Are the 1962 books traditional Part II - About that 50s Office

 In my last post I pointed to the large areas of continuity between the 1962-3 books, and the long tradition in which they are rooted, most particularly, in the case of the Benedictine Office, the Benedictine Rule itself.

So why is it that some are arguing the 1962/3 books are untraditional?

The answer is that there were a lot of changes made to the rubrics and calendar of the Office in late 1950s and early 1960s.

Against change?

Some, it seems, would reject any changes to the 1954 books at all, claiming that the legislator and/or some of those involved in producing it, were acting from ill-intent, or from a theological perspective they personally do not agree with. 

Liturgical law

As Catholics though, it is not actually our personal judgments that should rule on matters of Church legislation, save in very exceptional circumstances.  And in the case of the 1962 books, it is hard to see how such special circumstances can be claimed to exist given their endorsement by a previous generation of leaders of the traditionalist movement.

More fundamentally though, any piece of law is almost invariably the product of many hands and many steps in a process.  And as for for any law, we should surely look at it on its actual merits, not on the basis of the often baseless claims about its origins or purpose.

Change and the liturgy

Some object to the idea of making lots of changes to the liturgy on general principles, arguing that liturgy should be largely unchanging.

But history is, in my view, not on their side.  The 1911 changes to the Roman Office after all, were very major indeed.  And while the post-Trent books for the Roman Office may have largely reflected late medieval Roman practice, they represented very major changes for many places outside of Rome that were either required (because their earlier rites were suppressed), or were pressured, or chose to adopt them in to show solidarity with Rome in the face of the protestant attack on the Church. 

And if we go back further, we can similarly see major rounds of fundamental changes to the liturgy indeed.  Consider for example the suppression of the rites of the various Roman churches in favour of that of the papal court; the suppression of the Mozarabic, Gallican and Celtic rites; and many more such examples.

Which changes?

Others though, it seems, are prepared to consider at least some changes to the earlier books.  

The 1954 books, after all, contain several core elements - such as the Urban VIII hymns, promulgated in 1631; the 1911 psalm cursus; the 1945 Pian psalter for example - that many rightly in my view regard as seriously problematic.

The issue then, for this sub-group at least, is just how much change, and the merits of the particular changes.

1960 rubrics and calendar

And in this regard, when it comes to the Benedictine Office, it is important to keep in mind, I think, that none of the changes made in the late 1950s or early 1960s are in any way inconsistent with the Rule's provisions.

 Indeed, many were aimed at restoring the priority of the ferial psalm cursus that St Benedict himself set out in the Rule, but that had more often then not displaced by feasts, octaves and other later additions to the Office, and at restoring the priority of the Scriptural reading cycle that St Benedict envisaged.

Others aimed at removing some of the accretions that had crept into the Office; and at reducing the level of complexity that had built up in the rubrics.

Now those who have been regular readers of my blogs will know that I am certainly not a fan of all of the changes made.  

Nonetheless, I actually do agree with the basic objectives of many of the reforms.

Some of the changes clearly went too far, or were done in a very clumsy, arbitrary or outright misguided way.  In other cases, the choice of mechanism to achieve the objective was perhaps not the best possible option.

The key question though, is how we deal with these issues now.

1962+?

The course we had been on prior to Traditionis Custodes was to obtain permissions to modify those elements of the 1962 books that are problematic on an optional basis.

It is frustrating of course to have to wait for sanity to return, and processes to be worked through before further changes can be proposed, but should we not be making the most of the existing permissions already given, while praying and working for a return to this path rather than rejecting it altogether?  

Yet some seem to regard with suspicion, for example, the provisions of Cum Sanctissima because it was promulgated under Pope Francis despite the fact that it actually permits the celebration of feasts removed from the 1960 calendar, one of their chief complaints about the 1962 books. 

Another key plank of the Restore the 54 agenda relates to the pre 1955 version of Holy Week.  But widespread indults have already been granted for this. 

And other changes, such as the restoration of some octaves had similarly been flagged as possible future steps.

There is obviously more that can be done in this direction, and doing the work now ready for a day when action might be possible seems to me the more constructive approach than simply rejecting papal authority altogether, or attempting to subvert it.

Assessing the merits of reforms

So how do we assess the merits or otherwise of these and other previous changes that arguably require reconsideration?

