Scheme for an more traditional 4-week Psalter

A sacrifice of praise honors Me.
— Psalm 50⋅23
Through [Christ] let us continually offer a sacrifice of praise.
— Hebrews 13⋅15

Cursus

Reasoning behind the scheme

Seven times a day I praise you for your just decrees.
— Psalm 119⋅164

Pray without ceasing.
— 1 Thessalonians 5⋅17

Lauds ⋅ Vespers ⋅ Daytime hours ⋅ Compline ⋅ Vigils

This scheme draws ideas from a 1909 Dominican breviary (whose scheme appears nearly identical to the contemporary Roman Breviary), the scheme of St. Benedict, the current Liturgy of the Hours, and a paper by László Dobszay.

Dobszay argues that while reformers from Pope St. Pius X on treated the daily repetition of certain Psalms at Lauds and daytime hours as a flaw, it was in fact a feature. It emphasized important Psalms and facilitated learning them by heart.

On the other hand, those hours for which we ordinarily have more time and/or energy, primarily Vigils and Vespers, can afford variety in daily psalmody. And since the one-week Psalter is indeed somewhat burdensome for one who is not a contemplative, the Vigils office is extended over four weeks, as with the Office of Readings.

Lauds

O God, you are my God; at dawn I seek you.
— Psalm 63⋅2

The choice of Psalms is identical to that of the Dominican and Roman scheme, excepting some very minor modification. The Psalms chosen for Lauds are appropriate from their themes. On Sunday,

• Psalm 93 praises God as our king;
• Psalm 100 calls on the earth to worship God;
• Psalm 63 expresses our longing for God from the day’s very beginning;
• Psalm 67 asks for God’s light and guidance;
• the Canticle of the Three Young Men (Dan. 3⋅52-90) calls on all creation to praise God; and
• Psalms 148-150 bring our praises to culmination, and their repeated emphasis “Praise the Lord” give this hour its traditional name (in Latin, Laudate Dominum).

During the week, Psalms 93 and 100 are replaced by

• Psalm 51, which expresses contrition for sin and asks for mercy, and
• and one of Psalms
  • 5 (“In the morning you hear my voice”);
  • 43 (“Send forth your light and your truth”);
  • 65 (“Praise is due to you in Sion, O God”);
  • 90 (“At dawn, fill us with your merciful love”);
  • 143 (“In the morning, let me know your loving mercy”); or
  • 92 (“It is good… to proclaim your loving mercy in the morning”).

Such was the old Dominican and Roman scheme, and this scheme is nearly identical to those. The one change is that we abbreviate the weekday prayer to 4 Psalms and a canticle. Of the fixed Psalms, we pray 51, 63, and 150. We retain the variable Psalm and the Old Testament canticle of praise, though we have replaced one from Exodus canticles with one from Wisdom, taken from the Liturgy of the Hours. We conclude with Psalm 150, the last of the Psalms of praise.

Vespers

The choice of Psalms is nearly identical to that of the Dominican and Roman scheme: we proceed from Psalm 110 to Psalm 147. However, we modified the distribution slightly. Sunday’s psalmody (including that of Saturday) has lengthened to match Lauds, while weekday psalmody has shortened to match Lauds.

• Psalms 110-116 are all prayed on Sunday, rather than split across Sunday and Monday. These Psalms are traditionally associated with Sunday, if only from the current Liturgy of the Hours, and it seems appropriate from their themes:
  • Psalm 110 speaks of Christ as king and priest;
  • Psalm 111 speaks of the memorial “he has left us” regarding the redemption;
  • Psalm 112 describes the “just man” who is Christ and whom we aim for in perfection;
  • Psalm 113 praises God for stooping down to the earth to lift up the poor;
  • Psalm 114 tells of the wonders occurring at the redemption;
  • Psalm 115 calls on us to turn from useless idols and bless and worship God;
  • Psalm 116 praises God for his redemption.
• Saturday’s psalmody similarly features seven Psalms traditionally associated with Vespers.
• The only Psalm removed from the Dominican and Roman assignment for Vespers was Psalm 133, now used at None; see below. We have replaced it with Psalm 16, which appears at Vespers and/or Compline in the current Liturgy of the Hours as well as the breviary of Pope St. Pius X.
• To the psalmody we also add a New Testament canticle as found in the Liturgy of the Hours, but adapted slightly.
  • We combine the canticles taken from Revelation on Tuesday and Thursday, and leave them both on Tuesday.
  • The Pauline canticle for Monday we move to Tuesday.
  • For Monday we adopt the Johannine canticle from chapter 1 of John’s first epistle.
  • For Thursday we adopt Paul’s Canticle of Love from 1 Corinthians 13.
  • The canticles from Revelation are combined into one and used on Friday.

