User:Jakub Zbrzezny

The Liber Orationum Psalmographus (LOP), subtitled The Psalter Collects of the Ancient Hispanic Rite (that is Mozarabic Rite) – recomposition and critical edition, is a unique edition of 591 so-called prayers on psalms or psalm-prayers rendered from Latin orationes super psalmos or orationes psalmicae respectively, which could be briefly defined as short prayers said optionally at the end of a psalm recitation in some Christian liturgies. LOP was published by Jorge Pinell in 1972 (Barcelona-Madrid) as 9th volume of the liturgical series of Monumenta Hispaniae Sacra. The subject, the editor and the date of its publication remain in a close relation to the Second Vatican Council (1962-1965) and the reform of the Latin liturgy begun then within the Roman-Catholic Church. We could even consider the text of LOP to be the main content of an already drawn but still missing fifth volume of the Liturgy of the Hours renewed in 1971 according to that Council principles laid in the Constitution on the Sacred Liturgy Sacrosanctum Concilium, the volume which was mentioned in the same year in the General Instruction of the Liturgy of the Hours (para 112), but for some reason has not been published yet.

Psalm-prayers

Difficulties in the recitation of the psalms

The Biblical Psalms are the core of a prayer practice called in Christianity as the Divine Office or the Liturgy of the Hours. Through its history, beginning already in the pre-Christian era in the context of Jewish religion, believers have been reciting or singing these 150 poems in many different ways. Scholars point out two main types of this practise in the antiquity: so-called cursus cathedralis (a cathedral way of psalms recitation) and cursus monasticus (a monastic way of psalms recitation), which are relevant to the discussion on the modern Divine Office. The cursus cathedralis was characteristic of urban churches where secular clergy, especially bishops, presided the liturgy, hence an adjective cathedral in the name. As its feature, generally speaking, it had arranging the order of psalms recitation according to the daily solar cycle, which means that several chosen psalms sung at sunrise, the others at sunset, some on other parts of the day. Each time their texts corresponded somehow to the part of day as often the lyrical subjects praise God in a particular time set: the morning or evening, usually mentioned literally. In the cursus monasticus, the whole Psalter recited continuously through the day and night, regardless of the psalms content synchronisation with the time of the day. Such a practise was typical of monasticism, hence such a name.

Both ways of praying the psalms caused some difficulties. First of all, the meaning of these Biblical poems not always was clear for people who prayed them. Most of Christians for their language background received the Psalter not in its original Hebrew version, but through the Septuagint, a Greek translation by Alexandrian Jews dated on 3rd century BC. Some scholars say its vocabulary rendered the language of the ordinary people making their daily busyness in markets of that city, but at the same time its grammar structure and style of syntax remained essentially Hebrew . It has made Septuagint sometimes impossible already in the antiquity and nowadays to understand without serious philological studies. Despite these apparent problems the Greek translation of the Psalter not only became widespread in common usage, but also many times was spontaneously translated into everyday Latin, which made the meaning of the text even more unclear. However, the influence of these highly imperfect translations was so huge, that believers in the West did not accepted Jerome's professional Latin Psalter rendering the Hebrew original version. The power of usus among the ancient Christians was much stronger than the need of clear understanding.

Not only the matters of language caused some difficulties. Even apparently light cursus cathedralis could not avoid the monotony of a prolonged psalms recitation. The same posed even a worse problem in the case of heavy cursus monasticus, which included not only daily prayer but also night one, so-called vigils, sung by monks much before dawn. In such circumstances the question was not how to interpret the unclear text of psalms, but how not to fall asleep in the time of prayer?

Helping tools

To resolve problems of psalms understanding and just to avoid sleepiness, boredom, lack of concentration and such difficulties arising at their long recitation Christians added many new elements to this Biblical core of the Divine Office through its history. A few ones have remained relevant in the Latin Christianity.

Almost always the psalms are surrounded in the contemporary editions of liturgical books by so-called antiphons, that is some short sung sentences preceding and following a particular psalm or the whole psalmody that is a set of psalms. Antiphons have many sources. Often it is just a verse taken from a psalm as a kind of key-verse to interpret the whole poem. Usually in solemnities, feasts and special seasons of the liturgical year, like the Advent, the Lent or the Eastertide, the antiphons render some passages from the other than Psalter books of Bible or Patristic writings, casting light on psalms in the context of the particular liturgical time.

Moreover, each psalm has own set of texts almost always printed alongside the poem. Firstly, just after the number of a psalm editors print the heading (Latin titulus) which is a very brief, consisting of a few words, summary of the psalm. Secondly, a quotation from the New Testament or Patristic writings follows, providing a Christian interpretation of the psalm.

Thirdly, each psalm ends with a so-called doxology which is a short praise of the Holy Trinity, putting again the psalm in the context of Christianity. Then editors recommend to keep so-called sacred silence: a time for a private silent meditation on the text already sung.

