter of urgency. As I have demonstrated above, this is in fact an issue of fidelity to the Second Vatican Council. It is also a corrective to the incredibly flawed notion that it is somehow ‘psychologically’ or ‘spiritually’ impossible to pray the full psalter in the modern world. The danger with continuing to censor the psalter in this manner is well-expressed by Trevor Laurence in his recent book, Cursing with God: The Imprecatory Psalms and the Ethics of Christian Prayer (Waco, TX: Baylor University Press, 2022), published just last year:

The sanitized liturgies of many modern churches fail to accurately reflect the realities of life in this kind of world… the community that does not learn together through Scripture’s psalmic script how to bring its wounds and the wounds of the world before God, cultivate a rightly ordered anger, and plead in prayer for the justice of divine judgment will be uncertain whether their longings for justice belong in the presence of God at all and will risk inadvertently shaping its members to nurse wounds, vent anger, and pursue justice after the pattern of the world—contributing to, rather than confronting and challenging, the seemingly perpetual cycles of violence. (pp. 5-6)

Realistically, however, the reintroduction of the integral psalter to the post-conciliar liturgical books won’t be happening, at least any time soon, as the logic of both Traditionis custodes and Desiderio desideravi (in particular, nn. 31 and 61) mitigate against any such notion of this “reform of the reform.” Even though Pope Francis has (albeit obliquely) critiqued this censoring of the psalms, those that pray the post-Vatican II Liturgy of the Hours will have to live for the foreseeable future with Paul VI’s personal opinion that the Roman psalter should be deformed. Still, there’s always the traditional Breviarium Romanum, or the traditional monastic offices, and also the Ordinariate’s Divine Worship: Daily Office, which preserves the whole psalter in course, spread over one month at Mattins and Evensong.

NOTES

[1] See, e.g., AS II.3, p. 274, where the details of what feast days will be on the revised calendar is left to the “post-conciliar commission”; AS II.4, p. 26, where details about sacred art are left to the “post-conciliar commission”; AS II.2, p. 307, where a whole list of specifics is left to the “post-conciliar commission”, etc.

[2] See Stanislaus Campbell, From Breviary to Liturgy of the Hours: The Structural Reform of the Roman Office 1964-1971 (Collegeville, MN: Liturgical Press, 1995), pp. 151-154.

[3] See Annibale Bugnini, The Reform of the Liturgy 1948-1975 (Collegeville, MN: Liturgical Press, 1990), p. 507.

[4] Campbell, From Breviary to Liturgy of the Hours, p. 71.

The Third Sunday after Easter

On this third Sunday, and on the two that follow before the Ascension, the Church exhorts us to rejoicing and exultation for the Resurrection and Ascension of Christ, wherefore the Introit of this Sunday begins, ‘Shout with joy to God, all the earth.’ And there follows Alleluia, because this shout of joy is the exultation which the mind has for eternal things, and is to be made only to God. There follows, ‘Sing a psalm to His name’, that is, praise him with cheerful work, and likewise there follows a single Alleluia, because all other things arise from a single root, which is charity. There follows, ‘Give glory to His praise’, and there follows at the end a triple Alleluia, because from the power of the Father, and the wisdom of the Son, and the goodness of the Holy Spirit does it come about that He delivered us through His Passion and Resurrection, and therefore is God to be praised. But although there is exultation, nevertheless fear is also inculcated, lest hope without fear grow wanton unto presumption. (William Durandus, Rationale Divinorum Officiorum, 6, 94, 1)

Introitus (Ps 65) Jubiláte Deo, omnis terra, allelúia: psalmum dícite nómini ejus, allelúja: date glóriam laudi ejus, allelúja, allelúja, allelúja. V. Dícite Deo, quam terribilia sunt ópera tua, Dómine! in multitúdine virtútis tuæ mentientur tibi inimíci tui. Glória Patri. Sicut erat. Jubiláte Deo.

Introit Shout with joy to God, all the earth, alleluia, sing ye a psalm to His name, alleluia; give glory to His praise; alleluia, alleluia, alleluia. V. Say ye unto God, How terrible are thy works, o Lord! in the multitude of thy strength thy enemies shall lie to thee. Glory be to the Father... As it was in the beginning... Shout with joy to God...