In recent debates, several different criteria have either explicitly or implicitly been suggested to assess the legitimacy and/or extent to which something conforms to tradition, let me list out what I think are the main ones: 

(1)    Who made the changes – anything promulgated by Pope X/claimed as theirs by y should be rejected regardless of content.

(2)    Length and complexity – a more arduous form of the Office cannot be supplanted by a shorter/simpler version.

(3)    Volume of changes – lots of changes made at once can never be justified as liturgy essentially does not inherently change much.

(4)    Antiquity – if something is an ancient feast or feature of the Office and has continued to be used, it cannot be removed from the calendar or abolished.

(5)    Consistency with middle/late medieval practice – if it was codified in a late medieval missal/breviary, or otherwise documented for that period, then it is a legitimate addition to the post Trent books and must be kept.

(6)    Organic development – if it can be seen as unfolding naturally from earlier practice, bottom up’ changes, then it is a legitimate change.

(7)    The merits of the changes and their impact of changes on the fervour or otherwise of the faithful – do they make ‘the garden’ flourish or not?

(8)    Ressourcement, respect for the unfolding patrimony – liturgy needs to be renewed by going back to both the original and subsequent sources for it, as well as adapted where necessary to reflect the needs of the times.

 None of these, in my view, generate clear an unequivocal answers in and of themselves. 

I'm not going to go through all of these, but I do want to focus on a few that have been advocated for recently.

Antiquity and length: the case of the Octave of All Saints

One recent suggestion, for example, has been that we should privilege longer forms of the Office over shorter ones, and older things over newer.

But do these two tests stand up to scrutiny?

Take the case of a Benedictine monk in a post over at New Liturgical Movement for example, reproduced in a recent book, who uses the example of saying the Octave of All Saints (presumably from the 1953 Monastic Breviary) to make his case, appealing to the greater length of the older Offices, and the antiquity of the Octave.

He starts by making the comparison in the number of psalms said between the 1963 Office and earlier and the Novus Ordo, which is fair enough.  

But when it comes to justifying use of the 1953 books over the 1963,  the All Saints Octave, as far as I can see, is a spectacularly bad example to choose.

Antiquity

First, while some point to antiquity as a possible justification for saying older feasts, this particular octave is not an especially ancient octave at all relatively speaking - while the feast of  All Saints dates back to at least the eighth century, the Octave itself was added to the universal calendar by Pope Sixtus IV only in the 1480s.

Secondly, in the Benedictine version of the hour, the Octave altogether displaces the far more ancient Scriptural cycle of readings that would otherwise have been said.

Length

Moreover, the Benedictine version of the Octave day as it was said before 1963 is not, as far as I can see, actually longer than the ferial day in the 1963 books at all. 

The table below uses the example of the Matins as it would have been said on November 5 last year to illustrate the point - it is indicative only, and there is obviously some variation in the length of the patristic and Scriptural readings each day, but the differences are minor.

I've focused on Matins as it is the hour most affected by the Octave day in the Benedictine Office (as for feasts generally, since at the other hours mostly substitute one text for another, whereas at Matins, some additional texts can be added). 

In the 1953 (and earlier versions of the monastic breviary including pre 1911), the Octave is not actually a three Nocturn Office.  Instead it just has two Nocturns with the ferial psalms.  The main change for the Octave is the use of three patristic readings said instead of the ferial Scriptural readings of the day.

The table shows the number of verses of psalms said at the hour (as arranged liturgically, and including doxologies), as well as the number of sentences in the readings. 

The number of psalm verses said was unchanged between 1962 and earlier breviaries; the difference rests in the readings, which are actually generally slightly shorter for the Octave day compared to the ferial Scriptural readings.

Matins on November 5, 2025

	Benedictine 1901, 1930, 1953 (within Octave of All Saints)	Benedictine 1962 (ferial)
Nocturn I verses	102	102
Nocturn II verses	135	135
TOTAL	237	237
Readings Verses/sentences [words]	8 (205)	13 (232)

Now there is of course a pragmatic reason for the Benedictine reading pattern in this case - in the Benedictine Office, Matins with three Nocturns, even if shorter festal psalms are used, is generally significantly longer than the ferial Office (particularly if sung) since it has twelve psalms, readings and responsories (not the Roman nine or the normal weekday three); an extra Nocturn of canticles; the Te Deum; a Gospel; and Te decet laus.

In the Benedictine context then, a key issue that lies behind the abolition of most octaves is about the relative priority of the ancient Scriptural reading cycle over Patristic readings, an issue I want to come back to in due course.

