Comparing Offices/1

I've been planning to make some comments about 'psalm cursus' or the running order of the psalms for various purposes, particularly in the Divine Office, and I've seen as couple of requests for psalter comparisons recently, so I've been spurred into action!

Psalm schemas and their effects

My primary interest is the construction of the traditional Benedictine Office (so please do jump in and comment, especially if you are more familiar with other forms of the office or disagree with my comments, questions and conclusions).  My premise is that the way the psalms are arranged so that we hear and/or say them clearly affects how we interpret them, and thus how they affect us.  So my starting point is that the differing arrangements of the psalter affect our spirituality.

The practice of rearranging the psalms into particular groupings and orders is ancient.

In Scripture itself, there are both distinct groupings of psalms arising from their use for particular purposes (such as the 'Gradual Psalms' and 'Hallel Psalms' which both had a place in traditional Jewish liturgy), and an overall ordering which arguably reflects one or more editorial programs.  In addition, some of the ancient titles to the psalms include notes as to the particular day of the week they are associated with, presumably for liturgical purposes.

In the EF Mass the selected psalm verses have generally serve to reinforce or help interpret the messages implicit or explicit to a particular Sunday or feast.

In the Divine Office the number, length, content of particular allocated psalms can give that hour and day a distinctive character.  Indeed, many would suggest that the particular orderings of psalms, choice of repeated psalms and other such features contribute to the distinctive spirituality for the group using them, for example, peculiar to the various religious orders.

Some comparisons

In this series I plan make comparisons between five main orderings of the psalter (though I will make comments about others), namely:

• the ancient Roman Psalter. And here I will primarily rely on the (speculative) reconstruction of the c5-6th century psalter included in Robert Taft's The Liturgy of the Hours in East and West, pp136;
• the Monastic schema as set out in the Rule of St Benedict.  This schema is used in the 'traditional' Benedictine Office for weekdays, although over the centuries the Benedictine Office has adopted additional psalm schemas for feasts;
• the pre-1911 Roman Psalter  used from the Council of Trent to 1911;
• the Pius X psalter that forms the basis of the 1962 Roman Office; and
• the 1971 Liturgy of the Hours.

So what are the nature of the differences?

I want to work through this rather systematically, so this series will stretch over several parts, but let me start by giving a bit of an overview.

Psalm schemas, it seems to me, differ in:

• the timeframe in which the selected psalms are said - the Liturgy of the Hours (LOOH) is spread over four weeks, whereas the major pre-Vatican II schemas listed above rotate on a one week system;
• how many 'hours' (sets of prayers) are said a day -  the pre-Vatican II norm was eight hours; Vatican II abolished the hour of Prime, and requires only one of Terce, Sext or None to be said;
• which psalms are said - the Benedictine and older Roman forms of the Office use all 150 psalms from the Book of Psalms plus a number of additional 'canticles' (ie psalms from other books of the Bible).  The LOOH omits some psalms and many verses considered 'too hard' for modern readers, but adds in additional 'canticles';
• whether psalms are divided or not - the pre-1911 Roman Office kept all psalms together regardless of length, whereas the Benedictine and other later Offices divided psalms for length and thematic reasons;
• the number and length of psalms said at particular hours - Terce, Sext, None and Vespers in the Benedictine Office for example are much shorter than any of the older Roman variants, while Matins is much longer;
• the extent to which psalms are repeated.  The older forms of the Office all included a number of repeated psalms.  The Benedictine Office for example actually involves saying 247 psalms (plus an additional 24 canticles) each week, not 150.  The various revisions of the Roman psalter have gradually reduced, and in the LOOH all but much eliminated, these repetitions;
• the extent to which the days of the Office and/or particular hours have an underlying theme or program to them. 

What impact do these differing dimensions have on us?  Part 2 in this series can be found here.