Four-Week Psalter and Proper Psalmody describe the ordinary Roman distribution of psalms across the Liturgy of the Hours and the rules by which a celebration's assigned psalms replace that cycle.[1]
The ordinary cycle
The postconciliar Roman Office distributes most psalmody through a four-week Psalter so that the faithful encounter a broad scriptural course without making every Hour excessively long. Morning Prayer and Evening Prayer receive psalms and biblical canticles suited to their character, while the Office of Readings and Prayer during the Day have their own arrangements. The cycle is an ecclesial order of prayer, not a devotional ranking of inspired texts.
The First Sunday of Advent, the first Sunday of Ordinary Time, the First Sunday of Lent, and Easter Sunday begin Week I of the Psalter. Weeks remaining before those points are omitted, and after Pentecost the cycle resumes at the week indicated by the Proper of Time. Thus the numerical week cannot always be inferred by simply counting seven-day periods from the civil year.
Psalms reserved or omitted
Psalms 77 (78), 104 (105), and 105 (106), with the parenthetical numbers reflecting the Hebrew numbering, are reserved principally for Advent, Christmas, Lent, and Easter because their extended history of salvation is especially suited to those seasons. Certain verses difficult to use in the renewed public Office are omitted from the cycle. These editorial decisions regulate liturgical recitation; they do not deny the inspiration or canonical status of any psalm or verse.[2]
Pastoral substitutions
The General Instruction urges observance of the four-week cycle while permitting, for a good spiritual or pastoral reason, another psalm assigned to the same Hour on another day, and in specified circumstances suitable psalmody for a votive Office. This is a bounded option under the liturgical book, not a general license to construct a private Psalter from favorite texts.[3]
Proper psalmody and precedence
Solemnities, feasts, the Paschal Triduum, and the octaves of Easter and Christmas can carry proper or specially assigned psalms. At Morning Prayer, Sunday Week I psalmody is commonly used for solemnities and feasts; first Vespers of solemnities follows its appointed arrangement. Memorials ordinarily retain more of the current Psalter unless proper texts or the Common direct otherwise.
Proper Psalmody is not synonymous with every text printed in a saint's office. A celebration can have proper antiphons, hymns, readings, intercessions, or prayer while drawing psalms from a Common or the current week. The rank, calendar, and rubrics determine which layer supplies each element.
Use with calendars and editions
A national, diocesan, religious-order, or monastic calendar can add proper celebrations and psalmody lawfully approved for that community. The Roman four-week scheme should not be imposed on an Eastern Catholic office or a monastic office governed by another approved cursus. The user must identify the rite, book, calendar, and date before calling a psalm proper or displaced.
References
- 1.Laudis canticum — The apostolic constitution promulgating the revised Liturgy of the Hours and its four-week distribution of the Psalter
- 2.Sacrosanctum Concilium — Vatican II teaching on liturgical prayer, full participation, the Divine Office, and the reform of the Psalter
- 3.General Instruction of the Liturgy of the Hours — The official general instruction governing the Hours, including the extended vigil form of the Office of Readings