Lastly, the psalm-prayers can follow. Contrary to the previous helping tools, already existing for many centuries, they had not been testified in the Roman Rite until the reform of the Liturgy of the Hours after the Second Vatican Council. The General Instruction of the Liturgy of the Hours does not give their particular definition but enumerates them alongside the antiphons and the headings in the Chapter 3 The Various parts of the Liturgy of the Hours, Section 2 The Antiphons and Other Parts which Help in Praying the Psalms (paras 110-120). Moreover, there is no consistency in the terminology. A term oratio psalmica - psalm-prayer - appears together with a more meaningful term oratio super psalmum, which could be translated literally as a prayer on a psalm rather than in the same way as the former. However a particular aim of such a prayer is stated: the psalm-prayer sums up the aspirations and emotions of those saying them (oratio psallentium affectus colligat et concludat – para 112 ). These prayers should be provided by a Supplement to the book of the Liturgy of the Hours as the Instruction claims. Such a supplement has never appeared.

Liber Orationum Psalmographus

Pinell's work in the context of the reform of the liturgy

Although it is difficult to give reasons of the Supplement absence, it is possible to find how its announcement was included in the Instruction. According to the reports of the several post-conciliar commissions working on the reform of the liturgy, according to that reports one member of such a commission gave a particular impulse to introduce psalm-prayers to the renewed Liturgy of the Hours: Jorge Pinell OSB (1921-1997). He was a Spanish monk of the Abbey Santa Maria de Montserrat belonging to the Benedictine Subiaco Congregation. Pinell having studied at Catholic University of Leuven, Pontifical Gregorian University and Pontificio Ateneo Sant Anselmo in Rome became a professor of liturgical studies at the last one university. Staying there he actively took part in works on the reform of the Latin liturgy in the Roman Catholic Church after the Second Vatican Council as a scholar and a member, so-called consultor, of the Consilium ad Exsequendam Constitutionem de Sacra Liturgia – Commission for implementing the Constitution on the Sacred Liturgy Sacrosanctum Concilium promulgated in 1963.

Members of the commission knew about Pinell's work on the critical edition of psalm-prayers and were waiting for the final draft. Although Pinell concerned in his work the psalm-prayers only of the Old-Spanish or Mozarabic Rite origin, there was a reason to use them in the reform of the Roman Rite. The aim of the reform was to reshape highly monasticised heavy Roman Rite to its original light cathedral form. However, the lack of the sources from such a primitive stage of the Roman Rite development made this task rather impossible to be done, at least directly. Members of the commission decided to turn on the indirect way by including to the being renewed Roman Rite some cathedral elements of other Latin rites. Such cathedral elements taken from the Spanish Rite were psalm-prayers.

As it is said above, psalm-prayers' role in the renewed Liturgy of the Hours would be to make the psalms recitation just easier as some members of the commission pointed out. On the other side, they did not want to include psalm-prayers to the main text of the Liturgy of the Hours as in contrast to pre-conciliar liturgical complexity an another aim of the reform was simplicity. Hence the decision of presenting the psalm-prayers in a separate book: the Supplement.

Pinell's work outside the reform of the liturgy

Eventually in 1971 the renewed Liturgy of the Hours was published without any supplement. Pinell published his work a year later in 1972. Contrary to the previous editions of the psalm-prayers presenting three series of such prayers depended on their assumed origin (African, Roman, Spanish), LOP, though limited to one Spanish series, includes an immense general introduction to the topic of the psalm-prayers (over 300 pages) and the detailed critical apparatus attached to each of the 591 prayers. The apparatus is a positive one which means it provides references to all sources testifying a prayer. The range of sources is much wider than in aforementioned works, whose editors used for their purpose only psalters containing the prayers following each psalm. The sources of LOP consist of a psalter too, the Mozarabic one preserved in a 11th cent. manuscript from the Spanish Abbey of Santo Domingo de Silos, but not only. There are several other liturgical books maintained in Spanish medieval manuscripts supplying texts to the LOP: Liber Misticus or Mixtus (manuscripts from 10-11th cent.), Liber Orationum Festivus (manuscripts from 8-9th cent.), Liber Ordinum (manuscripts from 11th cent.), Liber Horarum (manuscripts from 11th cent.). Moreover, Pinell took into consideration also printed books from the early modern times like Breviarium secundum regulam beati Isidori (Toledo 1502) or Breviarium Gothicum (Madrid 1775). The plurality and diversity of sources used in LOP give a reason of putting in its subtitle a word 're-composition'. Paradoxically, this feature could be a motive for leaving this book outside the Liturgy of the Hours by its editors. Indeed, Pinell does not always put together all these prayers in a convincing way and sometimes makes highly arbitrary decisions about the structure of his collection, even composes it rather than re-composes, so his work may be seem somehow artificial. Nevertheless, that diversity of the sources remains the strongest point of the Liber Orationum Psalmographus - itself a monumental liturgical source.

External links

General Instruction of the Liturgy of the Hours

Mozarabic Psalter

Last updated: 2011-03-08