19 December 2008

The Problem of Day 19 at Matins

If one is using the monthly Psalm chart for praying Matins, a problem arises on this day each month. What to do about Psalm 95? One has already chanted most of it for the Venite at Matins. My suggestion? Pick up after the repeated invitatory with the remainder of verse 7 to the end and treat it as a Psalm by itself. That way nothing is lost, but nothing is repeated.

9 comments:

Dixie said...

That way nothing is lost, but nothing is repeated.

I had to grin at this...you know how the Orthodox are all about repetition. “Again and again in peace let us pray to the Lord...”

Chris said...

Exactly, Dixie. If Orthodox were doing this, not only would we have repeated the Psalm in its entirety, but chanted it 40 more times!

Rev. Paul Beisel said...

You skip Psalm 95 if you are praying the Venite. That's what I learned from my time praying BPB.

Rev. Charles Lehmann said...

How do you use the O Antiphons during the offices. Is there a rubric I'm missing somewhere?

We appended it to the beginning and end of the psalms we prayed this morning.

Dcn Latif Haki Gaba SSP said...

I would recommend, first, that the Venite ought to include the whole psalm. And then, if one uses a psalm scheme in which 95 still comes up at Matins, I would do as Fr. Beisel has said, skip that psalm in its rotation. Never skip the Venite itself. This ends up being the same thing as Fr. Weedon's proposal; though, as I say, I really would suggest that Ps 95 historically is worth praying in its entirety at the top of the Church's Matins every day.

Fr. Lehmann, the rubric i employ is to use the O Antiphons for the Magnificat at Vespers, though you cannot be faulted for the way in which you have used them.

William Weedon said...

The Lutheran version of the Venite (as Latif points out) is apocopated, so if you simply skip Psalm 95, you'll miss out on the closing verses (which are the only verses from the Psalm quoted in the NT!). My own preference is to use the Venite as printed in our material daly, but as I indicated to add the closing verses at least on this 19th day.

Dixie and Chris, yes, the Orthodox do love to go on "again and again." But Western liturgy never has.

Charlie, use them as antiphons before and after the Benedictus in Matins and the Magnificat in Vespers. Alternatively, you can use the prose version before the Canticle and sing the paraphrase from the hymn afterwards.

Pastor Wolfmueller said...
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Pastor Wolfmueller said...

When the Introit is Psalm 95 (Trinity 24), TLH recommends Psalm 100 for the other offices (see TLH page 166). But I like Pastor Weedon's solution here.

Anonymous said...

Or, one day a month you could be Benedictine and use either Psalm 67 or Psalm 100 as the Invitatory for the day.