Vatican website translation:
91. So that it may really be possible in practice to observe the course of the hours proposed in Art. 89, the psalms are no longer to be distributed throughout one week, but through some longer period of time.
The work of revising the psalter, already happily begun, is to be finished as soon as possible, and is to take into account the style of Christian Latin, the liturgical use of psalms, also when sung, and the entire tradition of the Latin Church.
Latin text:
91. Ut cursus Horarum, in art. 89 propositus, reapse observari possit, psalmi nonamplius per unam hebdomadam, sed per longius temporis spatium distribuantur.
Opus recognitionis Psalterii, feliciter inchoatum, quamprimum perducatur ad finem, respectu habito latinitatis christianae, usus liturgici etiam in cantu, necnon totius traditionis latinae Ecclesiae.
Slavishly literal translation:
91. So that the course of the Hours, proposed in art. 89, could be observed in fact, the psalms are to be distributed not through a single week, but through a longer space of time.
The work of revising the Psalter, happily begun, is to be brought to its conclusion as soon as possible, with respect to the style of Christian Latinity, of its liturgical use also in song, as well as the entire tradition of the latin Church.
Fr. Robert Taft, SJ, succinctly presents an earlier reform of the distribution of Psalms for the Roman Rite Divine Office promulgated in 1911 under Pius X. “The traditional Roman system was to divide the psalter between nocturnes (matins) and vespers, the former containing Pss 1-108, the Latter Pss 109-150, distributed in these two hours throughout one week…. [Pius X] reduced matins (nocturnes) from the traditional twelve to nine psalms, and for the first time in the history of Christian morning praise in East or West, the psalms of lauds, Pss 148-150, were not said daily, but one psalm of praise was assigned to each day of the week, beginning with Saturday: Pss. 148, 116, 134, 145, 146, 147, 150. Furthermore Pss 50 and 62 were abandoned as fixed psalms at lauds, as were the traditional canticles except for Lent and vigils. For anyone with a sense of the history of the office, this was a shocking departure from almost universal Christian tradition, and that is how things remained until Vatican II.” Robert Taft, S.J. The Liturgy of the Hours in East and West: The Origins of the Divine Office and Its Meaning for Today, 2nd rev. ed. (Collegeville, MN: The Liturgical Press, 1993) 312.
Those charged with constructing a new form of the Liturgy of the Hours decided to distribute the Psalter over four weeks (note that the Council Fathers had simply counseled that the distribution should be over more than a single week). They also chose to distribute the New Testament canticles (other than the Benedictus at Morning Prayer, the Magnificat at Evening Prayer, and the Nunc dimittis at Night Prayer) to Evening Prayer. Two entire psalms (58 and 109) were omitted from the cursus of psalms because the Office reformers held that these “cursing psalms” could not be prayed with equanimity by many of the faithful; for the same reason various imprecations in individual lines of Psalms led to these lines being omitted. To a certain extent the “monastic” principle of praying the psalms one after another in biblical order has given way to the “cathedral/popular” principle of selecting psalms appropriate to a particular Office.
Initiatives to produce a Latin translation of the psalms from the Hebrew originals appeared during Pius XII’s pontificate to replace the Vulgate edition then in use. Responding to the Council Father’s request, the neo-Vulgate translation of the Latin Psalter (Bibliorum Sacrorum nova vulgate editio) appeared in 1969 as part of the project of translating all the scriptures into Latin. The neo-Vulgate does not attempt to create a critical edition of the “original” Vulgate; instead the translators were to take into account critical editions of the Hebrew, Greek and Aramaic portions of the Bible as they struggled to write in a style closer to classical Latin than had been previously attempted. The entire neo-Vulgate Bible appeared in 1979 with a second edition appearing in 1985. It is the official Latin edition of the Bible published by the Holy See and intended for use in the Roman Rite liturgy.
In the light of the foregoing, Pray Tell readers may want to discuss:
1. The advantages and disadvantages of distributing the psalter over one, two, three or four weeks (presuming that there should be an attempt to use all of the 150 the canonical psalms);
2. The wisdom of bowdlerizing sacred texts by omitting individual verses or entire psalms;
3. The quality of the neo-Vulgate in comparison with other earlier Latin translations;
4. The advantages and disadvantages of using the (new) Grail English translation of the psalms for the English-language Roman Rite Liturgy of Hours.
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