This Psalm has in the title the inscription, ‘For the end, a song of a Psalm of Resurrection’. When you hear ‘for the end’ (in the titles of various Psalms), understand it to mean ‘for Christ’, as the Apostle says, ‘For the end of the law is Christ, for righteousness to every one that believeth.’ (Rom. 10,4) ... ‘Jubilate unto God every land.’ What is jubilate? Break forth unto the voice of rejoicings, if you cannot break forth into words. For jubilation is not of words, but the sound alone of men rejoicing is uttered, as of a heart laboring and bringing forth into voice the pleasure of a thing imagined which cannot be expressed. ... ‘Say ye to God, How to be feared are Your works!’ Wherefore to be feared and not to be loved? Hear another voice of a Psalm (2, 11): ‘Serve the Lord in fear, and exult unto Him with trembling.’ What does this mean? Hear the voice of the Apostle: ‘With fear, he says, and trembling, work out your own salvation.’ Wherefore with fear and trembling? He has also given the reason: for God it is that works in you both to will and to work according to good will. (Phil. 2, 12-13) If therefore God works in you, by the Grace of God you work well, not by your strength. (St Augustine, Treatise on Psalm 65. The term ‘a psalm of Resurrection’ is in the title of the Greek and Latin translations of the Psalter.)

St Augustine, ca. 1465, by Piero della Francesca (1415-92)

The Penitential Psalms in Books of Hours

The seven Penitential Psalms are a standard part of the liturgical material incorporated into Books of Hours, along with the Little Office of the Virgin Mary, the Office of the Dead, and the Litany of the Saints. Of course, many Books of Hours are filled with beautiful illustrations, and as a follow-up to a recent post about the Penitential Psalms in the liturgy of Lent, here is a selection of some of the images commonly chosen to go with them.

From the Maastricht Hours, 14th century (Stowe ms. 17, British Library): Mary Magdalene, the penitent Saint par excellence, meets the risen Christ in the Garden; a woman kneels before her confessor, as the hand of God absolves her from above. The bishop on the right is probably meant to signify that the priest can absolve sins only on the bishop’s authority.

The Maastricht Hours are famous for their repertoire of strange and whimsical marginal images, most of which have no relationship to the text and are not religious in character. Here is an exception, a black bird accompanying the words of Psalm 101, “I am like a night raven in the house.”

Book of Hours according to the Use of Ghent, 14th century. (Bibliothèque de l’Arsenal, 565, Bibliothèque nationale de France.) Christ in Judgment at the end of the world, with the dead rising from the earth, and a figure representing the mouth of Hell.

Book of Hours according to the Use of Paris, late 14th - early 15th century. (Bibliothèque nationale de France, Département des Manuscrits, Latin 18014.) The Trinity in Majesty, with the symbols of the Four Evangelists. Below, David, the author of the Psalms, in combat with Goliath, a popular subject with the Penitential Psalms.

The Hours of Brière de Surgy, 14th century. (Bibliotheque Municipale de la Ville de Laon, ms. 243q.) King David as an elderly man in prayer.

Continue Reading this Article. . .

A Follow-up on Vocal Prayer and Mental Prayer: Wisdom from Benedict XVI

As we approach the one month anniversary of the death of Joseph Ratzinger, I wish to share with NLM readers one of my favorite parts of the ever-quotable Jesus of Nazareth series — namely, the place in volume 1, From the Baptism in the Jordan to the Transfiguration, where Ratzinger is commenting on the Our Father.

He has what strikes me as a perfectly balanced understanding of the relationship of vocal prayer to higher forms of prayer: he sees how they are intrinsically and necessarily connected, so that the lower is not reduced to a ladder to be kicked away. Since my own article “The Denigration of Vocal Prayer in the Name of ‘Mental Prayer’: A Recipe for Disaster” was misunderstood by some as a denigration of mental prayer (!), I thought it would be worthwhile to share the wisdom of Benedict XVI on the matter. After the selection from this book, I have included a pertinent passage from Spe Salvi.

* * *

This is what prayer really is — being in silent inward communion with God. It requires nourishment, and that is why we need articulated prayer in words, images, or thoughts.

The more God is present in us, the more we will really be able to be present to him when we utter the words of our prayers. But the converse is also true: Praying actualizes and deepens our communion of being with God. Our praying can and should arise above all from our heart, from our needs, our hopes, our joys, our sufferings, from our shame over sin, from our gratitude for the good. It can and should be a wholly personal prayer.

But we also constantly need to make use of those prayers that express in words the encounter with God experienced both by the Church as a whole and by individual members of the Church. For without these aids to prayer, our own praying and our image of God become subjective and end up reflecting ourselves more than the living God. In the formulaic prayers that arose first from the faith of Israel and then from the faith of praying members of the Church, we get to know God and ourselves as well. They are a “school of prayer” that transforms and opens up our life.