The Roman Office

But even if one assumes that our Benedictine monk is, for some reason, saying the Roman Office from the 1954 breviary, he would have been using a structure of the Octave day had been in place less than 45 years when it was abolished.

The table below illustrates the impact of the Octave day in the Roman Office.

It illustrates, firstly one of the reasons why feasts and octave days were so popular with priests before the 1911 reform of the Roman psalter: the octave day is almost half the length of the ferial psalmody it replaced.

It also, perhaps, goes to one of the reasons for the abolition of octave days: the 1953 version of the Octave day was actually longer than the pre-1911 version by dint of as it using the ferial psalter of the day, rather than (as was the case before 1911) the psalms of the feast, during the Octave. 

By way of comparison, the pre-1911 octave day and the 1962 ferial offices are actually more or less the same length, but the Octave day is longer.

Matins for 5 November 2025

	1910 ferial Wednesday	1910 Roman (of the octave) – verses as for liturgical use including doxologies	1953	1962 Roman (ferial)
Nocturn I	217	32	39	136
Nocturn II		37	40	-
Nocturn III		49	57	-
TOTAL PSALMODY	217	118	136	136
Readings (verse equivs)	13	35	35	13
TOTAL	230	153	171	149

So when it comes to length at least, there is nothing particularly ‘anti-traditional’ about the reduction in length between the 1953 and 1962 versions of the Roman Office: the 1962 version is arguably more of a restoration!

Length as a criterion for what can and can't be changed in the Office

Now it may of course be that there are better examples our monk could have picked that actually do make his case.

But the fact that one form of the Office or particular day or feast is longer or shorter does not, in and of itself, seem to me to be a sufficient criterion given several precedents to the contrary.

The Cluniacs, for example, were strongly criticised in their day (and even unto the present time) for their extremely long Offices.

But equally, at the other extreme, back in the seventh century Pope Honorius I (625-638), according to the Liber Pontificalis, ordered 'the monks' to stop saying their normal Office of twelve psalms during the Easter and Pentecost Octaves, and instead say the Roman three psalm version during the octave, as the people were displeased at its length.  

Moreover, while length is relative, those praying the Benedictine Office at least should also be mindful of St Benedict's injunctions to pray frequently and fervently rather than at great length (RB 4, 20). 

Is there a way forward?

So how can we assess both the objectives of the changes made in the 1962/3 books and their execution, and develop a list of priorities for further restorations or revisions to the books?

More on that, with a look at some of the particular contested changes, in the next post in the series.

Is the 1962/3 Office 'traditional'? Part I - Terms of the debate

Over the next few weeks I want to share some important new insights from recent research, as well as some of my own work, that I think throws new light on some contested issues around the history of the Office.  

In this, I want to particularly draw on the evidence of the oldest antiphoner for the Benedictine Office, which dates from the ninth century, and which has only very recently become accessible to researchers.

Are the 1962 books 'traditional?!

Before I do that though, prompted by what seems like round 500 of an ongoing debate in other places, I've decided to put out now some material I've been pondering for a while over, that perhaps serves to help translate some findings that have thus far largely been discussed in a purely academic context, into debates on the current practices of the Divine Office.

In what follows, I'm going to focus primarily on the Benedictine Office, but I'll try and draw out the implications for the Roman books as well.

Before we move back a millennia and more though, I want to take brief look at the increasingly loud campaign that claims that the 1962/3 Office books and Mass are not actually traditional, and are irredeemably bad news.

Instead, the 'restore the 54' crowd would have us ditch the currently approved Office books, such as the 1963 Benedictine breviary, altogether, in favour of those for the 1950s, or depending on which particular sub-group you subscribe to, some earlier date.

Some of the claims made around this topic seem to be causing considerable confusion amongst many well-intentioned people, and so I think, are worth scrutinising.

Shadow-boxing

Some of the recent agitation, I think, has been incited by Traditiones Custodes, and the  understandable fear that its supporters will ultimately win the day altogether, and succeed in officially banning the older forms of the liturgy altogether.  Unsurprisingly then, many are looking for ways to legitimately narrow the scope of papal authority in this area, and using the 1962 books as a test platform for this.

In other cases the overreach involved in the arguments made in support of the reforms made after Vatican II seem to have provoked an overreaction in the opposite direction: instead of everything in the liturgy being 'adapted to the times', as some spirit of Vatican IIists would like, some are now arguing that nothing at all can ever be changed, for example.