In this scheme, therefore, the only Psalms from 110 through 147 not used at Vespers are 117, 118, 119, 133, 134, and 143. The Psalms listed in bold were also used elsewhere in the Dominican and Roman schemes: 117 at Lauds of Lent (though also at Monday Vespers), 118 at Sunday Prime and at Sunday Lauds during Lent, 119 at the daytime hours, 134 for Compline, and 143 at Friday Lauds. Our scheme moves 117 to daily Terce, 118 to Sunday None, 119 to the Vigils, and 133 to None; the remaining Psalms are used the same way. This seems reasonably consistent.

In the case where one desires to abbreviate Vespers, one can opt for half the Psalms on a two-week cycle. On Sunday one should retain Psalm 110, and on Saturday one should retain Psalm 141.

Daytime hours

Our one radical departure is for the daytime hours.

The choice of Psalms at the “little hours” of Terce, Sext, and None attempts to keep the “little hours” both “little” in fact and easy to remember by heart, obviating the need for a breviary at least for the Psalm except on Sundays. In traditional schemes the “little” hours may be little (though this is arguable), but not so easy to learn by heart. Most schemes feature parts of Psalm 119, which is then broken up across many hours. Twenty years of experience suggests to us that this approach is difficult to learn by heart even for the layman who faithfully follows the Hours, so that, given the cares of secular life, it becomes too easy to postpone each hour, hoping to combine them, until Vespers is upon us. One also wonders if Psalm 119 deserves such a place of importance.

It seems more advisable to arrange things in such a way that encourages the faithful to pause to pray during the day, when the cares and distractions of work can wear away at the soul. Rather than repeat substantial excerpts of Psalm 119 every day as in the Dominican and Roman schemes, or reciting parts of Psalm 119 and then the gradual Psalms as in St. Benedict’s scheme, or a variety of difficult-to-remember Psalms as in the scheme of Pope St. Pius X or the Liturgy of the Hours, it seems helpful to try the following:

• we arrange most days to offer one short Psalm:
  • Psalm 117 prolongs at Terce the praises of Lauds;
  • Psalm 23 recalls our Good Shepherd during the hours of labor at Sext; and
  • Psalm 133 anticipates at None Vespers’ reunion;
  — Notice that, on account of the common themes, someone short on time can combine Terce with Lauds or None with Vespers, and as in the Liturgy of the Hours all three psalms can be combined into one “Daytime Prayer,” though to us this seems undesirable. —
• on Sunday we choose Psalms that praise God, and increase the number to three per hour:
  • at Terce,
    • Psalm 24 (“The Lord’s is the earth and its fulness… Who shall climb the mountain of the Lord?”);
    • Psalm 34 (“I will bless the Lord at all times ”); and
    • Psalm 96 (“O sing a new song to the Lord; sing to the Lord, all the earth”);
  • at Sext,
    • Psalm 45 (“My heart overflows with noble words… Listen, o daughter; pay heed and hear”);
    • Psalm 97 (“The Lord is king, let earth rejoice”); and
    • Psalm 98 (“O sing a new song to the Lord, for he has worked wonders”);
    and
  • at None,
    • Psalm 118, divided into two parts (“Give praise to the Lord, for he is good” and “Open to me the gates of justice”); and
    • Psalm 99 (“The Lord is king; the peoples tremble”);
  — The use of Psalms 96-99 for Sunday appears to be a novelty, but their spirit is well in keeping with Psalms 93 and 100, both used at Lauds, and the references to the Lord as king help connect Lauds to Psalm 110 at Vespers. —
• on Friday we choose one Psalm per hour to commemorate the Lord’s passion:
  • Psalm 11 (“In the Lord I have taken refuge”);
  • Psalm 22 (“My God, my God, why have you abandoned me?”); and
  • Psalm 54 (“O God, save me by your name”).
  — Psalms 22 and 54 have traditionally associated with both daytime hours and penance; see, for instance, the Dominican scheme and the Liturgy of the Hours. St. Benedict’s scheme, however, keeps them in the usual order. —

Compline

In peace I will lie down and fall asleep,
for you alone, O Lord, make me dwell in safety.
— Psalm 4⋅9

The choice of Psalms is precisely that of St. Benedict, which is identical to the Dominican and Roman scheme but for the removal of Psalm 31. Like the Liturgy of the Hours, however, we reserve Psalm 91 (“He who dwells in the shelter of the most High”) for Sunday, while Psalms 4 (“When I call, answer me”) and 134 (“O come, bless the Lord”) appear on the other nights of the week. One may of course pray all three each night, if desired.

Vigils

I rise before dawn and cry for help; I have hoped in your word.
My eyes awaken before dawn to ponder your promise.
— Psalm 119⋅147-148

The choice of Psalms circulates those that remain over a four-week cycle. The scheme proceeds largely in order, as per tradition, making a few changes in their order to keep the days roughly the same length, or to feature a Penitential Psalm on Friday (see below).