In his rule, St Benedict coined the formula Mens nostra concordet voci nostrae — our mind must be in accord with our voice (Rule 19,7). Normally, thought precedes word; it seeks and formulates the word. But praying the Psalms and liturgical prayer in general is exactly the other way round: The word, the voice, goes ahead of us, and our mind must adapt to it. For on our own we human beings do not “know how to pray as we ought” (Rom 8:26)–we are too far removed from God, he is too mysterious and too great for us. And so God has come to our aid: He himself provides the words of our prayer and teaches us to pray. Through the prayers that come from him, he enables us to set out toward him; by praying together with the brothers and sisters he has given us, we gradually come to know him and draw closer to him.

In St Benedict’s writings, the phrase cited just now refers directly to the Psalms, the great prayer book of the People of God of the Old and New Covenant. The Psalms are words that the Holy Spirit has given to men; they are God’s Spirit become word. We thus pray “in the Spirit” with the Holy Spirit.

This applies even more, of course, to the Our Father. When we pray the Our Father, we are praying to God with words given by God, as St Cyprian says. And he adds that when we pray the Our Father, Jesus’ promise regarding the true worshipers, those who adore the Father “in spirit and truth” (Jn 4:23) is fulfilled in us. Christ, who is the truth, has given us these words, and in them he gives us the Holy Spirit.

This also reveals something of the specificity of Christian mysticism. It is not in the first instance immersion in the depths of oneself, but encounter with the Spirit of God in the word that goes ahead of us. It is encounter with the Son and the Holy Spirit and thus a becoming-one with the living God who is always both in us and above us. […]

The fact that Luke places the Our Father in the context of Jesus’ own praying is therefore significant. Jesus thereby involves us in his own prayer; he leads us into the interior dialogue of triune love; he draws our human hardships deep into God’s heart, as it were.

This also means, however, that the words of the Our Father are signposts to interior prayer, they provide a basic direction for our being, and they aim to configure us to the image of the Son. The meaning of the Our Father goes much futher than the mere provision of a prayer text. It aims to form our being, to train us in the inner attitude of Jesus (cf. Phil 2:5).

This has two different implications for our interpretation of the Our Father. First of all, it is important to listen as accurately as possible to Jesus’ words as transmitted to us in Scripture. We must strive to recognize the thoughts Jesus wished to pass on to us in these words. But we must also keep in mind that the Our Father originates from his own praying, from the Son’s dialogue with the Father. This means that it reaches down into depths far beyond the words. It embraces the whole compass of man’s being in all ages and can therefore never be fully fathomed by a purely historical exegesis, however important this may be.

The great men and women of prayer throughout the centuries were privileged to receive an interior union with the Lord that enabled them to descend into the depths beyond the word. They are therefore able to unlock for us the hidden treasures of prayer. And we may be sure that each of us, along with our totally personal relationship with God, is received into, and sheltered within, this prayer. Again and again, each one of us with his mens, his own spirit, must go out to meet, open himself to, and submit to the guidance of the vox, the word that comes to us from the Son. In this way his own heart will be opened, and each individual will learn the particular way in which the Lord wants to pray with him. [1]

* * *

For prayer to develop this power of purification, it must on the one hand be something very personal, an encounter between my intimate self and God, the living God. On the other hand it must be constantly guided and enlightened by the great prayers of the Church and of the saints, by liturgical prayer, in which the Lord teaches us again and again how to pray properly.

Cardinal Nguyen Van Thuan, in his book of spiritual exercises, tells us that during his life there were long periods when he was unable to pray and that he would hold fast to the texts of the Church's prayer: the Our Father, the Hail Mary and the prayers of the liturgy.

Praying must always involve this intermingling of public and personal prayer. This is how we can speak to God and how God speaks to us. [2]


NOTES

[1] pp 130-33 in Jesus of Nazareth, vol. 1
[2] Encyclical Letter Spe Salvi, n. 34

“For a General Liturgical Reform” by Annibale Bugnini (Part 3)

We continue our publication of the first-ever English translation of Bugnini’s programmatic 1949 article in Ephemerides Liturgicae, outlining the plan for a total overhaul of the Church’s liturgical worship. (See Part 1 and Part 2.)

4. THE BREVIARY

This was the point that met with the most interest and the one that, indeed, in terms of a reform, would have the greatest practical significance for the clergy. The Breviary was also, one must admit, the starting point and the benchmark for all previous reforms and, on closer scrutiny, the constant tendency was always to lighten (never to increase) the daily pensum of the Divine Office. It is in this direction, as was to be expected, that all of our contributors’ suggestions are oriented, having in common yet another particularity: [the wish] to bring the Divine Office back to the centre of priestly piety by making it appealing, and also to bring it back, as far as possible, into the hands of the people.