In some cases, I suspect, what we are seeing is just human nature playing out. Some, for example, seem to suffer from 'complexity bias', the belief that the more complex you make something, the better it is.

Others seem to have fallen victim to that syndrome whereby when a resistance or reform group's patience is tried sorely for long enough, the temptation is to forget about the real war, and turn on each other instead, claiming that only the pure can bring about victory.  

Legitimate debate vs liturgical abuse

Regardless of the root causes of this push though, I think it is important to note that the Church has long made distinctions between legitimate debate, which is what I hope we can have here; legitimate resistance to institutional overreach (a good example of which is the longstanding push to force Benedictine monasteries abandon the provisions of the Rule relating to the Office); special, usually emergency situations that sometimes justify disobedience; and outright rejection of the Church's law and authority.

The Code of Canon Law makes it clear for example that it is perfectly legitimate for laypeople to debate questions such as whether there are flaws in the 1962 books, and whether they should therefore be amended, or even replaced by something else altogether; or to debate questions of what the limits of papal authority in relation to the liturgy might be. provided one has sufficient expertise to do so.

And though anyone who says the Office may be able to follow many of these debates, contributing to some of them often requires some degree of genuine expertise and training, as they involve complex questions of canon law, theology, history, musicology and/or liturgy. 

I'm not a great believer in credentialism as such (never forget those liturgists who disparaged Pope Benedict XVIs credentials in this area!), preferring to judge things on their merits.  But at least one recent book in my view, seems to me to fail even the most basic requirements in this regard.

The book, (whose name I will withhold for the moment), is written by an anonymous married layperson who claims no theological or canon law qualifications whatsoever; presents a set of convoluted arguments he has dreamed up that are directly at odds with the clear consensus of canonists who are prepared to go on record as well as by dubia responses; and on the basis of this, urges individual priests to set about implementing what amounts to outright liturgical abuse. 

I do plan on coming back to some of the arguments included in the book by various author as well as the main text itself, but in the meantime I would direct those advocating for it to the following posts by actual canonists:

• When does a custom have the force of law?
• What does it mean to abrogate or derogate from a law?
• Does a priest have obligation to say the Office under pain of mortal sin (1)?
• Does a priest have an obligation to say the Office under pain of mortal sin (2)

I would also recommend the clear treatment of the requirement to use the currently approved books in Beale's standard commentary on the Code. 

Obedience is a virtue

More fundamentally, what is not within the scope of legitimate debate, in my view, is to then act unilaterally to implement our personal theories.

It needs to be kept in mind, I think, that liturgy is ultimately something we receive, not decide on for ourselves: there is surely something to the old adage of 'say the black do the red' for example.

It is one thing, for example, to select an option from those officially approved; quite another to reject the officially approved books altogether without very strong reasons indeed. 

Priests and religious have more serious obligations in this regard, but even for laypeople who can arguably do whatever provided they choose to stick to purely devotional prayer, the Catholic, and particularly the Benedictine mindset, I think, should surely be to strive for obedience wherever possible, not look for ways to avoid it.

There are, of course, times when resistance or outright rejection of laws and particular liturgies is indeed warranted.

And there are also nuances in what constitutes legitimate variation, and who has the authority to authorise particular things.

But if an older book has been outright suppressed, as all of the Office books prior to the 1963 breviary have been; and if the traditional institutes and monasteries have long used the 1962 books, it is hard for me at least to see how refusing to accept them can be justified as an 'emergency'.  

Nor is it an argument in my view that 'everyone else is doing it' when it comes to liturgical 'innovation': we are all called, after all, to be saints, not join the throng going the other way!

Yet every day, it seems, a new book or blog post drops claiming that the forms of the Mass and Office accepted after due consideration by the original leaders of the traditionalist movement and their successors, and used now for many years should be rejected, or that this or that particular element of the Office and Mass cannot be changed by mere papal legislation (despite a very long history indeed of Popes doing just that).

Singing the Office in 525 and 2025…

Let me conclude this opening post by seeking to put the debate over the 1962 books in a longer perspective.

Part of the problem, I think, is that the debate has largely focused on the Roman books, whose place in tradition is rather harder to pin down than the Benedictine.

In these weeks after the Epiphany, for example, using the 1963 breviary (or the other books used for it, such as the Antiphonale of 1934, and the Monastic Diurnal) we are saying the same hours, with the same components that make up them, in the same order, as St Benedict laid out in his Rule dating from circa 510-30 AD. 

