Responsorial Psalm punctuation
  • Richard MixRichard Mix
    Posts: 2,798
    This Sunday was one that made me wonder if it's not too soon to start gunning for the Lectionary Responsorial Psalms: What's with the full stop in the middle of Ps. 138:2?
    ...I will worship at your holy temple and give thanks to your name. [Refrain] Because of you kindness and your truth; For you have made great above all things your name and your promise.


    I took a peek at the CMAA listed responsorials (the Parish Book of Psalms preview didn't work) and wonder if there's some copyright problem with repointing. I have to assume there must be other samizdat choir editions out there for the approaching Christ the King C/Advent 1 A ("...to it the tribes go, up, the tribes of the Lord. According to the decree...")

    Revised Grail btw. shows a BCP-like concern for intelligible declamation, though I suppose one could stick a refrain after the 5th line if one were so-minded:
    I thank you, LORD, with all my heart;
    you have heard the words of my mouth.
    In the presence of the angels I praise you.
    I bow down toward your holy temple.
    I give thanks to your name
    for your merciful love and your faithfulness.
    You have exalted your name over all.
    On the day I called, you answered me;
    you increased the strength of my soul.

  • SkirpRSkirpR
    Posts: 854
    Check out... http://www.giamusic.com/sacred_music/RGP/psalmDisplay.cfm?psalmDay=17C
    Thanked by 1CHGiffen
  • Richard MixRichard Mix
    Posts: 2,798
    Thanks SkirpR,
    I already had, but did I miss something I should have noticed? Btw, PBP now works instead of taking me to a garbled Scribd page. This collection as well takes a stiff-upper-lip approach to the sentence fragment.

    To put my question differently, is this done solely out of respect for the lectionary text as-is, or is it just too complicated to get copyright permissions for nudging the refrain into a different position?
  • chonakchonak
    Posts: 9,216
    As far as I know, the parsing of the psalm text into verse groups and the placement of the antiphon are not strictly regulated. After all, it is permitted to omit the intervening antiphons altogether and present the psalm straight through ("in direct mode").
  • SkirpRSkirpR
    Posts: 854
    My point was the Revised Grail Psalms version (which will go in the next edition of the Lectionary) is arranged so as to avoid a sentence fragment.

    I believe the whole problem deals with how the verses are specified in the Ordo Lectionum Missae, which follows the Nova Vulgata, and how those same verses appear to be punctuated, etc., differently in the New American Bible (used in the current US Lectionary), and the Revised Grail Psalms (to be used in the next edition of the Lectionary).

    I personally would not alter the current Lectionary's versification - even if it seems odd and I disagree with it grammatically - not because of copyright per se, but because it's the official ritual book, and that versification was what was decided and approved. They could have altered the NAB translation to make it fit it in 1998, but decided - for whatever reason - against it. (Sometimes there's no better way of showing authority that they messed up as simply following their instructions exactly!)

    I would, however, feel completely free use the Revised Grail Psalm version, which is approved for liturgical use and is what's coming down the pike anyway.
    Thanked by 1CHGiffen
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