And here we come to the proposals.

1) Some observe that the “rhythm” of the Hours of the Breviary, which animated the life of the monks with frequent prayer, even during the night, no longer corresponds, today, to the rhythm of life of the clergy assigned to pastoral ministry, which is the vast majority. The parish work, made more burdensome by the shortage of priests, the social and religious works that multiply, gravitating around the parish, the natural cell of Christian life, the most elementary evangelisation that requires a great deal of time, and finally, the human organism that is much weaker now than in the past, to fulfil these tasks; all this, according to them, would necessarily require a lightening and an adaptation. What is needed, they say, is a Breviary in which the prayers are distributed differently, for example in the morning and in the evening. Such is a natural rhythm of human life, which would correspond better to our present conditions. If one were to forget these sociological reflections, they conclude, the Breviary would become more and more of a burden for the pastoral clergy, and the all-together recitation of Hours composed to be distributed throughout the day would only increase the malaise that is already so severe.

2) Others, on the contrary, conceive the reform not in the spirit of a quantitative reduction, but rather of a better overall balance of the opus Dei through the year, the week and the day. The reform, they say, must preserve the Breviary’s choral and “communitarian” character. And this should be fostered by the movement, already seen among the clergy in several countries, of gathering together in common life and prayer based precisely on the recitation of the Divine Office.

3) Some note that the current Breviary “cannot be considered very burdensome,” that its recitation is varied and appreciated and better reflects the secular tradition, that it is devout in content and that therefore a reform should be inspired by these two principles:

a) simplicity, above all in the rubrics which are today fantastically complicated (suppression of the “lectio IX,” commemorations, octaves, transferred offices, etc.). The breviary should be an agile and brief “devotionary” that can be recited without needing calendars or epacts;

b) variety that facilitates devotion and education. The ideal, again in their opinion, would be for each feast to have its own lessons, homilies, hymns, etc.; the “commons” are the fossilisation of piety.

5. THE PSALMODY

The psalter constitutes the basis of liturgical prayer.

The unintelligibility of some parts constituted, until recently, the first and greatest difficulty to a pious and devout recitation. A great step forward, on this point, was achieved with the recent new translation of the psalms, about which, while we can note a general satisfaction and no mince of praise is spared for its unexpected and unhoped-for realisation, there has also been, (we mention it for the sake of accuracy) those who have expressed the wish that “Gregorianists and medieval-Latinists may still be able to examine a few points” and carry out, before the “nova interpretatio” is definitively adopted for the whole Church, some minor modifications, in those points where the text still presents difficulties for liturgical use. An old parish priest is alarmed for fear that one day he will be forbidden to use the old psalter; he knows almost all 150 psalms by heart, and during his visits to the sick, which are often very long, he can recite the Breviary by heart, something that would be impossible if the new psalter were to be imposed by completely excluding the use of the old one.

Intelligibility is not the sole problem regarding the psalter. Since the reform proposals are decidedly oriented towards a reduction of the daily pensum [burden], they generally focus exactly on the psalter to achieve this goal.

1) Some would like to reduce the Matins, as in the octave of Easter and Pentecost, to three psalms and three lessons, thus thinking to have ipso facto found the desired solution. In such case, the following scheme is proposed: Invitatory, hymn, three psalms with three lessons, Dominus vobiscum, oration of the day (the “Te Deum” should be reserved for major solemnities).

2) Others, on the other hand, find that the current weekly recitation of the entire psalter should remain intact, and call for a more rigorous approach, as only the most important feasts should abandon the weekly psalter scheme; the others should have their own psalms only at Vespers, Matins and Lauds; at the minor Hours and Compline one should use the corresponding weekly psalter.

3) On feasts adopting the Sunday psalms, some would recommend using the gradual psalms [119–133] for the minor hours, reserving Psalm 118 for Sunday only.[1] (Still others find Psalm 118 ever more beautiful and rich, and would want it even more often).

4) Some suggest that the distribution and division of the psalms be revised, shortening certain arrangements, like those of Sunday.

5) Other specific proposals are: to avoid repeating the same psalm twice in slightly different forms, such as 13 and 52, 39 iii and 69; that Psalms 41-42 be grouped together; that each psalm be accompanied by a brief explanation, or a title clarifying its meaning; that the “Athanasian” symbol be reserved for the feast of the Most Holy Trinity, or be divided into parts [to be recited] as Prime psalms on Sundays;[2] that Lauds be returned to the old arrangement in use before Pius X; that at Vespers sung with the people, the option be given to replace the last proper psalm with the Laudate Dominum (Psalm 116).