The contents of the Roman Office, it is true, were not documented until much later, and are ordered somewhat differently.  Some, such as hymns were added even later still. But it is clear the core elements of the Roman office too have ancient roots.

In the 1963 Office we are also saying exactly the same psalms and ferial canticles that St Benedict specified should be said at each hour of each day.  

When it comes to the psalms, it should be noted, the 1962 Roman Office, which has always had a somewhat different psalm ordering to the Benedictine, is in a slightly different situation - its ancient psalm cursus, which almost certainly dates back to at least the late sixth century, was suppressed in 1911.  Even so, it still follows the same basic principle of saying all of the psalms each week.

In the Benedictine Office too, we are singing ancient hymns that mostly date from the fourth to seventh centuries in their original form, with later additions for some feasts and saints.  And we have been spared the neo-classicised versions imposed on the Roman Office by Pope Urban VIII in 1632 that left barely a single line of these ancient gems intact. 

At Matins, we are reading the same books of the Bible that are laid out in an early to mid-eighth century reform of the ferial Matins reading cycle, with many of the same responsories that are recorded as being in use some 1100 years or more ago. 

So how can all this be ‘untraditional’? 

There seem to be two main camps (with some overlap between them) in this argument.

The first camp defends its position largely on the basis of changes to the 1962 books that unwind some high to late medieval practices, drawing primarily (and somewhat ironically in my view), on the liturgical scholarship of the twentieth century.  That scholarship, just as for the Mass, sought to find the elusive holy grail of the original, pure Roman Office, and claimed to find it in a set of manuscripts that mostly date from the twelfth century onwards. Recent scholarship though, has severely challenged or outright overturned many of those conclusions.

The second camp is rather more focused on recent history, and aimed at 'restoring the 54' in particular because, it seems, inter alia, they reject the views of the assorted popes (and/or those associated with them) who promulgated assorted liturgical 'reforms' from the late 1950s onwards.  But we should judge reforms on their merits in my view, and not on such arbitrary criteria.

But more on all this anon.

Holy week and the Benedictine Office Pt 5 - Holy Saturday and the Benedictine Office

Fra Angelico: Harrowing of hell

I mentioned earlier in this series that the Sunday 'Resurrection Vigil' of the Benedictine Office contains psalms that arguably point us to the events of Holy Saturday: Psalm 21 describes the Passion, while Psalm 22 (the Lord is my shepherd) and Psalm 23 (Lift up your gates) takes us to Holy Saturday.

As for the other days of the Triduum, the normal weekly Office of Saturday in the Benedictine Office is arguably devoted to a more prolonged exposition of some of the themes of Christ resting in the tomb (itself prefigured by God 'resting' after the days of creation) and descent into hell, in its psalms.  

The theology of Holy Saturday

The Western Church has traditionally made much less of Christ's lying in the tomb and descent into hell than the East - there are no liturgical events prescribed around these events other than Tenebrae of Holy Saturday for example.

And in more recent times, even the triumphant nature of Christ's descent into hell, freeing the souls therein, has been downplayed or outright rejected in the theology of modern theologians following Hans von Balthasar, as Alyssa Pitstick has demonstrated.

There is, however, an excellent post for today over at Gloria Romanorum, on the Scriptural references and early Patristic expositions of the theology of the day, which you can read here.

The Benedictine Office

Saturday Matins in the Benedictine Office opens with Psalm 101, one of the penitential psalms, ans which contrasts the pitful state of the sinner with with Lord:

My days have declined like a shadow, and I am withered like grass. But thou, O Lord, endurest for ever: and thy memorial to all generations. Thou shalt arise and have mercy on Sion: for it is time to have mercy on it, for the time is come. 

 Most of the psalms that follow include references to Christ's saving mission, liberation from darkness and and our redemption from death.  Several of them once again recapitulate the history of the freeing of the people of Israel, with Psalm 106's summation echoing Psalm 2:

Et edúxit eos de ténebris, et umbra mortis: * et víncula eórum disrúpit.

And he brought them out of darkness, and the shadow of death; and broke their bonds in sunder.

Quia contrívit portas æreas: * et vectes férreos confrégit.

Because he has broken gates of brass, and burst iron bars.