Here we highlight another point from Dobszay’s paper. The office of Matins bore an unfortunate name on account of its origin, when in practice it was traditionally a Vigil, observed either by rising during the night or by observing it in the late hours of the prior evening. We have therefore adopted this name, as well as Dobszay’s recommendation to follow a generally forward movement through the Psalms from beginning to end. In this case, our hour of Vigils resembles a traditional hour of Matins, though it is generally shorter, featuring seven hours on Sunday instead of the Dominicans’ eighteen, St. Benedict’s twelve, or Pope St. Pius X’s nine, and four hours on weekdays instead of the Dominicans’ or St. Benedict’s twelve and Pope St. Pius X’s nine.

Of course, if one wants to maintain a roughly even distribution of lengths, one cannot proceed directly through the Vigils Psalms; otherwise the page lengths would range from 4 on the shortest day to 9 on the longest. Thus, while we generally proceed in forward fashion, for various reasons we place some Psalms earlier or later than they might occur. Nevertheless, a glance at the scheme reveals the following general rule:

• for Week 1, Vigils leads one through Psalms 1-28;
• for Week 2, Vigils leads one through Psalms 29-57;
• for Week 3, Vigils leads one through Psalms 58-78;
• for Week 4, Vigils leads one through Psalms 79-109.

• Psalm 31, which foretells our Lord’s passion, so we have moved it to Friday of Week 1;
• Psalm 38, a pentitential Psalm (see below): since we can use Psalm 32 as Week 2’s pentitential Psalm, we have moved Psalm 38 to Friday of Week 3;
• Psalms 103 and 104, which seem so well-suited for Sundays that we have moved them to the Sundays of Weeks 2 and 3, respectively;
• Psalm 119, for which see below; and
• Psalms adopted for other hours. The vast majority of these (17/25) are transferred in the same way as the Dominican and Roman schemes, or at least in a way that is roughly compatible — for example, transferred from a daytime hour to a daytime hour — the exceptions being 11, 16, 34, 45, 96, 97, 98, and 99, whose transfer is explained above or below.

Two major innovations

Psalm 119

The first innovation is to Psalm 119. Rather than spread it across several hours of Sunday and/or Monday, it seems helpful to spread it across the Vigils’ 4-week cycle. One part of the Psalm concludes each weekday office except Monday of Week I, which however features the similarly themed Psalm 19, and Saturday of Week IV, at which point we have simply run out. In our opinion, this helps anchor Matins across the month — as our Lord points out, he does not abolish the law, but fulfill it — and it also seems to lend the sense of “reading through” Psalm 119 in the same way as one “reads through” the first 109 Psalms during the Vigils. Again, this also allows us to make the “little” hours truly little, which facilitates learning them by heart.

Fridays

The second innovation is that just as the Sunday hours focus on redemption, the Friday hours focus on the Lord’s passion and on penance. Hence all the major hours feature a penitential Psalm (listed in boldface), while the little hours commemorate our Lord’s passion.

This is somewhat inspired by the scheme of the Liturgy of the Hours which assigns, for instance, Psalms 22, 51, and 69 to Fridays. However, it rather unfortunately assigns some pentitential Psalms to different days, such as 130 and 143.

Page counts

As a metric for the length of each hour, this table records the number of pages (gives or take a few lines) each hour uses according to the Revised Grail Psalter, Singing Edition published by GIA Publications.

Hour		Sunday	Monday	Tuesday	Wednesday	Thursday	Friday	Saturday
Vigils	Week 1	11	6	6	6	5	8	6
	Week 2	13	7	7	6	7	7	6
	Week 3	12	6	7	8	8	7	6
	Week 4	13	6	6	6	6	6	7
Lauds		8	6	5	6	6	6	5
Terce		5	1				1	1
Sext		4	1				3	1
None		4	1				1	1
Vespers		9	4	4	5	6	6	10
Compline		2	2

The goal of distributing the hours evenly is nearly met:

• Sundays are, by design, generally longer than other days, with Compline being the only exception:
  • For Vigils, Sundays are usually 50%-100% longer than other days.: 11-13 pages as compared to 5-8.
  • For Vespers, Sundays are roughly twice as long as weekdays: 9-10 pages as compared to 4-6.
  • For Lauds, Sundays are roughly 33%-50% longer than other days: 8 pages as compared to 5-6.
• The “little” hours are generally no longer than roughly half the length of the other hours on their particular day, and typically much, much shorter. Sunday’s Terce and Sext are the longest, as Sunday is a day of rest dedicated to our Lord.

Indeed, the mean number of pages per day is 6 ²/₃, with the average for each week being 6.17, 7.0, 7.17, 6.33, respectively. The standard deviation for each week is 1, so that at least two-thirds of the days in Week 1 are 5-7 pages long, at least two-thirds in Weeks 2 and 3 are 6-8 pages long, and at least two-thirds in Week 4 are 5-7 pages long. (This is easily verified by visual inspection.) The standard deviation for the total is 0.5, so that at least two-thirds of the days are 6-7 pages long. Indeed, only 5 of the 24 days lie outside that range, so 79% of the days are 6-7 pages long, and it is easily seen that the exceptions are only one page longer or shorter.

Locations of Psalms in the Cursus