6) Finally, there was no shortage of those who would see in the distribution of the Psalter over a fortnight the one and most effective way of achieving a real lightening of the Divine Office. “One could think,” says one of the proponents, “of a more profound reform of the Divine Office, retaining the daily recitation and correlatively enabling the reading of Sacred Scripture. This wouldn’t imply any substantial change to the liturgical year nor to the basic order of the canonical Hours. But the psalter would be divided into two weeks with the following scheme:

Vespers: four antiphons and four psalms or parts of psalms, a Scripture lesson (some twenty verses) in relation to the liturgical season (or to the feast, but only for major feasts) and followed by a responsory, hymn, verse, Magnificat.

Compline: current pattern.

Matins: Invitatory, hymn, then one nocturne of three antiphons and three psalms (or three groups of psalms with one Gloria), three lessons (one from Scripture, one historical or patristic, and a homily) on Sundays and feasts; one lesson on the ferias per annum, two lessons on ferias that have their own gospel (a biblical lesson and a homily).

Lauds: current pattern, but with the daily recitation of Psalms 148-150 in accordance with the ancient tradition.

Minor Hours: current pattern.

There follows a detailed scheme of psalmodic distribution over the two weeks and an indication of the canticles for the ordinary and festive “cursus.”

The proposal is undoubtedly fascinating, much more than it might seem at first sight. After all, the idea would not be entirely new. The Ambrosian rite, ab antico [since ancient times], has a psalter divided into two weeks. Then there is the issue of breaking with the one-week Roman tradition, which prompted even Fr Parsch to resolutely discard the project.

However, all things considered, it seems to us that the “vale” [goodbye] to a venerable tradition is amply offset by the advantages that would ensue, should the project really move towards a realisation; in other words, it seems to us that this would be the most simple and most serious way to reach a reasonable and convenient reduction of the onus canonicum. Of course a trend towards this solution could not fail to meet with much approval, especially from the pastoral clergy. But this evidently remains in the realm of pure desire, and our reporting has no other purpose than to show one of the most successful and feasible solutions to this thorny problem.

And now you know why we eventually got this.

6. ANTIPHONS

Antiphons are intimately connected to the psalmody, and there is no lack of proposals of various kinds for them as well.

It is asked:

1) that the antiphons both before and after the psalm be said always in their entirety, and not in the current manner of using a reduced form at the start;[3]

2) that the Breviary and the Antiphonary be harmonised, where differences exist both in the text and in the position of the intonation asterisk;

3) that a better choice of the antiphons be made, that they be more useful, better reflecting the sense of the psalm, of which they should be like the title, being preferably drawn from the New Testament so as to set the psalm in the light of Redemption;

4) that the alleluia be removed from certain antiphons that do not call for it, e.g. “Quomodo cantabimus canticum Domini in terra aliena, alleluia, alleluia” (Second Sunday after Easter, resp.; “Consolantem me quaesivi et non inveni, alleluia” (Feast of the Sacred Heart), etc.

5) that on the Feast of the Most Sacred Rosary the antiphons of the 1st Nocturne be taken from the Common of the Blessed Virgin Mary, and those at Lauds be taken from Vespers, for these antiphons have been applied to the psalms too mechanically, the joyful mysteries are celebrated twice, in the hymn at First Vespers and in the antiphons of the 1st and 2nd Nocturnes. Likewise, with much incongruity, the joyful mysteries are lumped together with the sorrowful ones (2nd Nocturne), and the 4th and 5th sorrowful mysteries are poorly contracted into one.

This series will continue with Part 4, on the Readings of Matins, Chapters and Responsories, Hymns, the Preces, and the Beginning and End of the Hours.


[NOTES]

[1] This proposal bears a likeness to the monastic Office, where the gradual psalms are prayed at minor hours from Tuesday to Saturday, and where Psalm 118 is divided over Sunday and Monday.

[2] “si divida in parti come salmi di Prima della domenica”… if I understood correctly, the proposal would be that of using the Athanasian Creed as a substitute of the psalmody (!) at Prime on Sundays. Another reading could be: “divided into parts just like the Sunday Prime psalms” [i.e. Psalm 118, I guess]. But I think in this case Bugnini would have written “si divida in parti come i salmi di Prima della domenica.”

[3] This was implemented in the 1960 revisions, where antiphons are always “doubled.”