New Lectionary... will the ICEL responsorial psalm refrains change?
  • MarkB
    Posts: 1,084
    Does anyone know whether when the new English Lectionary for Mass in the United States is published with the verse texts using the Abbey Psalms and Canticles translation, will the current ICEL refrains be kept or will those also be revised?

    Current musical psalm collections that use the Abbey Psalms and Canticles translation for verses use the current ICEL refrains in the Lectionary. Will those become obsolete with the publication of a new Lectionary?

    My parish currently uses Respond & Acclaim and has so for decades. R&A adheres to the current Lectionary text, but I'm mulling whether to start using psalms with the Abbey translation, which will become the liturgical standard, in anticipation of the eventual change. However, I don't want to introduce musical settings that will become obsolete because the refrain texts will change. Also, there aren't many published responsorial psalm collections yet that use the Abbey Psalms and Canticles translation.

    I'm considering using the Meinrad psalm tones exclusively if I make the switch, but that would mean pointing the psalm texts for my psalmists or engraving them using musical notation.
  • SalieriSalieri
    Posts: 3,177
    When we sing the Responsorial Psalm from the Lectionary (as opposed to when we use settings from the Simplex, By Flowing Waters, or the Graduale Romanum), I have been using the refrains from the Ignatius Pew Missal, but using the Abbey Psalms and Canticles for the verses, and have been using the Meinrad tones. I am not concerned about the changes to the refrain texts since the IPM responses are mainly set to Psalm tones anyway---Mode II is Mode II whether it sets a Responsorial Psalm response, the Canticle of the Three Children, or the Declaration of Independence---and so, musically, could still be used after the new lectionary is issued. I admit that using Psalm tones for the refrain is not ideal, but, knowing that a new lectionary is on the way, I don't want to invest in anything more involved that will be obsolete soon; I view it as a workable stopgap solution.
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  • ServiamScores
    Posts: 2,888
    I suspect everything will change… I’ve already compared some where the lines that have well-known refrains are translated very differently, or have awkward syntax. Some of the new translations will be much more difficult to sing. It’s disappointing.
    Thanked by 4MatthewRoth tomjaw LauraKaz Jehan_Boutte
  • PaxTecum
    Posts: 314
    I recently had 3 days in a row of solemn vespers and chose to use the new translations for the psalms - I must respectfully disagree with you Serviam - I thought it was quite lovely to sing and a large improvement over the current translation.
  • SalieriSalieri
    Posts: 3,177
    it was ... a large improvement over the current translation.

    But of course! Pig Latin would be an improvement over the NAB!
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  • rich_enough
    Posts: 1,048
    ServiamScores refers to an important point - the current translation of a number of the refrains are based more on the wording of the NAB text than the Latin. So I suspect that the refrains in the new Lectionary will take the same tack, and will be done to reflect the wording of the Abbey translation of the verses.
  • Andrew_Malton
    Posts: 1,187
    However, since the retrains are not just "taken from the psalm" but stand alone, and appear explicltly in Latin in the Ordo (which is not true of the verses themselves) so the refrain translations really ought to be independent also.

    This is actually traditional: as in the many cases where the old Roman Latin of introits is different from the corresponding verses in St Jerome’s psalter(s). Or when an introit or gradual or psalm-response (In the Novus) is not a psalm verse at all!
    Thanked by 2a_f_hawkins Paul F. Ford
  • chonakchonak
    Posts: 9,216
    Even when the USCCB's new Lectionary (someday) changes the antiphons to use wording from the Abbey Psalms, it'll still be lawful to use the current NAB-Lectionary musical settings. True, they won't match the "missalettes", which are the highest authority ;-) .
    Thanked by 3tomjaw Liam mattebery
  • Paul F. Ford
    Posts: 864
    However, since the retrains are not just "taken from the psalm" but stand alone, and appear explicltly in Latin in the Ordo (which is not true of the verses themselves) so the refrain translations really ought to be independent also.

    This is actually traditional: as in the many cases where the old Roman Latin of introits is different from the corresponding verses in St Jerome’s psalter(s). Or when an introit or gradual or psalm-response (In the Novus) is not a psalm verse at all!


    Try convincing U.S. Bishops about this. It was they who raised this is a problem with all English lectionaries.
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  • MatthewRoth
    Posts: 2,311
    Re: what Andrew said: the office antiphons are close, but not exactly, taken from the psalms, especially in the Pius X psalter. Or, in one case of an obviously composed antiphon, the antiphon for Matins of Corpus Christi, Introíbo ad altáre Dei: sumam Christum, qui rénovat juventútem meam, reworks the verse of the psalm to which it is attached, ps. 42

    If I understand correctly, the lectionary/LH psalter in the vernacular is translated from the "original" languages, which might check against the Vulgate, but the (neo-) Vulgate or indeed any other Latin psalter isn't the base text, on top of the fact that the antiphons aren't necessarily simple quotations.
    Thanked by 2tomjaw ServiamScores
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