At Kauds the only variable psalm is Psalm 142, and it is clear why it was early thought appropriate to the day, with its allusions to Hades:

2  Et non intres in judícium cum servo tuo: * quia non justificábitur in conspéctu tuo omnis vivens.	And enter not into judgment with your servant: for in your sight no man living shall be justified.
3  Quia persecútus est inimícus ánimam meam: * humiliávit in terra vitam meam.	For the enemy has persecuted my soul: he has brought down my life to the earth.
4  Collocávit me in obscúris sicut mórtuos sæculi : * et anxiátus est super me spíritus meus, in me turbátum est cor meum.	He has made me to dwell in darkness as those that have been dead of old: And my spirit is in anguish within me: my heart within me is troubled.

It ends with an even more pertinent set of verses:

12  Spíritus tuus bonus dedúcet me in terram rectam: * propter nomen tuum, Dómine, vivificábis me, in æquitáte tua.	Your good spirit shall lead me into the right land: For your name's sake, O Lord, you will quicken me in your justice.
13  Edúces de tribulatióne ánimam meam: * et in misericórdia tua dispérdes inimícos meos.	You will bring my soul out of trouble: And in your mercy you will destroy my enemies.
14  Et perdes omnes, qui tríbulant ánimam meam, * quóniam ego servus tuus sum.	And you will cut off all them that afflict my soul: for I am your servant.

It is at the Benedictine version of Prime though, that the connections are perhaps made clearest.

The second half of Psalm 17, which opens the day, for example says:

3 Quóniam tu pópulum húmilem salvum fácies: * et óculos superbórum humiliábis.	For you will save the humble people; but will bring down the eyes of the proud.
4 Quóniam tu illúminas lucérnam meam, Dómine: * Deus meus, illúmina ténebras meas.	For you light my lamp, O Lord: O my God, enlighten my darkness.
5  Quóniam in te erípiar a tentatióne, * et in Deo meo transgrédiar murum.	For by you I shall be delivered from temptation; and through my God I shall go over a wall.

Psalm 18 includes a verse which though often applied to Our Lord's Incarnation, also applies to his descent into hell and Resurrection:

5  In sole pósuit tabernáculum suum: * et ipse tamquam sponsus procédens de thálamo suo.	He has set his tabernacle in the sun: and he as a bridegroom coming out of his bridechamber,
6  Exsultávit ut gigas ad curréndam viam, * a summo cælo egréssio ejus.	Has rejoiced as a giant to run the way: His going out is from the end of heaven,
7  Et occúrsus ejus usque ad summum ejus: * nec est qui se abscóndat a calóre ejus.	And his circuit even to the end thereof: and there is no one that can hide himself from his heat.

And Psalm 19's concluding verse, O Lord save the King, is a prediction of the Resurrection, which St Benedict's contemporary Cassiodorus explained as meaning, 'Let Christ the Lord rise from the dead, ascend into heaven, and intercede for us'.

Towards the Resurrection

Although Saturday Vespers is, of course, First Vespers of Sunday, the psalms for Saturday Vespers appear at first glance to simply reflect the logical continuation of the numerical sequence of psalms: St Benedict assigns the second half of Psalm 144 and the following psalms up to 147; Psalms 148 to 150 having already been assigned to their traditional place at Lauds.

All the same, the idea that Saturday Vespers was part of the Sunday was already well established by St Benedict's time.  Pope Leo the Great (c400-461), for example, wrote that:

the beginning of the preceding night forms part of that period [Sunday], and undoubtedly belongs to the day of resurrection as is clearly laid down with regard to the feast of Easter... the day of the Lord's resurrection, which is commonly held to begin on the evening of Saturday...

In this light, it is intriguing that all of the psalms that St Benedict allocated to the hour have clear associations with the Resurrection in early Christian interpretation. 

And it is even more intriguing that the psalm psalms seem to have been used in the weekly vigil of the Resurrection as celebrated in Jerusalem from at least the fourth century onwards, with the 'antiphon' beginning denoted by the same antiphon anciently used in the Benedictine Office, viz verse 13, which announces the establishment of Christ's Kingdom:

Regnum tuum regnum ómnium sæculórum: et dominátio tua in omni generatióne et generatiónem. (Your kingdom is a kingdom of all ages: and your dominion endures throughout all generations.)

Could it be that the selection of Vespers psalms was retrofitted backwards from this?

Either way, as we participate in the greatest of all vigils tonight, that of Easter, let us pray that may Christ reign in all hearts, and may you have a joyous Easter!

And of your charity, if you will, would you say a prayer for the repose of the soul of my mother Mary, who died peacefully in the Lord earlier this week after a long illness.